[P. Mil 
 
 "SHE LOOKED BACK"
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 B IFlovel 
 
 BY 
 EVA WILDER BRODHEAD 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 
 "DIANA'S LIVERY" "AN EARTHLY PARAGON' 
 "MINISTERS OF GRACE" KTC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YOKE 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1897
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 DIANA'S LIVERY. A Novel. Post Svo, Cloth, 
 Ornamental, $1 25. 
 
 AN EARTHLY PARAGON. A Novel. Illustrated. 
 Post Svo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 
 
 MINISTERS OP GRACE. Illustrated. Square 32mo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All riy/iti rtttrvtd.
 
 TO 
 
 HENRY C. BRODHEAD 
 
 2200832
 
 ILLUSTKATIONS 
 
 " SHE LOOKED BACK " Frontispiece 
 
 "'IT'S A MERCY i DIDN'T ASK THE 
 
 DOCTOR IN"' Facing p. 20 
 
 " 'YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FORGET ABOUT 
 
 TO-MORROW?'" " 64 
 
 "' OH, I'VE BEEN 80 MISERABLE !'". . " 98 
 
 " 'i WON'T GO AWAY,' SHE SAID". . . " 200 
 "'SHE'S GOING! THE STUFF is PASSING 
 
 OUT!'". " 250
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 HE knew that they were talking of him 
 talking with heat and force and an accent of 
 argument. He could not, indeed, hear what 
 they were saying, for a lusty wind of late May 
 whirred in the great beeches under which he 
 sat, somewhat off from the pale brown bulk of 
 the big, ruinous hotel, and the murmur of the 
 leaves mixed confusedly with the cries of a 
 blue-jay, flashing skyey gleams from branch 
 to branch. Children, too, were shouting; a 
 dog barked shrilly in the yard of some little 
 dwelling below the cliff, while from the tin- 
 seen railway tracks at the brow of the hill, 
 where workmen were putting in new ties, came 
 a dull sound of hammering, which reduced to 
 mere intonations the voices of the two elderly 
 men on the hotel porch.
 
 2 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 These intonations, however, conveyed a full 
 and perfect assurance of diverging opinions ; 
 and if Dillon had required further evidence 
 that his uncle and the president of the mill 
 were not at one concerning him, he might have 
 found it in the very attitude of the talkers and 
 in the drift of their occasional gestures. But 
 Dillon did not need any such corroboration ; 
 he knew very well what it all meant. His mind 
 was quite free from curiosity, and he was sen- 
 sible of feeling nothing very clearly except a 
 sickish sense of pity for his uncle. 
 
 " What a position for the poor old fellow I" 
 muttered Dillon. ""Would to God I had act- 
 ed differently ! But how could I, being what I 
 am ?" He drew his hand, a slim, nervous hand, 
 across his temples with the swift stroke of a 
 man who defies a rising emotion. His chin, 
 which had a hint of race in the slight bulge 
 just under the lip, shook a little, and then set- 
 tled to a sullen kind of calm. He jerked his 
 straw hat over his dimming eyes, which were 
 deeply blue, with dilating pupils and a large 
 movement in their wasted orbits. Below them 
 were bluish shadows and the radiation of lines 
 that looked strangely sharp in so youthful a 
 face. The paleness and softness of Dillon's 
 cheek, under its wisping thread of yellowish 
 mustache, bore out this intimation of worn
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 3 
 
 tissues and depleted nerves ; and there \vas 
 also in the line of the young man's shoulders a 
 certain laxity which seemed to hint of some 
 inert quality of temperament. Even as he 
 straightened himself and struck a sudden hand 
 upon his knee this suggestion did not wholly 
 disappear. 
 
 " Perhaps I may make it up to him yet !" 
 he thought, listlessly. "Who knows ? 'Best 
 men/ they say, 'are moulded out of faults.' 
 If only that resolute-looking old official yonder 
 would listen to reason. Who knows ?" He 
 turned to glance a questioning eye towards the 
 high piazza of the hotel. 
 
 His uncle appeared to be laying off in one 
 lean shred of a hand some weighty point for 
 Dunbar's consideration. From his bronzed 
 old cheeks his white side-beard jutted with an 
 eager alertness, and the pose of his small, wiry 
 frame indicated pleading and suspense. Op- 
 posite him, in a kind of patient, passive sto- 
 lidity, Dunbar sat listening, polite but unim- 
 pressed. Over his collar the thick ridges of 
 his neck bulged hard and decisive, and the set 
 of his large graying head seemed to presage an 
 unalterable conviction. 
 
 "Evidently he refuses to be influenced/* 
 Dillon concluded. "He's going to discoun- 
 tenance the whole thing. Well, I'm not sur-
 
 4 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 prised. Nor do I blame him much." He 
 sighed and his face flagged as he looked across 
 the valley and sighted the distant knobs, and 
 began to realize how he had built upon the 
 chance of losing himself and forgetting the 
 fever and fret of life in this quiet spot niched 
 so peacefully in the Cumberland foot-hills. He 
 could catch the swarthy shine of the rivers far 
 below ; for the town lay snugly in the arms of 
 the Cumberland and its South Fork ; while all 
 about the cleft lowlands rose a ring of hills, 
 wooded to the crest, and lapsing through ev- 
 ery gradation of spring greenness to the milky 
 lilac of the shadowy rises rippling across the 
 remoter sky of Wayne County. 
 
 Up hill and down it lay, as he could see 
 this Kentucky town, through which the course 
 of -the great railway curved, bridging the wide 
 river and swagging along the east cliff above 
 the sharp descent of the hill road. Down in 
 the swale of the waterways several spreading 
 mill roofs, flanked with countless piles of tim- 
 ber, with stave - buckers, with a number of 
 stores, a Masonic building, a church spire, and 
 a great many small houses, flashed off a bright 
 magenta through the full leafage of late spring. 
 Like threads of yellow in a green fabric, two 
 or three flat, curbless roads stitched the weedy 
 bottoms. One of them, sheering abruptly,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 5 
 
 crossed the railway at the jig -sawed station 
 near the knoll on which the hotel reared its 
 faded pinnacles and scaling towers and empty 
 flag-staff. Beyond the net-work of tracks and 
 switches this stony, deeply rutted cart -way, 
 twisting past the station platform, made a final 
 rise to the level of the bluff and wandered off 
 in the swarded, shaded skirts of the smooth 
 headlands. These upper places of the village, 
 with their half-dozen dwellings of modern fash- 
 ions, held the same outlook, wild and chang- 
 ing and always full of beauty, which spread 
 itself before the hotel knoll. And sitting in 
 the shadow of the beeches, gazing out upon the 
 differences of the scene, Dillon felt a sense of 
 resentment coloring his pleasure in the broken 
 splendors of these hills and streams. With 
 them about him it appeared as if he might 
 have braced himself for a last trial of life, and 
 the brightness of their aspect was naturally 
 enhanced by the sullen negation of D unbar's 
 manner. 
 
 "It all depends on what he has heard of 
 me," mused Dillon. " Or is at present hear- 
 ing 1" he added, remarking his uncle's ani- 
 mated flow of talk. "God knows just how 
 far the poor old man will feel compelled to 
 push his disclosures !" He bit his lip ; and 
 as he did so its suggestion of Irish blood came
 
 6 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 into greater prominence. In a chopping of 
 the wind a single word drifted to his ears. It 
 was on his uncle's lips ; but Dunbar, rousing a 
 little, took it up, repeating it in a kind of dis- 
 liking fashion not in the least encouraging to 
 Dillon's hopes. 
 
 " Mistakes !" said the president of the mill. 
 "If it were only a question of mistakes, Mr. 
 Burkely ! But I'm afraid the word isn't de- 
 scriptive. Eh ? I don't want to be too hard 
 on young blood ! I haven't always been old 
 myself ! Hang it, no !" He laughed, rubbing 
 his knee appreciatingly, as one who does not 
 undervalue the instructive quality of youthful 
 errors. " But in business," he went on, stif- 
 fening again "in business a man's got to 
 to draw the line somewhere. He's got to. 
 Now I don't like to say anything that may 
 displease you, Burkely, but we both know that 
 your nephew has kept up a pretty lively pace. 
 You see, I'm in Cincinnati myself off and on, 
 and I hear things. I've heard of him, partic- 
 ularly, because he was with the Jonas Lumber 
 Company, and I have dealings with the Jonases 
 myself. Of course I've nothing to say concern- 
 ing young Dillon's character or conduct, except 
 that when you ask me to make a place for him 
 in the mill I feel as if I had no right, even 
 when I think of my personal friendship for
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 7 
 
 you, to forget that he has led a wild sort of 
 life. It's true that you are a large stock- 
 holder" 
 
 " I haven't asked you to give him a position 
 on that base, Mr. Dunbar." 
 
 "You have a perfect right to ask it on that 
 base just as I have the right, on the same 
 base, to hesitate. You see, I'm afraid he'll only 
 spoil our discipline. How can any one hope 
 that he'll stick to business ? He had an envi- 
 able position with the Jonases. Only the most 
 powerful influence could have secured such an 
 opening for an inexperienced man. I don't ask 
 what he did to lose that opening ; but I sup- 
 pose he has lost it, since he is willing to take a 
 mere clerkship in the mill. I gather that his 
 dissipations forced the Jonases to dispense with 
 his services. Probably, then, he would be of 
 very little use to us." 
 
 " He is greatly changed greatly changed." 
 
 " Well, I hope so. But I've a kind of notion 
 that men never change very greatly." 
 
 "Never change ! that would be a subversion 
 of all morality ! good heavens ! See here, Dun- 
 bar, you're too critical. I haven't denied that 
 my boy has had his fling, have I ? Nor have I 
 said he's that paragon of broomsticks, a model 
 young man. He isn't. He has faults. I 
 wouldn't give much for a man of twenty-seven
 
 8 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 that hadn't. Bnt he has virtues, too virtues/ 
 sir ! He's clever. He's generous. He's kind. 
 He hasn't a grain of conceit. He's gentle and 
 amiable, always ; and it has been justly said 
 that these qualities precede all morality. Of 
 course he's been thoughtless, reckless. Like 
 Marc Antony in the play Shakespeare, you 
 remember he's been given to sports, to Avild- 
 ness, and much company. All reclaimable 
 faults. Quite reclaimable !" 
 
 "M-m; well, perhaps." 
 
 "And then I'm considerably to blame, my- 
 self. He came into my charge as a child my 
 sister's boy. She'd made a bad marriage, and 
 when she died she left him to me. Only five 
 years old, poor little beggar ! I didn't know 
 how to rear him. We've lived around at ho- 
 tels. He's never had a home or the influences 
 that a boy ought to have. I've spoilt him I 
 admit it. He's always done as he pleased. I 
 was too fond of him to cross him. I don't sup- 
 pose you can understand how I feel. But if 
 you had a boy of your own, however wayward, 
 you'd be able to.'' 
 
 Dunbar growled out a word of doubt. Some- 
 thing in the old man's face, so piteous in its 
 eagerness, touched him, and he frowned down 
 his awakening compassion. 
 
 "I admit," quavered Mr. Burkely, "that he
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 9 
 
 he threw away his opportunities with the 
 Jonases. It was six months ago. Since then 
 he's been badly off, and though we've travelled 
 he hasn't got back his tone. He can't rid 
 himself of a deadly depression. I feel and he 
 himself feels that occupation is his only hope. 
 And when we both came to this conclusion I 
 thought of Streamlet, its beauty, its quiet " 
 
 "Oh, it's a promising enough little place! 
 But, after all, it's only a river hamlet, a hollow 
 in the knobs. I doubt if there will be any- 
 thing here to interest him. His tastes, you 
 know, aren't for the purely pastoral." 
 
 "He's perceptive, very perceptive. And 
 the sharp social contrasts here would interest 
 anybody. Then you have some thoroughly 
 good people the Morrows, now. I remember 
 Major Morrow with a great deal of pleasure. I 
 sincerely hope " His thin voice, which had 
 in it a perpetually recurring quaver, like the 
 motive in a strain of sorrowful music, faltered 
 and failed. Dunbar started and lifted his 
 heavy hand. 
 
 " Very well," he said, " I'll do what you 
 ask. Will you bring him down to the yards 
 to-morrow ? We'll see what can be fixed up. 
 Perhaps nothing better at first than something 
 in the way of inspecting. I suppose he can 
 inspect? It isn't agreeable work." He lifted
 
 10 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 his hand again, this time in a gesture of warn- 
 ing, as the other burst out with a word of grati- 
 tude. 
 
 "The Bohun girl is just behind you/' he 
 advised Mr. Burkely, smiling. " She's talking 
 to a drummer in the office. Alexa can, how- 
 ever, like many of her sex, talk and listen at 
 once." And as the old man turned to speed 
 an inquisitive glance through the great door- 
 way, the mill president asked, " Do you re- 
 member Alexa? True, it's been some time 
 since yon were down here. I thought you 
 might recall the little black-eyed, brown-legged 
 girl who used to play around the boom-house 
 in the days when Bohun lived there and cooked 
 for the loggers. Alexa was something of a 
 local celebrity in those times. She could walk 
 the boom-sticks like a cat, and ride on the log 
 cars in a most amazing fashion. Alexa's for- 
 gotten all those antics now. She's grown up, 
 and is a person of considerable dignity. Don't 
 remember her, eh ? We mill folks have a warm 
 spot in our hearts for Alexa."
 
 n 
 
 THE hotel at Streamlet had been built on 
 a highly imposing scale by certain projectors, 
 who, when the new railway was laid ont along 
 the cliff, saw limitless possibilities in the little 
 settlement at the joining of the rivers. The 
 settlement was indeed only a scattering of poor 
 sheds, all of them sunken in the pervasive dog- 
 fennel of the lowlands, and with clapboarded 
 roofs, gray and oblique in the shadow of the 
 slopes. The only structure having any pre- 
 tension of size or solidity sat midway of the 
 hamlet a weather-worn old house with a great 
 stone chimney and a double gallery latticed 
 in aged grape-vines. This dwelling had also 
 some claim to distinction in the fact of hav- 
 ing been during the war the headquarters of a 
 general whose tents whitened the surrounding 
 hills, and whose signals burned upon the brow 
 of the sphinx-shaped knob brooding along the 
 South Fork. Besides this single dwelling and 
 its half-dozen neighboring cottages there was
 
 12 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 nothing to substantialize that vision of a popu- 
 lous city which inspired the land company to 
 the building of so large a house of entertain- 
 ment. But the land company had the pro- 
 phetic reach which is the common heritage of 
 land companies ; it considered that Streamlet 
 already commanded the traffic of the Cumber- 
 land, and that the wedge-shaped little track 
 already spanning the valley would unify this 
 commerce with that of the great line tunnelling 
 the Kentucky hills north and south of the 
 town. In view of these things there was ap- 
 parently nothing to do but to arrange valley 
 and knobs in sections convenient for immedi- 
 ate sales, and to see to it that those who came 
 to set afoot great enterprises in the new town 
 should not lack suitable lodgement. 
 
 The hotel, therefore, almost at a breath, rose 
 upon the beeched cliff overlooking the green 
 slough destined to so great activities; but 
 strangely enough, when the noise of building 
 was over and the gables and minarets finished 
 to the last shingle and a breadth of bunting 
 arranged upon the flag-staff, an unexpected 
 quietude settled over the place, and the foot- 
 steps of those who fared through the wide 
 halls were hardly to be heard above the rush 
 and rattle of the beeches leaning on the empty 
 eaves. For there seemed fewer capitalists than
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 13 
 
 one would have thought who had long waited 
 an opportunity of investing fortunes in saw and 
 shingle mills, in stave works and spigot fac- 
 tories, and such other undertakings as are in- 
 vited by mountain streams and boundless tim- 
 ber. Those who came paid fitting tributes to 
 the scenery, indeed, but none of them stayed 
 long, and the future of the town fortunately 
 became a matter of natural growth. 
 
 It took so much time for the great saw-mill 
 and various pulp works and tie offices and 
 other concerns to establish themselves, that 
 when things were finally in running order and 
 the Nashville steamers had a landing and a 
 freight-house, as well as a fixed business, the 
 hotel had ceased being fine and imposing and 
 wore a relaxed and careless air. After twelve 
 or fifteen years of waiting in smart attire, it 
 seemed to find the slipshod garb permitted to 
 defeated hopes rather agreeable than other- 
 wise. Considerable of its brownish paint had 
 flaked off, leaving traces of the sodden boards 
 revealed in the clinging scales, like glimpses 
 of an aging face in a lace veil ; the lofty porch 
 pillars had here and there rotted at the base ; 
 the flooring yawned ; and the steps were warped 
 into troughs where rain lingered long, and 
 where, in sunny weather, certain lizards, spat- 
 tered on the head as with red sealing-wax,
 
 14 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 came to bask, snapping as they did -so at un- 
 suspecting gnats and the dancing shadows of 
 the porch vines overhead. Above the bleached 
 towers a colorless wisp of cotton floated from 
 a bent stick in meagre reminder of the rain- 
 bow flag once furled there in the face of the 
 beeches. These alone had gone from splendor 
 to splendor, dusting the sky with impalpable 
 green, spreading gracious shadows everywhere, 
 thrusting kindly branches against the great 
 office windows, otherwise curtainless and honey- 
 combed with the alternating effects of many 
 seasons, wet and dry. 
 
 " They ought to be cut out those trees," re- 
 marked Alexa to the young man with whom 
 Mr. Burkely could see her in speech. "It's 
 so dark here I don't know but I've got your 
 change wrong. You better count it." And 
 Alexa inclined herself idly against the rim of 
 the small cigar-case, yawning a little as she did 
 so, and observing her finger nails critically. 
 The young man dropped the silver pieces into 
 his pocket. His expression seemed to indicate 
 that he would prefer being dull and silent, if 
 fate had not evilly sorted him a business in 
 which animation and volubility are particu- 
 larly desirable. 
 
 " Makes it rather gloomy," he puffed, light- 
 ing a cigar.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 15 
 
 " Gloomy !" repeated Alexa, casting her long, 
 brown throat disgustedly aside. " Gloomy I" 
 Alexa's skin had the color of citron ; iris and 
 pupil met indefinitely in the blackness of her 
 eyes, and her coarse silken hair, carelessly 
 braided, shone with a violet lustre. Her slim- 
 ness had a youthful angularity, and she moved 
 with a loose- jointed effect approaching grace- 
 fulness. Something a little sullen, a little sus- 
 picious, inhered in her manner. With the 
 richness of her coloring and her half-defiant, 
 half - indifferent air, she gave the observer an 
 idea of wild impulses and a sombre, almost 
 tragic turn of character. As a matter of fact, 
 the meditations of Alexa's moody brows were 
 seldom concerned with things more profound 
 than the relative becomingness of red and 
 pink ribbons, or the possible sentiments of 
 those social magnates, the hill folk, regarding 
 a young person, who, while she herself lived at 
 present on the bluff, could not forget having 
 once dwelt in the extremest depths of the bot- 
 toms. The days when she had lived across 
 the South Fork and carried coffee in tin cups 
 to the boom men, and walked the boom-sticks 
 and paddled her dugout in the teeth of a 
 "tide" these shameless, happy days were be- 
 come a thorn in Alexa's heart. For a lofty, 
 Persian idea of caste prevailed in Streamlet,
 
 16 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 and those who lived above the railway were 
 held to be of a different sort of clay from those 
 who dwelt in the flats. 
 
 The hill folk themselves were unassuming 
 enough, and they had never set afloat any 
 theories relative to their distinction ; they had 
 their business affairs in the bottoms with the 
 villagers, occupying themselves in stores, fac- 
 tories, or various offices abont the mill, and 
 living in the simple way which is common to 
 sensible people everywhere. But they could 
 not escape the suspicion of haughty reserve 
 put upon them by the burghers, and their well- 
 meant cordialities were usually received by their 
 neighbors of the valley with a chill distrust im- 
 plying a fear of patronage. It was not strange 
 if the hill folk, thns impedestalled in spite of 
 themselves, had perhaps in the course of the 
 years come to accept the situation thus forced 
 upon them, and to assume a certain belief in 
 their own superiority. 
 
 " Gloomy !" said Alexa. " It's like every- 
 thing else here !" And she glanced round the 
 immense, bare office, taking in its tall windows, 
 its pillared ceiling, from which a great patch of 
 mortar had fallen, leaving a section of grinning 
 laths, its long counter, dented water-cooler, 
 and rusty key-board. 
 
 " There's never anything going on," special-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 17 
 
 ized Alexa, writing her name in the thick dust 
 of the counter. " Of course, there's dances in 
 the bottoms. But I never mix with the bottom 
 people. Ma wouldn't hear it. And the hill 
 folks oh, they're sociable and all that, and if 
 they got up anything I'd be asked we're hill 
 folks ourselves, as much as anybody !" she 
 added, sharply. " But there's no girls of my 
 age among 'em except Miss Lucy Morrow. 
 She's considered mighty sweet, and some think 
 she's right pretty. Not much color, maybe, 
 but regular featured. Even her I don't see 
 much of ; she's mostly visiting her kin in the 
 blue grass. Her mother's folks live up yender. 
 This Mrs. Morrow's only her step-mother, you 
 know. She's nice, though. Say, I wonder 
 whose horse that is nickering at our gate ? 
 Looks like Dr. Taliaferro's roan. There's 
 doctor now, coming up the path. Him and 
 Colonel Dunbar are great friends. How do, 
 doctor ?" 
 
 The young man mounting the porch steps 
 took off his hat, displaying a considerable crop 
 of darkish hair, somewhat rumpled. ' ' Good- 
 day, Alexa," he said, in a ringing sort of voice 
 which bore out the frank quality of his light, 
 deeply embedded eyes. He looked square and 
 strong, and also a little rough and heavy as 
 he stood on the porch with pocketed hands
 
 18 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 and a smile of greeting in his clipped, nonde- 
 script mustache. " I suppose you're quite well, 
 Alexa ? Anything more discouraging than the 
 blooming healthfulness of this community ! 
 why, nobody ever has anything more alarming 
 than a risin' ! "What's that ? Your mother's a 
 little sick, eh ?" 
 
 "Headachey," explained Alexa. ""Will you 
 wait while I see if she wants some powders ?" 
 
 "I will, if you hurry," said the doctor. "I'm. 
 busy to-day. By -the -bye, Alexa, the Daniel 
 Boone is finished ; quite a trim little boat ! 
 The company is going to try her to-morrow if 
 there's enough water to float her. They are 
 going to run her to Mill Springs, and you are 
 all invited to take the trip. You especially, Mr. 
 Burkely, I was told to invite with all the pomp 
 and ceremony at my command. Eeally, if the 
 water holds out, I think you might enjoy it." 
 
 Alexa leaned pensively on the silver edge of 
 the cigar-case. "Is it a hill affair ?"she called 
 out. " Of course, if it's going to be mixed " 
 
 Taliaf erro wheeled round. " Mixed ! See 
 here, Alexa, you little goose ! but I haven't 
 time to waste with you just now. Go and see 
 about those powders." 
 
 " What's all this press of haste ?" asked Dun- 
 bar. "I thought you were just complaining 
 of a lack of trade eh ? Is old Halifax Burns
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 19 
 
 having his weekly attack of heart-failure to- 
 day ? Gad ! it's wonderful how much the 
 human heart will stand, how much whiskey, 
 I should add. I suppose Burns hasn't been 
 sober for twenty years ; and that poor, forlorn 
 wife of his, I understand, has recourse to the 
 same spring of consolation. Is this Burns's 
 day, doctor ?" 
 
 Taliaferro laughed. "No. No one's sick/' 
 
 " No one sick, eh ? These healthy knobs are 
 no place for you, Taliaferro. You should have 
 remained up in Woodford County, where you 
 belong. Or are you only getting in your hand 
 on us eh ? Or have you other designs here ? 
 Some enterprise not immediately connected 
 with therapeutics eh ? eh ? 
 
 Taliaferro, meeting the other's quizzical eye, 
 flushed all over his rugged young face. 
 
 "Major Morrow's family, now," chuckled 
 Dunbar, immensely taken with his own pleas- 
 antries "of course, seeing so much of you, 
 they would know if you have plans which you 
 conceal from me. I intend to ask them. 
 Miss Lucy Morrow, she probablv has a pretty 
 fair" 
 
 "I'm going," cut in Taliaferro. "Alexa 
 will have to get those powders another time." 
 
 Alexa had just crossed the threshold of the 
 great room that lay behind the office and com-
 
 20 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 manded by four cathedral-like windows a hilly 
 backyard containing a pen in which a black 
 hog, flown with insolence and superabundant 
 slop, grunted contempt upon the lean kine in 
 the outer pastures. 
 
 " "Well I" cried Alexa, stopping short. " It's 
 a mercy I didn't ask the doctor in the way 
 you look !" And she set a chastising eye upon 
 her mother, who, seated in a rickety rocking- 
 chair hard by an open window, made an apolo- 
 getic murmur as she drew a side breadth of her 
 blue cotton skirt across the various spots and 
 stains of the front. 
 
 "I been too busy to think of cleaning up," 
 sighed Mrs. Bohun, impressively. "Besides, it 
 wouldn't pay me. I may have to go in the 
 kitchen any minute. Kitty's right triilin', and 
 you never know what help '11 do. How'd I feel 
 to put on a fresh i'ned apron and warsh my 
 hands, and then find I had to turn in and go 
 to cookin' ? I got to think of these things, 
 Elex." 
 
 <( 0h, goodness " 
 
 " You ain't as old as me, Elex. You'll learn, 
 as I've had to, that no person ever knows what's 
 before 'em," insisted Mrs. Bohun, who was a 
 long, thin woman of mild clay tints and a 
 projecting upper jaw which gave her the look 
 of maintaining a fixed, conciliatory smile. " I
 
 IT'S A MEHCY i DIDN'T ASK THE DOCTOK IN
 
 BOUND IN SHAXLOW8 21 
 
 was saying only this morning to Mr. Burkely, 
 s'd I, ' This hotel ain't kep' up like we'd like to 
 keep it. By rights them windows had ought to 
 be rinched off. But we never know when the 
 place '11 be sold over us, and we'd feel pretty if 
 it changed hands, and we had it to remember 
 that we'd sozzled round warshin' windows for 
 some one else ! Then, again/ s'd I, 'there's no 
 fire-engyne in town; and just as sure as I'd 
 have the office floor mopped up the hull place 'd 
 likely turn in and burn to a cender. Y' never 
 know/ s'd I, ' for I can rickellict once of throw- 
 ing two buckets of water on to the front porch, 
 and lo and behold, if it didn't set in to rain ! 
 'twas May a year ago and the mud - tracks 
 was shoe - mouth deep on my clean piazza ! 
 Since then I ain't so enterprising to wear my- 
 self out a-slaving. What ain't done can't be 
 ondone/ s'd I to Mr. Burkely. He said he 
 sensed just how I felt, and that if more ladies 
 had my idys they'd save theirselves a heap of 
 trouble." 
 
 Alexa's eyes were ominous under their thick 
 brows. " You went into the office and stood 
 talking in that old dress ?" 
 
 " Elex, I had to go when he rung the coun- 
 ter bell. I thought 'twas the station agent 
 wanting a cigar. I couldn't fly, could I, when 
 I see Mr. Burkely and his nephew ? They'd
 
 22 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 come on No. 8 and wanted rooms. But, law, 
 they never noticed what I had on ! I held the 
 register agin me." 
 
 Alexa let her despairing gaze rove about the 
 familiar objects in the vast room. The organ 
 with the stamped green cover and heaps of 
 ragged music, the framed crayon portraits, odd 
 tables, chests of drawers, and spidery camp- 
 chairs seemed to impress themselves bitterly 
 upon her. 
 
 " I wonder how I hold up my head at all/' 
 she cried out, " what with all I have to bear ! 
 Between you and pa " 
 
 " Elex ! now, honey, don't get to going on 
 about your paw. He just thinks the world 
 and all of you. Look at the organ he got you, 
 and music lessons, and all ! He'd do anything 
 for you. Of course he's a little notiony about 
 religion." 
 
 " Notiony ! always arguing against it. Why 
 can't he believe like other people ? The hill 
 folks would think more of us if it wasn't for 
 his talking." 
 
 Mrs. Bohun was twisting up her hair. She 
 had two hair-pins in her mouth, and her voice 
 strained itself reproachfully through the brass 
 wires. 
 
 " Your paw ain't quite sure about there be- 
 ing a heaven and hell, Elex. I d' know as we
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 23 
 
 ought to be too hard on him. Of course Fd 
 be better satisfied if he held for a hell. It 
 don't matter so much about heaven." She 
 listened. There was a sound of heavy foot- 
 steps in the corridor, and in a moment the door 
 opened, admitting an elderly man, whose lum- 
 bering figure was incased to the armpits in 
 trousers of a black-and-white stripe, accurate- 
 ly matching the streaks of the great beard 
 overrunning his upper portions. 
 
 A kindly glance and a very complete row of 
 lower teeth were prominent details of Mr. Bo- 
 hun's appearance, and a conical felt hat and 
 a pair of gaiters bulging with elastic wedges 
 completed the matter of his attire. 
 
 " Here, Elex," he said, tossing her a letter 
 "here's tidings '11 cheer you. Seems a hull 
 raft of railroaders from up yonder aim to come 
 down to take supper with us next Saturday. 
 They'll pack three pieces of music along, and 
 dance till the midnight train. I knew you'd 
 be pleased !" 
 
 " Pleased ?" asked Alexa, with rigid eye- 
 lids. "Me?" 
 
 " Er yes. They aim to dance " 
 
 "I don't care what they aim to do. "What 
 are they to me ? If it was my own friends I 
 might have some reason for being pleased. 
 Friends ! I'd have trouble to name any."
 
 24 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 " Law, Elex I" broke in her mother. " Bean 
 McBeath just thinks you're the greatest per- 
 son going ; and there's plenty more. Don't 
 you pay no attention, paw. Elex is only a lit- 
 tle put out because you ain't a professor." 
 
 " She is, is she ?" asked Mr. Bohun. " I 
 'ain't no excuses to make, Melindy. I was born 
 to reason and I got to keep at it. Does she 
 think I do it for pastime addlin' my brains 
 with spec'lations about time and eternity ? 
 Lord ! I remember when I was light-minded 
 and cheerful as any person, and never knowed 
 it was given me for to pierce to the true in'ard- 
 ness of things. My powers of seeing through 
 things came on me in the twinkling of a 
 eye." 
 
 "Yes, paw ; we've heard you tell about it." 
 
 " It was fifteen year back," pursued Mr. Bo- 
 hun, unrelentingly. " I'd put me in four acre 
 of tobacco and the plants was all taking hold, 
 and I was feeling mighty fine viewing that 
 stretch of shoots. And up came a flooding 
 rain and washed out every last blade ! Well, 
 sirs, I sot on a fence rail cussin' mad. And 
 'long came parson on his sorrel nag. ' I hope 
 you're resignated,' says he. 'It's all for the 
 best. The A'mighty has done it.' 'He has ?' 
 says I. 'Certain,' says he. 'Well,' says I, 
 ' then all I got to say is that, take him up one
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 25 
 
 side and down the other, he does as mnch 
 harm as he does good.'* 
 
 "And parson 'lowed you'd be brought low 
 for them words, didn't he?" 
 
 "Yes'm, yes'm, he did. But the scales had 
 fell from my eyes, and no words of hisn could 
 put 'em back. Though I told him then and 
 I've told him since that I'm willin' to be per- 
 suaded, if him or any other exhorter can do it. 
 And Elex can't say but what I go to church 
 reg'lar, and always walk front and shake the 
 preacher's hand after meetin' and tell him how 
 sorry I am that his argyment hasn't fetched 
 me. Ain't that the truth ?" 
 
 "Yes, paw. But you ought to try and 
 soften your heart, seems like." 
 
 "'Tain't my business, "protested Mr. Bohun, 
 rising to attend to the office bell. " It's theirn. 
 If they can't do it they'll have it to answer 
 for."
 
 in 
 
 " OF course," said Mr. Burkely to his nephew, 
 "I hardly expect that, feeling as you do, there 
 is much prospect of your enjoying this ex- 
 cursion to what is the place ? Mill Springs, 
 isn't it ? M-m. But in any case it will do 
 you good take your mind off yourself. The 
 fact is, Burkely, that you dwell too much 
 on the the past. You must try to get in a 
 healthier state of mind really you must. 
 This office in the mills isn't a big thing ; but 
 it's a footing, and if you take hold and buckle 
 right down to business " He finished the sen- 
 tence with an encouraging nod. "We shall 
 see." 
 
 They were walking slowly down the hill 
 road, Mr. Burkely gesticulating as he avoided 
 the loose stones, Dillon following the deep 
 wagon-ruts with abstracted eyes. It was nine 
 of the morning, and the local freight train 
 could still be heard rounding the curves below 
 the town. Its steadily decreasing sounds came
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 27 
 
 to the ear in a monotonous murmur, which now 
 and again broke out loud and clear as some 
 jut of the cliff's base cast the clamor sharply 
 back into the maw of the valley. Geese were 
 cackling in a lush green common below the 
 hill, and a cow-bell echoed faint and hollow 
 from the rough pasturage on the summit of 
 the sphinx-shaped knob. In a clump of thick 
 old trees at the foot of this outstretched knoll 
 the house of the commanding general stood 
 gray and massive, bulwarked with its roughly 
 built chimney, and with a rich overflow of 
 grape leafage in its two long galleries. Before 
 the riven picket fence a man was mending a 
 fish -net, which, bulged to perfect rotundity 
 with a barrel hoop, hung in airy meshes from 
 an apple-tree springing midway of the road. 
 
 "You are too good to me," said Dillon, half 
 absently lifting his eyes upon the little houses 
 along the descent of the hill. " I wish I felt 
 as if all your kindness were worth while." 
 
 "If you're going to talk like that But I 
 sha'n't listen. You aren't yourself yet. Wait 
 till this air has a chance to straighten you out. 
 And the simple, natural life ! These things 
 will do wonders for you. Last night when we 
 sat a moment in the threadbare hotel parlor, 
 listening to Bohun's girl play her poor little 
 tunes on the rattle-trap of a piano, I said to
 
 28 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 myself that there was tonic in the least of 
 these homely details of village life. I looked 
 at Bohun, tranced as he was in pride at his 
 daughter's musical by-the-bye, Burkcly, I be- 
 lieve that is the Bohun girl ahead of us in the 
 road, isn't it ? turning the post-office corner 
 there, with those red things in her hat eh ?" 
 
 " Seems to be/' replied Dillon, in his listless 
 tones. 
 
 They had reached now the business quar- 
 ter of the town, where three stores with high 
 porches faced down a turnip field, and a barn- 
 like structure having Masonic devices in ul- 
 tramarine over its secretive upper window. 
 Beyond this the rivers shone and murmured in 
 their drift-fringed banks, and the great saws 
 of the mills filled the morning with a sweet, 
 fluty music. It had rained up the Cumber- 
 land, apparently, but the South Fork country 
 had not caught much, and its green, un- 
 troubled waters broke in a crystal rim against 
 the stirring yellowness of the deeper current. 
 
 The ferry, a mere float of broad planks, 
 throbbed in the swirl of the meeting streams. 
 Below it, issuing a ruddy and insistent blast, 
 the Daniel Boone, with a red gang-plank thrust 
 impudently outward, like a gamin's tongue, 
 nosed the crumbling ochreous clay of the 
 bank. A fringe of bare, boyish legs dangled
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 29 
 
 over the edge of its tiny hurricane-deck; a 
 press of girls' faces thickened below ; and far- 
 ther down on the little main -deck, protected 
 Avith a heavy stock-guard, numbers of men 
 lounged, waiting for the start. 
 
 "Are we late ?" asked Mr. Burkely, crossing 
 the plank. 
 
 " Oh no !" answered Taliaferro, greeting him. 
 "But the sooner we get off the better; for 
 the bottom is visibly dropping out of the river, 
 and some of us might find it inconvenient 
 to get hung up on the shoals for the sum- 
 mer." He laughed as he led the way up a 
 ladder-like flight of steps to the other deck, 
 which was gay with starched muslins and a con- 
 fusion of voices. 
 
 Dillon, coming suddenly into this atmos- 
 phere of unfamiliar faces and laughter and 
 chatter and general bewilderment, found his 
 glance taken by the garland of scarlet flowers 
 which had preceded him in the hill road. 
 Leaning against the rail, Alexa Bohun was 
 giving ear, with extreme indifference, to some- 
 thing which a good-looking young fellow, hav- 
 ing a country freshness of cheek under his 
 broad felt hat, was saying in an eager, earnest 
 sort of fashion. There could be little doubt 
 about the young man's deep concern with the 
 matter of his speech ; but Alexa, in listening,
 
 30 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 merely shrugged her shoulders and dropped 
 her heavy lashes in a way directly significant 
 of weariness. Once she waved off the subject in 
 discussion with an imperative gesture, abruptly 
 turning her black, poppy-wreathed hat. When 
 she caught sight of Taliaferro and Dillon 
 these tokens of distaste and languor vanished, 
 and an air of smiling consciousness replaced 
 them. Observing it, Dillon had a sense of won- 
 dering repugnance, so little these coquetries 
 harmonized with the girl's fashion of mortality. 
 Her attire, too, struck some byway of disgust 
 in his mind, and he was aware of being dimly 
 surprised that a creature possessing beauty so se- 
 rious and profound in its suggestiveness should 
 have seemingly almost no aesthetic sense. 
 
 When in the course of a haphazard incon- 
 sequent talk he mentioned to Taliaferro his 
 discomfort in Alexa's sidelong glances and vul- 
 garizing knots and ends of cheap red ribbon, 
 the doctor looked towards the girl with the air 
 of a man who has never before sensibly taken 
 stock of the object in question. 
 
 " She's really getting to be handsome," he 
 admitted, in a tone indicating opinion rather 
 than consciousness. "I never noticed her 
 particularly before. She has got a lot of ribbon 
 on, hasn't she ? tied up like a box of choco- 
 lates. Poor Alexa ! I reckon she hasn't an
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 31 
 
 idea that the archly gay and slyly demure 
 aren't her style. I don't suppose she knows 
 she has a style. To tell the truth, I'd never 
 ciphered it out myself. Now that you call my 
 attention to her, however, I can see that the 
 Phaedra sort of business would be directly in 
 her line. To tell the truth, I am, even now, 
 less impressed with her looks than with the 
 abominable way she is, as usual, treating Beau 
 McBeath. Eh? That's he she's tolerating 
 at present. Poor beggar ! He's in a bad way, 
 Beau is. Devoted to the fatuous point, you 
 see. Oh, he isn't particularly brilliant, Beau 
 isn't. But he's a kindly chap, and he's loved 
 her since she was a black-skinned little river- 
 rat living yonder in the boom-house. Mis- 
 fortune has always seemed to be Beauregard's 
 portion in life. I don't know that his lack of 
 success in this instance ought to occasion 
 remark." 
 
 Dillon regarded the broad felt hat of Beau- 
 regard McBeath with a moderate accession of 
 interest. "He doesn't look like a man 're- 
 served and destined to peculiar woe.' " 
 
 "No. He's got a rather cheerful bloom. 
 But have you never heard Mr. Burkely or any 
 one else speak of the McBeath walnut tract ? 
 It's celebrated among lumbermen, and rather 
 a sad and complicated history belongs to the
 
 32 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Avood. It seems that about thirty years ago 
 Beauregard's father and a friend of the name 
 of Conner came into this section and settled 
 in Wayne in a magnificently wooded stretch 
 overlooking the South Fork. They built them 
 a house of logs, all chinked and sealed com- 
 fortable, and things went well with them till 
 they both fell in love with a girl the same 
 girl, unhappily. From what I learn, Conner 
 had the inside track. But whatever his posi- 
 tion was it really didn't matter in the end ; for 
 one day he was found under one of the walnut- 
 trees dead. There were very obvious evidences 
 of foul play; but McBeath for some reason 
 wasn't suspected, though he took possession, 
 without question, of his partner's share in the 
 estate and married his partner's sweetheart. 
 He didn't prosper, however. Poetic justice, 
 rare in this plain world, overtook him. All 
 his children, except Beau, died in infancy; his 
 wife was half demented for a time over their 
 loss ; his property ran through his hands like 
 water ; he came finally to own nothing besides 
 the walnut wood, and whatever his needs he 
 wouldn't sell a stick of it. When he lay dying, 
 two years ago, it is generally believed that he 
 made a clean breast of his guilt regarding 
 Conner. At all events, he exacted from his 
 wife and son an oath that they would never sell
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 33 
 
 the walnut till it was demonstrated that Con- 
 ner had died without heirs. For it appears 
 that old McBeath had known more or less 
 definitely of a sister of Conner's, away back in 
 Virginia. He had tried, under the prick of 
 conscience, to find her, and had failed in his 
 efforts because he feared, I imagine, to call 
 suspicion on himself after so many years by a 
 too zealous search. The matter stands as he 
 left it. Beau, if he were left to his own fol- 
 io wings, might fail to see his obligations to 
 carry out these bequests. But everything was 
 left to his mother, and she is a person of de- 
 termined character. I believe she applies every 
 cent she can lay hands on to the furtherance 
 of the search for Conner's sister, who, Beau 
 tells me, is supposed to have gone West about 
 the time of her brother's death. Meanwhile 
 Beau is too occupied with Alexa to have any 
 determinate ideas about anything else." And 
 the doctor, pausing, lifted to his shoulder a 
 very little girl who had run towards him from 
 across the deck. This small person observed 
 Dillon shyly with a pair of brown eyes which 
 glimmered from beneath the frill of a white 
 garden hat in a particularly coy manner. 
 
 " This," explained Taliaf erro, " is Miss Co- 
 rinne Morrow, a friend of whose devotion I 
 have long assured myself. Corinne, if you like
 
 34 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 to be polite to Mr. Dillon I think I can stand 
 it. You may shake hands with him if yon 
 think well of it." Corinne looked first at her 
 bare, dimpled knees ; then she inspected her 
 old-fashioned, single-strapped slippers. 
 
 "Won't you come and show me about the 
 boat ?" insinuated Dillon. " I should be very 
 grateful/' 
 
 " You do not hear the enchanter's voice, do 
 you, Corinne ?" asked Taliaferro. "I am sorry, 
 Mr. Dillon. But you see how fully the as- 
 persed constancy of her sex is vindicated in 
 Corinne." 
 
 " I am very lonesome," sighed Dillon, touch- 
 ing Corinne's light hair. " I shall probably 
 get lost or fall overboard or something, unless 
 some one looks after me." 
 
 " No use," cried the doctor, gayly ; but he 
 fetched up rather suddenly, for Corinne had 
 begun to twist and wriggle in her seat upon 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " Lem me go !" she whispered, loudly. " You 
 won't get hurt or nothing if I go. But he's 
 strange. He needs me more 'n you." 
 
 " Go, traitress !" Taliaferro resigned her 
 in feigned displeasure. " Go, then, false one," 
 he said. 
 
 Above his voice and Dillon's triumphant ex- 
 clamation broke just now a clear, sweet clang
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 35 
 
 of rushing water, and ahead of the prow there 
 flashed in sight a bubbling, breaking reach of 
 green -and -white ripples, that flecked the air 
 above the sharp rocks with wisps of spray and 
 tufts of foam. 
 
 The boat seemed to be lessening in speed ; 
 then two brawny negroes, whose wet legs shone 
 like new bronze, could be seen wading ashore, 
 burdened with heavy coils of rope. These 
 long hempen strands they fastened about posts 
 on the rising banks, byway of aiding the steamer 
 through the shallows, and, as the stones of the 
 river-bed bit and nibbled at the hull, the whis- 
 tle blew shrilly for a landing, and above, on a 
 green hill-side, a solitary house of bleached 
 logs crept in view. Below it a miserable field, 
 weedy with a foot-high sprout, sloped to the 
 water-side, where three stray oak ties, patrolled 
 by a frog and a man in butternut jeans, made 
 a landing for the steamer. A barrel of mo- 
 lasses was consigned to the charge of these 
 functionaries, and the Daniel Boone grated 
 round again into mid-stream. 
 
 Always the extreme bending of the river's 
 course gave the view the look of a lake forever 
 moving onward and changing the aspect of 
 its shore, while it kept its pool-like oval unim- 
 paired. In the clear bosom of these depths a 
 succession of great clouds plunged their puffy
 
 36 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 white shoulders ; in shadowy places along the 
 banks thick flakes of corky spume floated ; and 
 hundreds of airy insects, dipping and spinning 
 on the still surface, sent innumerable concen- 
 trics whirling to the boat's edge. Sometimes 
 the trees of the slopes grew so near the stream 
 that their leaning lower branches were enam- 
 elled in a dry glaze of white mud, and reached 
 over the water a frosty filigree, hard as jade. 
 And everywhere the foliage of the crests along 
 the river flung upon the blue skies a green as 
 delicate and intangible as if scattered there 
 with a handful of soft chalks, crumbling to the 
 breath. 
 
 Dillon, with a word of commiseration for 
 Taliaferro's discomfiture, followed Corinne for- 
 ward. A clatter of dishes Avas rising from be- 
 low, the throng of women had considerably 
 thinned, and preparations for luncheon were 
 apparently forward. Under the big illumi- 
 nator Mr. Burkely was seated in what seemed 
 to be a very animated conversation with two 
 ladies. Both, Dillon saw, wore gowns of thin 
 white. The older was noticeably abundant in 
 her matronly outlines, and had a soft, flushing 
 cheek and a drooping, sentiment-suggesting 
 profile. She attended to Mr. Burkely with 
 many little sympathetic inclinations of her full 
 throat and with occasional small, cooing sighs,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 37 
 
 which perceptibly lifted the bosom and seemed 
 even to stir the gloss of auburn hair along the 
 brows. 
 
 " My mamma," said Corinne, pointing. 
 
 " Yes ?" acquiesced Dillon ; and as the child, 
 taking his hand, began to draw him towards the 
 group, he said, "We won't go over there just 
 now. They are busy talking." 
 
 Corinne's flower-like lips fell apart as she 
 looked up at him. " Don't you want to talk 
 to Lucy ?" she propounded, in an amazed ac- 
 cent. " Doctor always wants to." 
 
 Dillon began to smile. " I don't know 
 Lucy, you see," he explained, with a glance 
 towards the slighter of the two white-gowned 
 figures near his uncle. It happened that Lucy 
 if this young woman were she sat with 
 head averted, so that he could not very weH 
 judge what she was like. He could see only 
 the line of a beautifully pale cheek and the 
 rim of an ear half hidden in loosely worn, per- 
 fectly straight hair, shining and light. 
 
 "I know how to interduce," specified Co- 
 rinne, with all the dignity of her four years. 
 But Dillon said, frowning a little, " Another 
 time." He was lost in a momentary wonder as 
 to whether any subject other than himself 
 could be inspiring his uncle's talk with so 
 vivid a note of interest.
 
 38 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 " It is more than kind of you," Mr. Burkely 
 indeed was saying, "to promise to make my 
 boy feel at home in Streamlet. I I hoped 
 you would be good to him." And he added, in 
 a sudden, impulsive way, " He needs such in- 
 fluences. He has Mrs. Morrow, I feel as if 
 I ought to tell you that he has been a little 
 wild. Only a baby when he came to me, poor 
 little chap. I did all I could to spoil him." 
 
 Mrs. Morrow expanded in a gentle sigh. 
 " Nothing touches me like the sight of one 
 who is motherless," she said. " Lucy was only 
 ten years old when I first saw her in her little 
 black frock, and I shall never forget my sensa- 
 tions. Lucy, dear, do you recall how I wept on 
 the day when your papa brought me home and 
 you ran to meet us and kissed me first ? little 
 thin thing that you were !" 
 
 " Ah," broke in Mr. Burkely, as she paused, 
 " if my boy had only known something better 
 than an old man's indulgence ! What most dis- 
 courages me, Mrs. Morrow, is his depression. 
 He broods continually over the fact that he has 
 wasted his powers and opportunities and de- 
 feated my hopes. He needs spirit, sympathy " 
 
 " I understand a refined, sensitive nat- 
 ure. I shall feel it a blessed privilege to do 
 everything I can to inspire him with new 
 ambitions. I have often felt that there is no
 
 BOUND IN 8HALLOWS 89 
 
 more noble office in life than to sustain the 
 weak and strengthen those that falter." 
 
 Mr. Burkely had risen in listening to her 
 fluttering voice. He felt some gratification to 
 think that without prejudicing Mrs. Morrow 
 against his nephew, he had honorably suggest- 
 ed all that blemished the young man's past. 
 There was with him no suspicion that the 
 vague atmosphere of sin and suffering in 
 which he had invested Dillon might have the 
 effect of heightening his interest as no nar- 
 ration of an entirely moral and catechism fla- 
 vor could do. Without formulating it directly, 
 the old man had been sure that Mrs. Morrow 
 could be relied on to see his nephew's case 
 in a benevolent aspect. He had felt that Dil- 
 lon's deserts would not concern her so much 
 as the features of her own Christian duty. She 
 Avould, in the simple graciousness of her heart, 
 put charity in the seat of judgment, and to the 
 utmost replace with pure generosity whatever 
 hinted at justice. Mr. Burkely had indeed 
 reckoned so correctly upon the intimations of 
 Mrs. Morrow's mild face that a contenting 
 sense of his own penetration mingled itself 
 with his pleasure in her words. And as he 
 spoke to her of his gratification, telling her how 
 his heart was lightened in having secured for 
 his nephew her own and her daughter's kind-
 
 40 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 ness, it came upon him rather forcibly that 
 Miss Morrow had not said anything to lead 
 him to rely upon her good-will in the case in 
 question. She had not spoken at all ; and he 
 grew suddenly fearful that her silence, which 
 he had noted only as a proper and maidenly 
 abstinence from the speech of her elders, might 
 have been calmly critical, after the habit of 
 the modern young woman, of whom he knew 
 nothing except that she was said to be infi- 
 nitely more sagacious than the girls of his 
 own youth. 
 
 In his startled glance, Lucy's eyes, which had 
 both brown and gray in their clear, agate-like 
 depths, were rather disquieting in the simple 
 directness of their gaze. That level look sug- 
 gested that this slight young person in the wide 
 leghorn hat might, in an unpleasant modern 
 way, be capable of some elementary delibera- 
 tions as to the final results of shielding men 
 from the effects of their misdoings. Undoubt- 
 edly there was a hint of severity in Lucy's face, 
 a mere structural note, which, though barely 
 intimated, gave it such definiteness and direc- 
 tion as the branch of a flowering tree gives to 
 the fragile blossoms covering it. Mr. Burkely, 
 taking apprehensive stock of this trait, heard, 
 as from a distance, the soft reiterations of Mrs. 
 Morrow's sympathy.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 41 
 
 " Are we not all weak and erring ?" she was 
 inquiring of him. " We, with our faults, what 
 are we that we should look narrowly into the 
 ways of our brother? Your nephew, Mr. 
 Burkely can that be he who is walking yon- 
 der with my little Corinne ?" 
 
 Mr. Burkely focused his eyes on Dillon's 
 back. "Yes, that is he standing near Dr. 
 Taliaferro. If I might bring him to you " 
 
 " Do so," said Mrs. Morrow, palpitating with 
 easy benevolence. " Lucy, have you seen Dr. 
 Taliaferro ?" 
 
 Lucy looked up, smiling in response to Ta- 
 liaferro 's greeting ; and as she did so she saw 
 beside him a young man, tall, slender, leaning 
 a little at the shoulders. He looked gentle and 
 sad, and she was conscious of wondering that 
 gentleness and sadness should be so markedly 
 characteristic of a man given to prodigalities 
 of any sort. The curiosity which Mr. Burke- 
 ly's indeterminate disclosure had aroused in 
 her began to be a little touched with pity as 
 she observed Dillon's pallor and air of weari- 
 ness. And as she sat in the low deck-chair 
 with her hands crossed in her white lap, and 
 this expression of half-compassionate wonder 
 on her face, an air so youthful, so child-like 
 encompassed her that Mr. Burkely, observing 
 it, forgot his earlier impressions in a sudden
 
 42 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 qualm. He-drew his shaggy Avhite brows down. 
 If this girl had been his own daughter would 
 he have wished her to do for Dillon, or such as 
 Dillon, what he had just asked her to do ? Was 
 there nothing polluting for her in such associ- 
 ations of friendliness as he himself was plan- 
 ning for her ? Had he been entirely right in 
 sketching Dillon's tale in colors so misty ? 
 
 He felt himself trembling, with an actual 
 weakening of the joints, and a dull color man- 
 tling his cheek-bones. Even yet he did not 
 mean to speak, to undo what he had done, and 
 turn from Dillon's lips a cup that might per- 
 haps have life in its draught. He seemed to 
 himself to be trying to be silent ; but despite 
 these efforts to collect and calm himself, he be- 
 came aware that he had drawn a step closer to 
 Mrs. Morrow, and was stammering, " I should 
 have said more than I did . . . more ; I should 
 have told you . . . something more ..."
 
 IV 
 
 LUCY herself had a not unreasonable sur- 
 prise at Mr. Burkely's words and manner. It 
 was impossible not to take, in their simplest im- 
 port, the old man's sudden confusion and fal- 
 tering phrases. That he had been moved to 
 vivify his nephew's story with a graphic detail 
 seemed past question, and Lucy, in a momen- 
 tary consideration of his shaken and uncertain 
 air, began to think that perhaps her own pres- 
 ence might have kept him from speaking as 
 frankly as upon second thought he felt that he 
 should have spoken. 
 
 She rose rather hurriedly. She did not fancy 
 that she was at all likely to be horrified by any- 
 thing which Mr. Burkely might wish to divulge 
 concerning the spiritless-looking young man 
 standing hard by ; her instinct was altogether 
 one of sympathy with the struggle which was 
 so evident in the lean face before her. But in 
 the instant of rising she saw a change in the old 
 man. Composure had returned to him ; he held
 
 44 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 himself erect, and his thready, bluish lips ceased 
 trembling. Catching Dillon's eye, he made him 
 a little gesture. 
 
 "I was about to say," he remarked, turning 
 again to Mrs. Morrow, "that that you mustn't 
 take Dillon's self - accusations seriously ! He 
 is particularly hard on himself particularly so ! 
 Ah, my boy ! I have very great pleasure " 
 He rubbed his hands together and inclined 
 his shoulders in hurrying through some form 
 of introduction, while Dillon took, with a kind 
 of appealing, ingratiating diffidence, the hand 
 which Mrs. Morrow held to him in an excess of 
 cordiality. 
 
 Lucy bent her head a little distantly, being 
 still occupied with the idea that Mr. Burkely 
 had meant to elucidate in Dillon's career some 
 point which he had finally decided to leave un- 
 touched. The matter, however, soon drifted 
 from her mind, and she found herself presently 
 in talk with Taliaferro and Dillon, thinking 
 less of the possible defections of the latter than 
 of the varying waters all about, and the sum- 
 mer blueness overhead, swept in a long, tenu- 
 ous glare of white. 
 
 Just ahead the Mill Springs landing came in 
 sight. At its verge a pink skiff reduplicated 
 its rosy stern in the still water that, with the 
 approach of the Daniel Boone, began to heave
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 45 
 
 and pulse and disturb the green shadows dye- 
 ing the current along shore. There followed 
 the lively excitement of debarkation, and after- 
 wards came an hour's wandering through din- 
 gles and dells and deep roadways and rocky 
 slopes. Upon the return to Streamlet the sun 
 was setting, and a low crimson turbanned the 
 dark uplands and filled the valley with a strange 
 glamour. A train was issuing from the black 
 arch of the tunnel which gives upon the high- 
 swung bridge across the Cumberland cliffs, 
 and the headlight of its engine seemed a flut- 
 tering shred of sunset caught from the radi- 
 ance behind the sheer wall of the western 
 bluffs. 
 
 Taliaferro, with Oorinne drowsing on his 
 shoulder, walked through the dim bottoms in 
 Lucy's company. It was very quiet in the 
 curbless streets. In the post-office a light 
 burned, and a few loungers smoked on the steps 
 of the different stores. At the foot of the hill 
 a little group of people had stopped to rest a 
 moment before the climb; and as Lucy and the 
 doctor approached, Alexa Bohun, leaving the 
 throng of tired voyagers, joined them. 
 
 c ' Why, say," she began, locking her arm in 
 Lucy's, "we're going to have a hop at the 
 hotel on Saturday folks from up the road. I 
 thought maybe you'd like to come and look
 
 46 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 on ? Of course you wouldn't wish to take 
 part ! / sha'n't. Ma wouldn't hear to it," 
 specified Alexa, who commonly represented her 
 mother as a person of established social preju- 
 dice. 
 
 Lucy laughed. " I'm afraid I should want 
 to take part/' she said. " I love to dance." 
 
 " Sure 'nough ?" asked Alexa, heartened at 
 this admission. "Me now a banjo sets me 
 all a-quiver. You'll come for certain, then ?" 
 She gave Lucy's hand a squeeze and bounded 
 back to rejoin the others. 
 
 "Alexa quite forgot to include you in her 
 invitation/' Lucy said to Taliaferro, as she 
 paused to loosen the strings of Corinne's hat. 
 " There ! poor little soul. She was half 
 strangled." 
 
 "Oh, I'm a fixture of the establishment/' 
 smiled the doctor. He stood looking at Lucy 
 before him in the road, with the mysterious 
 rosiness of the afterglow in her face. Her 
 broad hat swung from her arm, and the twi- 
 light redness robbed her parted hair of its 
 usual pale lustre. Taliaferro's heart lifted. 
 It was no uncommon sensation with him in 
 Lucy's presence. Every one in Streamlet, un- 
 less it were Lucy herself, knew the trend of 
 the young man's affections, and why it was 
 that with a choice of better things profes-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 47 
 
 sionally he kept on staying in the little moun- 
 tain town. He had come to the place some- 
 thing like two years before to undertake to end 
 the lawless operations of some tie-makers who 
 were working the timber off a tract of land 
 which his father had left him. And in the 
 intervals of his bouts in the behalf of property 
 rights he had fallen into a certain practice of 
 his profession. At first he had meant to stay 
 in Streamlet only long enough to get his affairs 
 settled before going abroad for an extension of 
 his studies ; but after things were quite ar- 
 ranged, and the tie-makers had been made to 
 leave off their depredations, and all was as it 
 should be, Taliaferro became aware that his 
 desire for travel had lapsed. 
 
 Lucy had come home from school, and the 
 doctor soon became sufficiently clear regarding 
 his feelings for her. As to Lucy's own senti- 
 ments, there was, unhappily, more ground of 
 doubt. She was always glad, indeed, to dis- 
 cuss his plans with him, and even to advise 
 him concerning the serious matters of both 
 life and medicine. But in her tranquil friend- 
 liness Taliaferro found nothing reassuring, un- 
 til, upon a statement to Mrs. Morrow of his 
 hopes and fears, he received from her certain 
 encouraging comments and counsels. Mrs. 
 Morrow's abounding emotions and cooing mur-
 
 48 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 irmrs and breathless interjections of sympathy 
 had perhaps been of considerable effect in heart- 
 ening Taliaferro's suit. He could not after- 
 wards recall just what she had said to cheer him 
 so effectually, but he gathered from her talk 
 with him that he must be content to await de- 
 velopments, and not be so rash as to force upon 
 Lucy's mind the startling revelation that he 
 loved her. The solemn, fathomless mystery 
 which invests the mental processes of maiden- 
 hood must, Mrs. Morrow pointed out, be re- 
 spected. And she added to her subtle dis- 
 criminations on this score the questionable 
 declaration that patience and reserve in a lover 
 are infallible aids to success. 
 
 To-night, as the twilight deepened about 
 him and he climbed the hill with Lucy beside 
 him, almost the doctor felt himself come to 
 the force of words. But when Lucy turned 
 to him in some remark, her face's unconscious- 
 ness smote him painfully, and he drew his 
 brows and replied with a hint of gruffness in 
 his voice. 
 
 This brusque tone of his and the embarrass- 
 ment of feeling which made him appear stolid 
 and silent as they Avalked home together re- 
 curred to Lucy upon the following night. Mr. 
 Burkely and his nephew had come to pay their 
 respects to the Major's family, and when, in
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 49 
 
 the course of the evening some one spoke of 
 Taliaferro, Mr. Burkely said : " Mr. D unbar 
 expatiates upon this young man's qualities. I 
 haven't the least doubt that the doctor is a 
 fine fellow, but it seems to me that he lacks 
 er manner, you know." Dillon had scarcely 
 spoken. He sat, with his usual air of languor, 
 in a corner of the pretty room, passively aware 
 of the summer lightness of the wicker chairs 
 and pale rugs, and the breath of the long- 
 stemmed roses in a great bowl in the window- 
 seat. But as his uncle paused, with a ques- 
 tioning glance as for corroboration in his opin- 
 ion, Dillon moved a little. 
 
 "I should think, "he said, "that Taliaferro 
 had the best possible manner for a physician 
 one which inspires immediate confidence." 
 Lucy looked visibly pleased. Dillon's remark 
 established him in her mind as a person of 
 fairness and penetration, and she was sensi- 
 ble of regretting that such a one should be 
 so openly wearied with the evening's events 
 as Mr. Dillon appeared. 
 
 Dillon was, in fact, thinking of the charms of 
 the rose-hedged walk outside and the pungent 
 odors of a cigar. His uncle's incessant liveli- 
 ness irritated him, nor did he find Mrs. Mor- 
 row's lavish amiability satisfying, nor Lucy's 
 slight presence and dreamy silence in the least
 
 50 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 interesting. Ma j or Morrow himself maintained 
 the ponderous quietude which had won him 
 his repute for extraordinary dignity and intel- 
 ligence. He was an immovable-looking man, 
 whose iron-gray eyes bulged as if the harden- 
 ing of the rubicund flesh about them had 
 pushed them from their sockets. He had a 
 military fashion of gray mustache, and a habit 
 of patting his knee and sealing his lips in a 
 way to suggest deep deliberations. Whatever 
 these might be, the Major seldom committed 
 himself to speech. He spent his days in medi- 
 tation ; business affairs and the Major had 
 nothing in common. He had, indeed, some 
 sort of silent partnership in a pulp factory 
 below the hill ; but war had been his first ac- 
 tive interest in life, and nothing had replaced 
 it for him. 
 
 "Major hain't no fancy sojer," old Halifax 
 Burns would say, as the Major stalked majes- 
 tically up the post-office steps every morning at 
 ten of the clock. " He fit mighty brash down 
 yender in Tennessy. Charged onct in his shirt- 
 sleeves, they tell. He hain't no wounds into 
 his back, Major hain't ! And now that the 
 Dimmycrats hes got in, through the grace of 
 God, y'all needn't be surprised to see 'em put 
 Major into position and pay him big money." 
 
 Dillon knew nothing of Major Morrow's prow-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 51 
 
 ess, and the Major's monosyllabic conversation 
 did not hold the young man's fancy. He ex- 
 perienced a deep relief when Mr. Burkely finally 
 rose, and this was furthered as they emerged 
 from the rose -hedged garden upon a moon- 
 lighted sweep of turf. At their feet the cliff 
 sheered abruptly to the railway. To the west 
 the Cumberland bridge swung like a ribbon of 
 white satin, caught in the tangled black leaf- 
 age of the tunnel's mouth. Along the brow of 
 the bluff little depressions showed where the 
 rifle pits and batteries of General Burnside had 
 been long before. About the unlighted town 
 the heights were drawn like heavy curtains. 
 Back from the bluff the few houses of the hill 
 folk nestled in their checkered garden spaces. 
 Through the panes of one the engineer's wife 
 could be seen rocking her baby. In the door 
 of a gabled white cottage the preacher's aging 
 figure revealed itself upon the inner light. 
 
 On the station platform a brakesman sat 
 winding a strip of red flannel about his lan- 
 tern, and the scarlet rays fell upon a number 
 of men lounging against the wall. Behind the 
 iron bars of the station window the agent sat 
 on a high stool, posting his accounts. Dunbar 
 was coming up the hill, and as Mr. Burkely 
 and Dillon rounded the platform a woman in 
 a trailing cotton frock, bareheaded, and with a
 
 52 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 heavy child in her arms, came in sight, step- 
 ping along the tracks from tie to tie. She was 
 young, and her pink-and-white face had the 
 dulness that knows neither honor nor shame. 
 Tripping in her long skirts, she stumbled on 
 into the darkness. 
 
 " Poor soul," remarked Bohun, rising from 
 a freight truck. "Eh? Why, it's Lete Haight, 
 the woman that lives under the trestle. Eh? 
 Oh, I reckon there's no use in denyin' that she's 
 triflin'. Only the age of my Elex, poor soul ! 
 Her mother was a headstrong, mean-inclined 
 critter, but she was tol'able well-favored, and 
 Duke Haight he must go to work and marry 
 her. Nice, steady feller he was. He knowed 
 she'd change her ways and make him a fine 
 wife. And she did ! She made him a fine 
 one kept him in misery with her doings till 
 he died. This Lete's their gyrl. After her 
 folks died she took to wanderin' round. She's 
 never hed no encouragement to hold her head 
 up. Well, Duke Haight had good intentions. 
 Only he didn't 'pear to understand that you 
 can't stop bad wood from rotting by bracing it 
 up with sound timber. The sound timber '11 
 rot, that's all that '11 happen." 
 
 "Good intentions," said Mr.Burkely, senten- 
 tiously, " often contain a good deal of latent 
 mischief."
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 63 
 
 D unbar was mopping off his forehead. 
 "Well," he speculated, "I reckon that's so. 
 Altruism, as our friend Spencer justly remarks, 
 is a blessed thing up to a certain point ; but 
 beyond that point it's a curse to giver and re- 
 ceiver. Mr. Haight's proceeding seems to lie 
 beyond the line of mutual blessing."
 
 IN Alexa's room, high in one of the shingled 
 towers, two oil lamps burned brightly, burnish- 
 ing the railway maps and soap advertisements 
 which decorated the white walls. An ingrain 
 carpet, compounded of strips of varying de- 
 signs, spread its lengths along the floor. The 
 high bed, draped in a homespun coverlet, had 
 an obvious effect of graining combed in brown 
 paint over its yellow foot -board. A folded 
 newspaper covered the wash-stand, and the 
 wavy mirror of the tall bureau was sustained 
 in an oblique position by means of an inthrust 
 hair-brush. 
 
 A pile of ruffled petticoats heaped the bed. 
 Alexa's frock, a flowery heap of pink muslin, 
 lay across a chair. Alexa herself, with her 
 black hair about her shoulders, and a flush of 
 excitement staining the pellucid brown of her 
 cheeks, stood testing the heat of the curling- 
 irons she had just taken from the globe of a 
 lamp.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 55 
 
 "You're going to look mighty sweet," said 
 Mrs. Bohun, who sat in a limp huddle near the 
 door, watching her daughter twist a strand of 
 hair about the tongs. 
 
 "What are they all doing down-stairs, ma ?" 
 
 "Dressin' and primpin'," responded her 
 mother. " The gyrls all packed along their 
 gownds in bandboxes, and they're skirmishin' 
 through the halls a-lacin' and hookin' each 
 other, and callin' for pins and whitenin', and 
 going on till Kitty and Sa' Jane hain't a mite 
 of sense. The gents is blackin' their boots and 
 puttin' on clean collars. Eowin' on the river 
 like they been since they got off the train has 
 sweated 'em out, I reckon. I won't say as any 
 of 'em has toted a flask along," remarked Mrs. 
 Bohun, with an air of rigorous moral accuracy, 
 " but it 'peared to me like I caught a whiff of 
 Belle of Nelson as I came past the room where 
 the men are at. Or it might V been Old 
 Crow or even Buck Creek. God knows. The 
 music is eating a sandwich off the kitchen 
 table, and your paw is packing chairs and ta- 
 bles out of the dining-room so's dancing can 
 begin." 
 
 Alexa warily drew the iron from a tubular 
 ringlet. " Mr. Dillon is he " 
 
 "Mr. Dillon's on the porch with his heels 
 agin a post and his hat into his eyes, smoking,
 
 56 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 like he always is. Looks like he's lower sper- 
 eted than ever since his uncle went away for 
 good. I feel kind of sorry for him, Elex. I'd. 
 of put a nice clean newspaper on to his wash- 
 stand to-day to sort of make his room more 
 home-like, only I just says to myse'f, ' If I do, 
 why, like as not he'll splash around, cleanin' 
 up for the hop, and soak it to a pulp.' There's 
 your paw callin' me." And having answered 
 "Whoo !" in a loud voice, Mrs. Bohun dragged 
 her festal black cashmere from the room. 
 
 Down in the office a dozen or more young 
 men were gathered. Some of them revealed 
 themselves as brakesmen by the slight swaying 
 of their gait in crossing the pillared expanse. 
 A conductor or two and an engineer were 
 among the loiterers on the porch who, in a 
 smoke - encircled group, were listening to a 
 story involving prodigious presence of mind 
 and a surpassing mastery of the throttle. 
 Fragments of the tale, interspersed with com- 
 ments of different sorts, floated to the piazza 
 end in which Taliaferro and Dillon and others 
 of the hotel's usual dwellers sat together under 
 the hanging vines, which, struck here and there 
 with flashes of light from the office doors and 
 windows, seemed heavy with mysterious clus- 
 ters of vague white flowers. The tentative rasp 
 of a violin bow and the lisp of a banjo string
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS B7 
 
 came from the dining-room, which was bare of 
 its usual furnishings, and showed unbroken 
 stretches of pale-green, mildew-blotched wall. 
 Mr. Bohun, with his conical hat awry and an 
 expression of excited interest in his great black- 
 and-white beard, pervaded the apartment, is- 
 suing loud orders to the small negro boy who 
 filled the offices of bell-boy, waiter, and porter 
 in the hotel. 
 
 Presently the strains of a waltz welled from 
 the table on which the three black musicians 
 sat, and in a moment more the empty spaces 
 were roused with a whir of muslins, a rap of 
 heels, a confusion of voices and laughter. 
 
 People were also beginning now to come by 
 twos and threes up the hotel path, scattering 
 along the porch and stationing themselves out- 
 side the window which commanded a view of 
 the festivities. The engineer's wife, with her 
 blond young face; the preacher's niece, old- 
 maidish and overcome with spasms of giddiness 
 at the gayety of the music ; the school-master, 
 large and soft and serene, with his dark little 
 wife on his arm these and others of the hill 
 folk thronged the outer ways, and were finally 
 persuaded to enter and seat themselves in a re- 
 served and exclusive row of chairs sequestered 
 near the kitchen door. 
 
 Alexa, with a rosy fillet through her hair,
 
 58 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 was essaying a few reluctant steps with Beau- 
 regard McBeath, whose long, light frock-coat 
 rendered a trifle more conspicuous the awk- 
 wardness of his efforts. 
 
 "After seeing Beauregard dance I am in- 
 clined to sympathize with Alexa's coolness/' 
 said Taliaferro, looking in from the doorway. 
 And as Alexa turned at length from her part- 
 ner with a disdaining lift of lips, the doctor 
 drew the unhappy young man aside and soothed 
 him in such sort as he was able. 
 
 " I don't know but Fd be as well off to go 
 and throw myself in Fishing Creek," remarked 
 McBeath, accepting a cigar. " I took six les- 
 sons in dancing last winter; the fellow said I 
 had it down fine. Yes ; he told me my waltz- 
 ing was out of sight. But Alexa won't have 
 it that way. She says I move like my feet 
 was weighted for a trotting gait. Sometimes, 
 doc, I think I better give up. It certainly 
 don't look as if things 'd ever come my way !" 
 McBeath paused, experimentally, but Taliaferro 
 did not attempt to combat this view. " Yet," 
 pursued Alexa's suitor, after a moment, in 
 which his hopes seemed to reach their lowest 
 level and begin to rise again, " Alexa often 
 lets me tell her how much I think of her and 
 the kind of a house I aim to build when that 
 walnut tract of ours gets settled. Tell you,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 69 
 
 if 'twasn't for that sister of Conner's Fd be 
 fixed. Fd put me up a stylish house, and 
 Alexa 'd quit doing like she does/' 
 
 "How do things stand about the Conner 
 heirs, Mac ?" 
 
 " Oh, same as common. Old Judge Kinney, 
 he does our lawing, you know. He was down 
 several months ago, and I was plumb sure he'd 
 come to say we was free to sell the wood any 
 day. He looked like he fetched news ; but af- 
 ter I'd put his horse up and came back to the 
 house I found him and maw talking about the 
 crops and never a word of no Maria Conner. 
 ( News, Judge ?' says I. And my mother you 
 know how quick spoken she is says she, ' When 
 the Judge has news it '11 be for my ears, Beau, 
 before yourn.' So there 'tis. When the Judge 
 was leaving I says to him, f Do you reckon that 
 Conner's sister's really alive ?' And he shut his 
 eyes critical, and says he, ' There certainly was 
 a Maria Conner that kept a boarding-house in 
 Butte City a year ago. She moved to the foot- 
 hills som'er's,' says he, * and when I hear from 
 her I'll let you know." 3 
 
 Taliaferro was conscious of a divided inter- 
 est. At the gate was a nutter of airy white and 
 a mingling of tones; and presently Major Mor- 
 row and his wife came in view in the path. 
 Taliaferro looked for Lucy, but Lucy seemed
 
 60 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 to have stopped in the neighborhood of the 
 gate, for her voice came clearly to him. Very 
 soon he saw her emerging from the dusk, mov- 
 ing slowly towards the house, and holding her 
 light skirts from contact with the dewy grasses 
 by the way. Dillon was beside her. He was 
 smiling as he listened to what she was saying, 
 and his face wore a look of interest and amuse- 
 ment. In the wide wash of light from the door 
 they paused, and Lucy's face, the shine of her 
 hair, and the transparent whiteness of her broad 
 sleeves appeared to be themselves luminous. 
 
 Beyond her Dillon's slightly bent shoulders 
 and fine, pensive profile were impressed upon 
 the darkness. He seemed to be calling her at- 
 tention to a game of croquet in progress under 
 the beeches, whose spreading lower branches 
 were dusted in silver from the light of two 
 lanterns. Lucy turned to look ; then she and 
 Dillon strolled towards the croquet-ground, 
 and Taliaferro's mind again opened to the rela- 
 tion of McBeath's complaints. 
 
 The players were all elderly men, who, in 
 shirt-sleeves, with handkerchiefs about their 
 necks and expressions of laborious concern on 
 their grizzled faces, pursued the game with 
 feverish intensity. Now and again one of them 
 stumbled over a wicket, or rushed into the 
 darkness after his ball, or held a lantern while
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 61 
 
 his partner executed some subtle stroke. Often 
 a clatter of disagreement arose, and the heat- 
 ed utterance, mingling with the sharp rattle of 
 the mallets, sounded above the music in-doors 
 and the hollow clang of footsteps on the porch. 
 
 "I suppose your uncle has gone?" said Lucy, 
 in a peaceable interval of the game. 
 
 " Yes," answered Dillon ; and he added, sim- 
 ply, "I miss him." 
 
 Lucy regarded him for an instant, think- 
 ing how worn he looked in the lantern rays. 
 "We have promised to keep your spirits up," 
 she smiled, finally. "And yet when I consider 
 how we are going to do this, I begin to think 
 we spoke without reckoning much upon ways 
 and means. We haven't a great deal of any- 
 thing except scenery. And since you have 
 been in Switzerland our knobs may not mean 
 very much to you. There is the cascade, of 
 course, and Rock City, a place of local celeb- 
 rity two miles away. Besides these things I 
 am afraid there is nothing. You've already 
 been to Mill Springs, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Morrow just now appeared in the twi- 
 light region between the silvered beeches and 
 the surrounding circle of outer darkness, call- 
 ing, " Have you my fan, Lucy ? I am breath- 
 less, quite breathless with the heat in-doors. 
 What is that ? Mill Springs ? I suppose Lucy
 
 62 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 is telling you of the pretty places hereabouts ? 
 Dear child, she is so fond of Streamlet ! And 
 yet Lucy has seen considerable of the world. 
 She visits in the Blue Grass, you know, and she 
 spent last summer at White Sulphur. I sup- 
 pose she has told you about Eock City ? Lucy, 
 we must take Mr. Dillon to see Rock City. 
 To-morrow is Sunday. Should you like to walk 
 out with us to-morrow afternoon ? Very well, 
 then. And oh, by -the -bye, Mr. Dillon, it 
 would be very kind in you to ask Alexa to 
 dance with you to-night. Poor Alexa ! She 
 is looking so sweet, and she is almost at the 
 point of tears because she is longing to dance 
 and yet can't make up her mind to ' mix in/ as 
 she says." 
 
 They went to the house together, and Dillon, 
 in accordance with Mrs. Morrow's suggestion, 
 stopped to speak to Alexa. She was sitting 
 among the hill folk, trying to find in this posi- 
 tion a consolation for the more active pleasures 
 which she desired. Her face had a purplish 
 flush, and her foot patted the floor as she 
 watched the dancers. When Dillon paused 
 before her and made his plea, a light broke 
 from her discontented eyes, and she rose, smil- 
 ing with open pleasure. Alexa danced surpris- 
 ingly well, and Dillon, taking her back at length 
 to the hill folk's corner, made some flattering
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 63 
 
 comment, which gave her a pang of joyous 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " How good of you to pay Alexa that little 
 attention/' murmured Mrs. Morrow to the 
 young man as he leaned over her chair. 
 
 The Major cleared his throat, remarking, in 
 his formal fashion : " Not altogether a sacrifi- 
 cial proceeding; Alexa is grown to be a fine 
 girl." He added, "If you are quite ready, my 
 dear, perhaps we had better go." 
 
 Dillon in accompanying the Morrows through 
 the crowded office, where unknown faces thick- 
 ened and unfamiliar voices rang in a waxing 
 clamor, was aware of something like a sense 
 of unaccountable intimacy with the Major's 
 family. In the general strangeness of things 
 his acquaintance with Lucy and her mother 
 had become a matter of relatively long stand- 
 ing; the Major's military back was already 
 a matter of which Dillon's eye took note with 
 an habituated glance ; Mrs. Morrow's plump, 
 tilted chin, and Lucy's brown-and-gray eyes, 
 abstracted and serene, affected him in an oddly 
 accustomed way. 
 
 "You're not going to forget about to- 
 morrow ?" inquired Dillon, as Mrs. Morrow's 
 skirts fluttered down the hotel steps. 
 
 "Of course we shall not," Lucy assured 
 him, looking back. Behind her a single young
 
 64 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 maple, struck with a tongue of lamplight, rose 
 in the purple gloom like a feather of white. 
 The steps, too, shone whitely in the spreading 
 beams of the doorway, and Lucy, descending 
 them, seemed as if vanishing into the bloom and 
 wonder of a visionary world. The rising wind 
 swept her voice away indeterminately, and 
 Dillon, standing by himself, watching the moon 
 roll its amber wheel above the craggy height 
 beyond, had a feeling of illusion. Something 
 vital seemed to him to be stirring again in his 
 being. " It's the air," he said, smiling with a 
 little contempt. "But I don't care much 
 what it is so it gives me a kind of hope that 
 there may really be a to-morrow for me."
 
 VI 
 
 THEEE was a Sabbath calm upon the valley. 
 All the mill saws were silent ; the rivers, low in 
 their beds, tracked the bottoms with a milky 
 trail ; the store porches were empty, the sta- 
 tion platform occupied by only a lounger or 
 two of so thoroughly established habits as Hal- 
 ifax Burns, muttering in his wild, white beard, 
 and setting a drunken stare upon those who 
 fared by on their way to church. 
 
 The bell was ringing in a coercive, business- 
 like way, as if it realized the importance of its 
 function. The preacher had already gone down 
 the hill road, and other moving figures dotted 
 the rocky slope at intervals and scattered the 
 fennel-fringed ways of the village. 
 
 Lucy, coming along the cliff's brow with a 
 hymn-book in her hand, noticed the dry, pow- 
 dery effect of the smoke whiffing from a cot- 
 tage roof on the sphinx knoll's slope. Two 
 women advanced in the little garden-path be- 
 fore it, stiff in Sabbath prints; they shut the
 
 66 BOUHD IN SHALLOWS 
 
 small gate with a perfunctory sort of modera- 
 tion, as if the rigor of the day affected their 
 movements. On the South Fork certain shad- 
 ows, black as pitch, spread themselves thickly. 
 The Cumberland's broad, sunny reach leaped 
 along shore in a dazzle of delicate green as the 
 leafage of the farther bank stirred with a little 
 wind. In the deep dead water at the meeting 
 of the rivers a small boat skimmed along slow- 
 ly ; it resembled a darkly colored fish with the 
 effect of silvery fins, lent it by the oarsman's 
 white shirt-sleeve and the reflection of this in 
 the stilled currents. Through the grasses at 
 Lucy's feet a yellow butterfly rioted in a reck- 
 less, devil-may-care way, as if determined upon 
 seizing its hour. And as Lucy laughed to her- 
 self over the profligate intimations of the little 
 creature wastefully winnowing its floury wings 
 in the June herbage, Taliaferro rode over the 
 railway on his roan mare. 
 
 "Well," he said, drawing up, "I've a ten 
 miles' ride in prospect. Yes ; one of the Cur- 
 rey boys has broken his leg. Worse luck ! I 
 was going to walk with you all this afternoon. 
 Now I can't." 
 
 "But you'll have a chance to try your new 
 splinter," Lucy reminded him. "I thought 
 you were anxious to see how it works ?" 
 
 "Oh, I am!" muttered the doctor; "but
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 67 
 
 another day would have done. Why any sane 
 being should elect to break his leg on Sunday 
 morning " 
 
 " What an unreasonable person you are ! 
 As for walking with us why, you've seen Eock 
 City any number of times." 
 
 "Oh, of course I've seen it as far as that 
 goes." 
 
 "And you've never seemed to care much 
 about it. I remember being surprised, when 
 we were last there, that you should be so in- 
 different to the view. It's really lovely, you 
 know ; but you hardly noticed it." 
 
 Taliaferro drew a quick breath. There on 
 the hill's brow she stood in her broad white 
 hat, holding the hymn-book in her hands, re- 
 garding him with a look in which mild sur- 
 prise and accusation were blended. "You 
 have no aesthetic perception, you know," she 
 seemed to be reminding him "really none in 
 the world." 
 
 "Lucy," said Taliaferro, a little huskily, "I 
 don't think I am altogether indifferent to the 
 beauty of things. But there are times in a 
 man's life when scenery doesn't quite seem to 
 round the sum of existence. When his whole 
 mind is engrossed " He began to falter. 
 
 Lucy had her widening eyes upon him, and 
 suddenly, with an air of enlightenment, she
 
 68 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 cried out : " How dull I am ! Do forgive me 
 for forgetting how you are occupied with work 
 and study and important things. I ought to 
 be ashamed and I am to expect a man of 
 affairs to But you forgive me, don't you ?" 
 She looked past him, adding : " Why, the bell 
 has stopped ringing ! I am late." And with 
 a word of hasty farewell she went on down the 
 road. 
 
 Dillon, who was reading a day-old newspaper 
 under the beeches, saw her figure hurrying 
 along, and a momentary feeling of regret came 
 upon him in remembering that he had definitely 
 declined, a moment before, Alexa's invitation 
 to attend the morning service. 
 
 " You better come on," Alexa had said ; 
 "we got a splendid preacher. And you're so 
 fond of music you'd like to hear the school- 
 master's wife play the organ. We give her a 
 dollar a Sunday. She's great. I'd like to be as 
 strong in the wrists as her. Better come on !" 
 
 But Dillon had not risen from his tilted 
 chair, though he tempered his refusal with a 
 few words of a nature as light and bantering as 
 Alexa's coquettish manner seemed to demand. 
 Certainly Alexa's dark eyes were beautiful. It 
 was rather a pity, Dillon idly felt, that she 
 should be always filtering their deep rays 
 through demurely lowered lashes. They were
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 69 
 
 infinitely impressive those sombre eyes of 
 Alexa's when, in a forgetful moment, she let 
 the transcendant repose of vacuity engulf them. 
 
 Such moments were, however, not common 
 to Alexa except in the retirement of the family- 
 room ; and Dillon, finding her always gay and 
 often wearisome by reason of these arch humors, 
 was not particularly pleased when, upon com- 
 ing down-stairs towards the middle of the after- 
 noon, he perceived her on the porch, curled 
 and beribboned, and with an expectant restless- 
 ness of gaze under her hat. Alexa substanti- 
 ated his fears by rising and saying, "Maybe 
 we just as well walk on up and meet them." 
 And as Dillon silently nibbled at his mustache 
 she added, " Mrs. Morrow said we better walk 
 up and meet them in case we were ready first." 
 
 "Very well," Dillon said, resigning himself 
 to this arrangement. But as he paced along 
 with Alexa he cropped with his stick the heads 
 from all the grasses by the road. Presently 
 Mrs. Morrow and Lucy came in sight, and as 
 Mrs. Morrow pushed ahead with Alexa in some 
 discussion of ferneries, Dillon found himself in 
 Lucy's company, and recovered his temper. 
 
 The way led behind the hotel in a deeply 
 shaded road which went in a broad curve about 
 the high knoll where the village buryiug-ground 
 massed its wood crosses and picket-fences and
 
 70 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 sparse firs. Beyond this were groves of yonng 
 trees and thickets of ragged brush, growing all 
 at haphazard, and interspersed with many 
 shaling blocks of limestone which, in their 
 slanting grayness, resembled forgotten tombs, 
 written over in mournful lichens and based in 
 topping weeds. About the grassy headlands 
 green hills rolled softly, scalloping the farther 
 sky in dim purples. Near by a gray old hut or 
 so sped a clapboarded roof from the uncertain 
 path, and the sharp angularities of a snake- 
 fence, dusted in the lower bars with the light 
 gold of wild madder, zigzagged the blurring 
 mixture of flawless skies and fresh fields. 
 
 Continually the footway, creeping among 
 the loose stones, rose and narrowed, sprinkled 
 everywhere with horsemint in hop-like violet 
 balls, and with Solomon 's-seal in soft amberish 
 tufts. A faint wind drifted eastward ; the 
 summer sky seemed nearer ; a sound of water 
 rose, and just ahead, cleanly parapeting the 
 unflecked blueness, a gathering of great rocks 
 struck along the view, mossed with green and 
 gray, thickly shaded, set in straight rows with 
 an architectural sort of precision, like ancient 
 blocks of masonry allotted in streets and cross- 
 streets. 
 
 This world - old town of some elemental 
 chance had its thready paths padded in cush-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 71 
 
 iony layers of brown autumnal leaf. Through 
 the dim, mysterious ways the faint highland 
 winds breathed sad and strange, and over every- 
 thing the changing branches of many forest 
 trees wavered, setting pale shadows afoot in 
 the silent avenues and lending to the wood- 
 land stillness the sorrowful lisping of their 
 topmost leaves. A little aside from the spec- 
 tral paths of the thronging rocks a great soli- 
 tary block leaned from the perpendicular, pois- 
 ing itself airily on the edge of the bluff. A 
 step or two, with a foot-cloth of starry moss, in- 
 cised the stony pile, and, mounting these, Lucy 
 pointed out far below at the base of the high 
 cliff the green waters of the Cumberland. 
 
 "We're a mile or so above the head of navi- 
 gation," she said, while from beneath the moan 
 of the shoals came in a lamentable sound. 
 From cliff to cliff the rocky bed had whipped 
 the thin glaze of emerald into feathery rings, 
 which covered the whole stream with their 
 evanescent whiteness. At the bend of the 
 current a rude fish-trap jutted from the water, 
 and over it, careening in slow, ominous flights, 
 a huge buzzard flashed red gleams from its 
 dingy wings. 
 
 Lucy was adjusting a pair of field-glasses to 
 the distant summits, and Mrs. Morrow's voice 
 sounded from some leafy solitude beyond the
 
 72 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 path, where, in damp, lurking places, she 
 searched for ferns. " Alexa," she called, "here 
 is a clump of maiden -hair. You can carry 
 several roots in a handkerchief if you think 
 your mother needs a few more plants." Alexa 
 sprang from the tilting rock to join her, and 
 Dillon, who had doubled himself up near the 
 verge, felt the enchantment of the place en- 
 hanced by her departure. 
 
 The inherent melancholy of his nature lux- 
 uriated in the lonely murmurs of the water, 
 the notes of a distant bird, and the sighing of 
 the summer trees sounds which seemed in 
 subtle harmony with the aged ashen hue of 
 the rocks, the sinuous purple of the hills, and 
 the dreary glitter of the river far beyond the 
 shoals. Lucy laid down the glasses, drawing a 
 long breath, which reached Dillon remotely. 
 
 "How lonely it is!" she said. "Half its 
 beauty is in that. Oh, look, he has pounced 
 on a fish ! Poor little thing !" as the buzzard 
 descended on the trap and rose weighted with 
 a slim, silvery, flapping thing which beaded the 
 air below it with crystal drops. Dillon took 
 up the glasses. 
 
 "I have a bitter sense of personal griev- 
 ance," he said. " I suppose he was born to be 
 eaten that catfish. But he's such a little 
 fellow, and the buzzard did the thing so fero-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 73 
 
 cionsly, that somehow one resents the business. 
 There! the brute has reached the bosom of his 
 family. Can you see him lighting on the crag 
 to the left ? No, no this way, near where 
 that oak sapling springs from a crack in the 
 cliff." He laughed as he looked at the tree 
 over the buzzard's eyrie. "A beautiful simile, 
 though somewhat overdone, of the effect of 
 charity upon the stony bosom of the repro- 
 bate ! A cleft, a seed, then the full-leafed tree ! 
 I wonder how many million times that met- 
 aphor has figured in pious discourses ? It's a 
 sister to the simile of the jagged rock which 
 falls into a stream and threatens to stop its 
 course forever, till the current, doubling about 
 it, pursues its way with added force, and clothes 
 the stone in such verdure that the mean ob- 
 stacle becomes its greatest beauty." There 
 was a mocking tone in his voice, and as he 
 spoke he tore up a scrap of moss and cast 
 abroad the crimpled fibres with a careless hand. 
 " Most of the world's poetic enthusiasm con- 
 cerns the unregenerate soul," he smiled, "from 
 'Paradise Lost' to the * Idyls of the King.' 
 Where would literature be if it were not for the 
 fall of man ? It wouldn't be at all, probably. 
 Since we are being taught that it's a kind of 
 disease anyway a morbid secretion its cate- 
 gory is likely that of the other ills which the
 
 74 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 credulous first pair brought on us. Do I read 
 much ? Oh yes, a man's got to read. The lit- 
 erary habit is like the opium habit; a man 
 knows that he's in an impossible world floating 
 in an ether which doesn't pretend to touch 
 actual ground, but once he's begun to lend 
 himself to these fictions it isn't easy to leave 
 off/' 
 
 "You don't read the right sort of books, 
 perhaps," said Lucy, reasonably. 
 
 " What should I read ?" 
 
 She laughed. " You can get an edifying list 
 almost anywhere. I shouldn't like to commit 
 myself. But before we started out this after- 
 noon I was reading a story oh, it was only a 
 story of Bret Harte's. I don't know whether 
 it is edifying or not, but I know it was inter- 
 esting. There are a number of Western stories 
 in the book ; it isn't a new book at all. I liked 
 them because they are hopeful stories, and show 
 how, deep down in the hearts of criminals, 
 gamblers, and outcasts generally there are in- 
 destructible germs of good. Nothing, I think, 
 is so surprisingly pleasant as to watch these 
 kindly impulses creeping out in bad lives, and 
 making men who haven't been good men will- 
 ing to sacrifice themselves in some poor creat- 
 ure's behalf, or to suffer all sorts of hardships 
 in order to give a child pleasure."
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 75 
 
 " It would be surprisingly pleasant to see 
 them, as well as to read about them. But even 
 to read about them must be encouraging. Will 
 you lend me your book? I should like to be 
 encouraged and cheered up " He said this 
 lightly, but Lucy saw that his face was grave. 
 Won by the seriousness with which she lis- 
 tened, Dillon spoke of his lonely childhood, his 
 mother's death, and his uncle's indulgent love. 
 There was little in his life, he said, which he 
 cared to dwell on. His youth had led to a 
 manhood without hope or ambition. " But," 
 he cried, interrupting the broken narrative, 
 " I shouldn't ramble on like this ! Idle regrets 
 are rather poor stuff to ask one's friends to 
 listen to." 
 
 '''Are your regrets idle ?" asked Lucy, trying 
 to banish the impression of some dreaming 
 impotence of character in him which, as he 
 talked, had been stealing into her mind. Per- 
 haps it was his voice, saddening and lapsing 
 from time to time, that had occasioned this 
 idea. Lucy had not time to hunt down her 
 fugitive perception, and she reproached her- 
 self for having entertained it. 
 
 " I wish I could believe that they were any- 
 thing else," said Dillon. 
 
 '"He that lacks time to mourn,'" quoted 
 Lucy, snapping the lid of the leather case in
 
 76 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 which she had replaced the field-glasses, 
 " ' lacks time to mend/ " And she added, with 
 a practical air, " But it's probably better not 
 to spend a great deal of time in being sorry 
 about what can't be undone. It is more im- 
 portant, perhaps, to do something worth being 
 glad about." 
 
 " If one can," put in Dillon. 
 
 " If one can ?" repeated Lucy, in smiling 
 wonder. Dillon's lips trembled in their slight 
 wisp of yellowish beard. How implicitly she 
 believed in the radical goodness of every hu- 
 man heart and the invincible power of every 
 human will ! How amused she looked that he 
 should question these things ! How clear her 
 gaze was, how blessedly fallacious her young 
 wisdom ! 
 
 Alexa's voice rose close by in one of the 
 streets of the tenantless town. There was the 
 rustle of footsteps in the dry leaves, and then 
 a silence. 
 
 " How long you have been, Alexa !" said 
 Lucy, turning ; and as she turned she grew 
 white and uttered a little stifled cry and fell 
 back. Dillon, following her glance, rose sud- 
 denly with a suppressed word. In the middle 
 of the shadowy space behind them Alexa was 
 standing perfectly still, as if in a stupor of 
 fear z with ashen cheeks and wide eyes and an
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 77 
 
 outstretched, motionless hand ; and in the 
 brown leaves before her Dillon and Lucy saw 
 the glimmer of something that was like a jew- 
 elled ribbon, slender and bright, but coiling in 
 a suggestion of deadly life.
 
 VII 
 
 IN the dimness of growing night the outlook 
 from the hotel had an impalpable delicacy. 
 Overhead a thought of blue still lingered, 
 though a few stars, mere flecks of uncertain 
 silver, shook vague and far in the darkening 
 skies. A haze of dusty yellow settled mo- 
 mently behind the steep black cliffs ; and as 
 it sank the stars brightened and multiplied, 
 and half-way down the hill road a drug-store 
 window flung a sudden crimson through the 
 gloom which wrapped the town. 
 
 About the station were the usual evening 
 sounds : the clack of the telegraph instru- 
 ments, talk, laughter, the shuffling of feet, 
 the creak of the signal as a distant whistle 
 blew, and finally the noise of a freight - train 
 puffing up the swag, and fanning out upon 
 the tracks great white triangles from its elec- 
 tric headlight. This moving, milky radiance 
 reached clean to the hotel porch, casting a 
 strange pallor over the men who sat there, and
 
 BOUND IK SHALLOWS 79 
 
 passing swiftly on to twist fantastic, glittering 
 scarfs through the big beech boles beyond. 
 
 " Something new, ain't it ?" asked a voice. 
 There was an affirmation which was almost lost 
 in the triumphant outburst of a party of men 
 engaged at cards within the office. 
 
 " You weren't persuaded to join the game ?" 
 asked Taliaferro of Dillon, with whom he sat 
 apart from the others. 
 
 " Hardly," signified Dillon, loosening the ash 
 from his cigar; "not when the game is cinch." 
 
 As he spoke a stalwart figure bunched its 
 outlines in the doorway, sending a conically 
 hatted shadow over the porch. It was Bohun, 
 and he peered through the shadows, saying, 
 "'s Mr. Dillon about ?" Bohun had his pipe 
 in his mouth, but he did not seem to be smok- 
 ing, and the light from the window picked out 
 a rather uncommon expression in such parts of 
 his face as his broad beard left free. 
 
 "Why, say," he began, approaching Dillon's 
 corner of the piazza, " I just now heard about 
 what you done this afternoon. Alexy and Mis' 
 Bohun they're so weepy you can skercely git 
 any sense outn 'em. Took me some time to 
 find out that they had theirselves worked up 
 over your killin' a copperhead out yender in 
 the rocks. Seems it was a-coilin' to strike 
 when you hit it a lick. Alexy sticks to it that
 
 80 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 she'd be a goner by now if you hadn't been so 
 quick on your feet. She says the way the cop- 
 per oozed from the thing's mouth was a sight 
 to raise a body's flesh ! Lord, I just says to 
 'em both, says I, ' Nobody has any business pro- 
 jectin' round these knobs without a flask ! If 
 there's any time/ says I, ' when a mouthful of 
 good rye '11 out-marshal prayers fifty cents to a 
 brass nickle it's when a snake sticks ye ! 
 'Twon't do to depend on a angel comin' down 
 special/ says I ; ' the force may be off duty or 
 detailed som'ers else. You want liquor and 
 you want it quick.' I tell y'all, that close call 
 of Alexy's has made me kind of creepy. Fools 
 gyrls is ! starin' at the sky and walkin' straight 
 into bottomless pits ! Lord, I tell ye !" He 
 dashed the damp from his brow rather ex- 
 citedly. 
 
 " Oh, the thing was not very near her," ex- 
 claimed Dillon. "He was probably more scared 
 than she, poor little reptile ! He was beauti- 
 fully streaked and spotted." 
 
 Mr. Bohun nodded twice. " The good looks 
 of a sarpint '11 never turn my head," he speci- 
 fied. " And ugly or pretty, I ain't f orgettin' 
 that you cracked his backbone. No, sir, I am 
 not. We've only got the one, Mis' Bohun and 
 me. We'd be plumb destracted if anything 
 was to happen Alexy."
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 81 
 
 Dillon rose, stretching his arms. "It was 
 only a worm, Bohun," he repeated. "I hated 
 to kill him. I haven't the usual prejudice 
 against his kind. Doctor, are you going down 
 the hill ? I should like you to give me some 
 sulphonal or something. I sleep wretchedly." 
 
 Taliaferro had developed a very friendly 
 sentiment for Dillon during the evenings which 
 they spent together about the hotel. Dillon's 
 comments upon them gave new color to the 
 familiar sights and sounds of the commonplace 
 life of the town, and, though he spoke of every- 
 thing with a sort of bottomless cynicism, there 
 was always in his voice a sympathetic quality 
 which won upon the doctor. Taliaferro, hav- 
 ing a singularly straightforward habit of mind, 
 was accustomed to judge men in a large, gen- 
 eral way, by their prominent characteristics; 
 in Dillon's case characteristics of a contra- 
 dictory nature seemed equally prominent, and 
 Taliaferro's efforts to establish a logical opin- 
 ion regarding the other were somewhat per- 
 plexing. 
 
 They walked down the dark hill road and sat 
 talking in the little hemlock office until a 
 countryman, with his arm in a sling, came to 
 claim the doctor's attention. Dillon, returning 
 alone to the hotel, found two or three men still 
 on the porch, while from the little-used parlor
 
 82 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 above the office the sounds of an exceedingly 
 flat piano floated in a strain appropriate to the 
 day. On his way through the upper hall Dillon 
 had often glanced into the hotel parlor. Some- 
 times a country bride sat blushing in the broken 
 sofa-arm, regarding with blissful glances a 
 heavy-handed) equally embarrassed young man, 
 who, at the rumor of a footstep in the hall, 
 usually began to pound out a tuneless refrain 
 on the aged piano. Generally, however, the 
 room was empty* yet with an air of by-gone 
 social hours in the threadbare paths of gray 
 which wandered through the Brussels carpet 
 and spread in pools before the rickety arm- 
 chairs and uncertain settee. There was a large 
 stove, with an apoplectic purple lustre on its 
 sheet-iron front, which also suggested a possi- 
 bility of past fires, though now the pipe was 
 gone, and only a black, soot-dabbled hole in the 
 once gilt-papered wall remained to show where 
 it had been. Over the high picture of some 
 Kentucky statesman with an aquiline profile 
 and a stock - bandaged neck the evergreen 
 branches of a long-forgotten holiday stretched 
 bare brown twigs, in which silky strands of web 
 hung and the remains of flies wound in white 
 cocoons. Skeletons of what had been mistle- 
 toe-boughs lifted a russet furze about the chan- 
 delier, which had still one glass globe left to
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 83 
 
 show how splendid it had been in the days 
 when the piano before the long windows was 
 new, with a case less scratched up than at pres- 
 ent, and without the present strange disposi- 
 tion of its yellow keys to stand erect, like the 
 tusks of an irate boar. 
 
 The great sliding-doors were always open, 
 and to-night as Dillon passed the parlor he saw 
 Alexa sitting on the toppling piano-stool, run- 
 ning her hands along the keys. At his step 
 she turned and got up rather quickly. She was 
 for once not in the least gay, as he observed, 
 but with a paleness in her cheeks that made 
 them look almost hollow, and with a grave 
 shadow in her eyes that befitted their darkness 
 and heavy brows. 
 
 " I never told you I never thanked you 
 this afternoon, you know," she stammered. 
 " I was so scared I couldn't. But I've thought 
 lots about it since, and yet seems as if I don't 
 know just what to say. Where would I be now 
 but for you ?" She lifted her head slowly, 
 tragically. "Where would I be now ?" 
 
 Dillon burst into a laugh. He laid hold of a 
 chair, and was about to seat himself when 
 Alexa, in a deep voice, said, solemnly, "Not 
 that. The back legs always stretch out and 
 give way when any one sits in it." 
 
 Dillon, avoiding this disaster, took the piano-
 
 84 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 stool. " If you mention this thing to me again/' 
 he smiled, "1 shall have to go and board down 
 in the flats with the loggers. Fm not sure it 
 wouldn't be a good idea, anyway. Two dollars 
 and ten cents a week is what Mrs. Meakin asks. 
 A fellow could lay something by for that grisly 
 phantom of a rainy day to which prudent peo- 
 ple are always sacrificing their fine weather/' 
 
 "I'd pity any one had to eat after Mis' 
 Meakin," remarked Alexa, easily turned from 
 herself. " She makes the meanest light bread 
 I ever put to my mouth." 
 
 "Of course Fd be miserable," admitted 
 Dillon, pulling out his mustache. There was 
 a whimsical gleam in his eyes, and the lines of 
 his face looked vague. "But, then, one is 
 usually miserable in this badly adjusted world. 
 A little poor pie-crust, more or less what 
 does it matter ?" 
 
 "It makes a heap of difference when you 
 got to digest it," said Alexa. " But, say ! why, 
 I won't speak of of that other matter if you 
 don't like me to. Only," she gave a half -sob of 
 fearful remembrance, "I Avant you should know 
 that I'm grateful." 
 
 Dillon twirled the crazy piano-stool in rising. 
 Alexa's profound eyes were lifted to him in a 
 gaze of mournful intensity, and as he took her 
 hand in a pressure of farewell, he said, gently,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 86 
 
 " Don't be grateful, Alexa. That is my own 
 privilege, if indeed I have been able to serve 
 you in any way." Bowing over her cold, brown 
 fingers with a kind of half-mocking courtesy, 
 he brushed them lightly with his mustache, 
 and resigned them and went on to his room. 
 
 " I always said Mr. Dillon 'd be heaps of com- 
 pany for you, Elex," said Mrs. Bohun, one 
 evening later on. " I don't reckon Beau Mc- 
 Beath '11 ever hear the drum beat eh, Elex ? 
 Beau's good-hearted. I ain't lisping a word 
 agin him ; your paw sets store by Beau, seein' 
 he's a Mason and all. Your paw 'lows it looks 
 well to be a Mason. Seems that they all brother 
 each other along like, and have to believe in a 
 God, and know how to write their own names. 
 So 't when a man's a Mason, why, you know he's 
 pious and high eddicated, and sure of a boost 
 when he needs a boost. Your paw says that 
 for himse'f he don't ask no boost off of nobody. 
 He says he'd scorn for to wear a three-cornered 
 charm unto his watch-chain and have to go 
 'long the street winkin' and blinkin' at every 
 stranger he met, a-trying to find out who was 
 feller-Masons and who wasn't. You know they 
 got a way of shaking hands that tells 'em who's 
 who take up one finger and drop two, or some 
 such thing. No, your paw can hoe his own 
 row, but he says he don't blame Beau for git-
 
 86 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 tin' ahead any honest way he can. D'law, hear 
 me taking up for Bean x like he had any chance 
 these days !" 
 
 Alexa blushed. "Ma," she expostulated, 
 "how you go on ! Just because Mr. Dillon 
 gets me to play him college glees now and 
 again." 
 
 Mrs. Bohun's conciliatory smile became in- 
 fused with penetration. " I can see through 
 a ladder when the rungs ain't too close to- 
 gether," she pointed out. "All is, Elex, I 
 hope you won't marry no one that '11 carry you 
 out of Pulaski County. One reason I always 
 said I could enjure it if you and Doctor Talia- 
 ferro fixed things up was account of him seem- 
 ing to feel settled here." 
 
 Alexa gave a cry of exasperation. "The 
 doctor ? Ma, you kill me ! Why, he don't 
 know there's another gyrl living besides Lucy 
 Morrow." 
 
 Mrs. Bohun was not disconcerted at this. 
 "That's all right," she announced. "You're 
 a might sight handsomer than Lucy Morrow. 
 As fur as him seeming taken with her goes, 
 you never know, Elex, what a man's turning 
 in his head. Men are deep-witted creatures, 
 Elex. I wouldn't wonder if doctor was battin' 
 his eyes towards Lucy Morrow just to hide his 
 real feelin's for some one else," triumphantly
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 87 
 
 pursued Mrs. Bohun, who read the books which 
 the drummers bought on trains and left behind 
 at the hotel. 
 
 " Fiddlestrings !" said Alexa, who read no 
 books and had an unimpaired rationality. 
 
 " I know a thing or two, Elex. Mebby you'll 
 ask me to believe Mr. Dillon's eyes are walling 
 uphill too ?" 
 
 Alexa's brow clouded. "Well, he goes to 
 the Morrows pretty frequent," she insisted. 
 
 " He's got to put in his time," Mrs. Bohun 
 explained. "You ain't always about, Elex. 
 If you was, he'd wear out no shoe-leather climb- 
 ing the upper road." 
 
 The trees had thickened with the fulness 
 of July, and the village lay submerged in a sea 
 of leaf, revealing only in infrequent glimpses 
 a cottage chimney and slanting roof ragged in 
 branching shadows. The rivers cringed before 
 the midsummer drouth. Their currents now 
 were little more than jelly-like films of olive 
 spread upon the stony beds. In the richness 
 of its overhanging foliage the waters of the 
 South Fork seemed along shore to ooze with 
 green paint ; and relieved against the deepen- 
 ing tones of earth and sky the shoals resem- 
 bled a low white net stretched from bank to 
 bank. 
 
 One night as Dillon came out-doors after
 
 88 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 supper he pansed in an inspection of the rosy 
 west, upon which, as upon a spread fan of 
 gauze, every smallest sprig of the trees along 
 the bluff was lacquered in dense black. The 
 windows of the station repeated the faint ver- 
 milion. Its overhanging roof laced the red 
 sky with the row of bias beams below its eaves, 
 and behind it a whirl of smoke rose from the 
 pile of brush which a throng of boys were burn- 
 ing there. As Dillon stood on the hotel thresh- 
 old nightfall darkened, and a light or two 
 crept out in the bottoms, and a half-moon 
 thrust a bunch of silver splinters through the 
 lacy gloom of the beeches. He caught, from 
 somewhere in the valley, the snapping of a 
 banjo. Presently the thud of feet reached him 
 and the ring of a voice bawling forth the 
 changes of a rustic cotillon. 
 
 " A dance," said Dillon. There was no one 
 about the porch or office except a young man 
 with a Jewish face, who was unpacking an 
 iron-ribbed trunk under the water-cooler and 
 spreading upon a long table a stock of tapes 
 and notions. But as Dillon turned an eye 
 upon this person's operations Alexa appeared 
 in the door of the family-room, a maze of frills. 
 
 "Alone?" said she. 
 
 "Persecuting time with hope," remarked 
 Dillon, who had the habit of adapting other
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 89 
 
 people's phrases to his own necessities. " What 
 is that man stringing out those braids and but- 
 tons for ?" 
 
 " He's a drummer," said Alexa. " When 
 he gets his things spread out he'll go and fetch 
 up a store-keeper to see them. They all show 
 their stocks in our office. The music's begun, 
 hasn't it ? There's a dance to-night down at 
 Buck Sherrer's. I thought some of going 
 down to look on. Doctor Taliaferro's going 
 to bring Miss Morrow down, he said. I told 
 ma if Lucy Morrow could look on, it wouldn't 
 hurt me to look on." 
 
 Taliaferro was, in point of fact, at that mo- 
 ment calling Lucy's attention to the broken 
 strains drifting over the cliff. They were sit- 
 ting on the lawn, over which a belated breath 
 of wind began to stir, the Major immovable 
 in his arm-chair, Corinne sleeping in her moth- 
 er's lap, Lucy on a bench below the trees, a 
 slightly denned figure whose skirts the moon- 
 light whitened, and whose head was garlanded 
 in leafy shadows. 
 
 " Won't you go down ?" asked Taliaferro. 
 
 " Isn't it rather warm ?" demurred Lucy. 
 "I've been to Somerset to-day, and I'm a little 
 tired." Then, as she caught the sudden disap- 
 pointment in his face, she added : " Sherrer's 
 is only half-way down the hill, after all. Wait
 
 90 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 till I get a scarf or something." She returned 
 in a moment with a fleecy knit thing on her 
 arm, and they went down the pebbled walk. 
 In the outer road she laid her hand confiden- 
 tially on his arm and asked, " Have you some- 
 thing to tell me ?" 
 
 Taliaferro's pulse quickened. They had 
 come to a clump of trees growing darkly mid- 
 way of the road, and as they passed through 
 the dusk spot he could feel Lucy drawing near- 
 er to him, in a sort of apprehension of some- 
 thing in the gloom. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I have." His heart had 
 lifted with her motion of reliance in him, and 
 when they came again into the moon-lighted 
 path, and he saw her face attentively raised to 
 him, a sudden impulse sprang into being in 
 his mind. "Yes," he repeated, "I want to 
 tell you something." 
 
 " If it's anything important," said Lucy, be- 
 ginning to cough with the smoke of the burn- 
 ing brush behind the station, "you'd better 
 wait till we're coming back. This smoke is 
 dreadful ; and those boys will certainly catch 
 fire, leaping as they are through the flames." 
 
 At the turn of the platform Buck Sherrer's 
 house, with an illuminator behind the oil lamp 
 on its porch, flashed in sight. A stone dyke 
 along the cottage front kept the road from
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 91 
 
 coming into Buck Sherrer's yard, which was 
 only a foot wide, and filled at present with the 
 legs of such villagers as had secured seats along 
 the stony fence. The twang of banjos filled 
 the air, and from the low -ceiled front room, 
 with its throng of bouncing figures, a pound- 
 ing of booted feet came steadily. The men, 
 big fellows in rough attire, with oily black 
 heads that came dangerously near the beams, 
 appeared to abandon themselves gayly to the 
 figures of the quadrille. The women had a 
 more serious aspect, advancing and retreating 
 with smileless lips and austere eyes. They 
 looked on, cold and critical, while a girl with 
 slim, stiff ankles executed a brisk but joyless 
 jig before her partner. There was a shout of 
 laughter from the men as this girl, corseted to 
 a wooden rigor, cast her pink gingham arms 
 behind her and eluded the outspread hands of 
 the sawyer's assistant, who had expected to 
 " swing " her in some change of the dance. 
 
 " Got the go-by that time, Higgins I" they 
 shouted. " Serve him right, Marcelly ! serve 
 him right I" 
 
 Lucy and Taliaferro, on the slope of the hill 
 across the way, joined in the laughter ; for the 
 sawyer's assistant enjoyed the name of being 
 irresistible. 
 
 In the door of a neighboring house Halifax
 
 92 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Burns sat with his head on his breast, and from 
 the broken fence-rail his wife, a peaked and 
 witch-like figure, observed the crowd. 
 
 "Doctor," she called, making out Taliafer- 
 ro's face, "my man's mighty porely to-night ! 
 And me, I ain't no way well, neither. Couldn't 
 you give us a few of them little brown pills ? 
 I never git no rest withouten 'em no more." 
 
 "You can't live on those pills, Mrs. Burns." 
 
 Mrs. Burns's face sank. "Law," she whim- 
 pered, " I ain't deserved no such fate as this, 
 raised like I was, a prayin' mother and all ! 
 She warned me how't 'd be. But marry Burns 
 I would and did, and I 'ain't knowed the name 
 of peace for thirty years. Drinkin' and ca- 
 rousin' it's been, year in and out ! Lord, if 
 I could git one of them little pills to " 
 
 " Oh, get her some," whispered Lucy. "How 
 can you be so hard on her ? Go, please go. Your 
 office is only a step away. I'll wait for you. 
 Here are Alexa and Mr. Dillon. I will talk 
 with them." 
 
 As Taliaferro emerged from the office with 
 a little vial in his hand he could see, above him 
 in the hill road, the flaring lights of the Sherrer 
 cottage, the throng of heads, the sheet of moon- 
 light beyond on the slope, and Lucy standing 
 where he had left her. There were others 
 about her, but Taliaferro did not see the oth-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 93 
 
 era. A strange exaltation was upon him. The 
 night was glorified with uncommon loveliness, 
 and the stars, shining high and far in the pale 
 heavens, spun and pulsed with power and prom- 
 ise. Somewhere across the South Fork an owl 
 uttered a plaintive, puppy -like wail. A bat 
 whisked past him, pencilling the air with swift 
 black. On the drawn curtain of a way-side 
 dwelling a woman's figure modelled itself in 
 faint gray as she bent to caress the child upon 
 her bosom. 
 
 Taliaf errors eyes misted hotly. Lucy's voice 
 drifted to him, and as he drew nearer to her 
 he could see how the rising breeze was lifting 
 the heavy light hair about her face. She was 
 talking with Dillon, and she did not appear 
 aware of Taliaferro's approach. He came so 
 near, indeed, unperceived of the two, that the 
 expression of both unconscious faces was plain- 
 ly disclosed to him, Dillon's fixed and serious 
 and questioning, Lucy's a little moved, a little 
 strange. 
 
 Taliaferro drew up with a sense as of thin 
 steel in his side. " God," he thought, " if it 
 should be he !"
 
 VIII 
 
 As he went up the road with Taliaferro and 
 Lucy and one or two others, Dillon was not 
 aware of any change in Alexa's manner. He 
 knew that she was somewhere behind ; he sup- 
 posed she was pleasing herself in the matter of 
 an escort. At the brow of the hill his compan- 
 ions left him, and as Alexa just then came in 
 sight Dillon opened the hotel gate for her and 
 sauntered beside her up the path. 
 
 Alexa made no effort at conversation. Her 
 face was moody, and she appeared careless of 
 the twigs and grasses catching at her skirts. 
 Once, as she stumbled, Dillon caught at her 
 arm ; but though Alexa, recovering herself, 
 moved away from him pettishly, he was quite 
 insensible of any shadow of anger in her, being 
 filled with rapt thoughts in which Alexa had 
 no part. Yet when they came into the lighted 
 office and he saw her discomposed face, a sort 
 of compunction thrilled him in remembering 
 that he had left her quite alone on the hill-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 95 
 
 side, while he fell into that brief but somehow 
 pregnant little talk with Lucy. He was about 
 to ask the girl to pardon his negject ; but 
 Alexa, without a word or a pause, crossed the 
 room and slammed the door behind her. 
 
 The matter disappeared with her from Dil- 
 lon's mind. Active affairs claimed his atten- 
 tion upon the following day, for Dunbar found 
 it necessary to send him into the South Fork 
 country upon some mission connected with in- 
 specting and branding a quantity of timber 
 that was ready to be put afloat with the first 
 water. For a week Dillon and an old logger 
 belonging to the mill spent their days on horse- 
 back in a wilderness of trackless wood and their 
 nights under the trees or in some mountaineer's 
 hut, with the stars shining on them through 
 the chinky roof. And as he lay awake, listen- 
 ing to the hooting of the owls and the mur- 
 mur of the river flowing sluggishly in its deep 
 banks hard by, no vagary of Alexa's disturbed 
 Dillon's visions of a gentler face. He pondered 
 upon his first dulness to Lucy's charm, reflect- 
 ing with wonder that his fancy should have 
 been so unimpressionable ; and remembering, 
 too, how little beyond a passive peace he had 
 expected to find in the valley hamlet which 
 was teaching him so much. For he began to 
 doubt if, after all, he had already drunk life to
 
 96 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 the full. It seemed now as if no vital cup had 
 ever touched his lips ; and in the freshness of 
 his emotions he longed for the rolling knobs, 
 the lowland fields, the meeting rivers, the great 
 beeches, and the lofty headlands where rose the 
 modest roofs of the hill folk, and where, hedged 
 in late and early roses, a pebbled path climbed 
 to the door of Lucy's dwelling. 
 
 When finally the inspecting and branding 
 were finished and he and his companion ad- 
 dressed themselves homeward, he found him- 
 self boyishly overcome in the prospect. The 
 shrilling of the saws and the whiffing of a 
 stave -bucker reached him from a distance in 
 an oddly satisfying strain, and there was even 
 a kind of melody in the snorting and fussing 
 of the little locomotive which belonged to the 
 valley branch. 
 
 It was on for dusk as he closed his room door, 
 after his arrangements for supper and the visit 
 which he had it in mind to make during the 
 evening. The halls were still unlighted, but 
 a soft twilight grayness, falling through the 
 parlor doors, enabled him to see a little way 
 ahead. A touch of yellow from the primrose 
 afterglow tinged this luminous outburst, and 
 as Dillon in passing the parlor glanced towards 
 the wide, shining windows at the dying gold of 
 the west, he saw darkly lined against one of
 
 BOUND EN SHALLOWS 97 
 
 them a woman's figure, poised in an attitude 
 of gloomy thought a figure which, as his step 
 shortened, turned with a startled air. 
 
 "It's only I," Dillon said, recognizing Alexa. 
 And as she continued to look at him in a 
 strange, disbelieving sort of way, he came 
 towards her, repeating his assurance. Alexa 
 murmured a word or two, with her eyes still 
 fastened upon his embrowned face. 
 
 " Is anything wrong ?" questioned Dillon, 
 beginning to be surprised at her muteness and 
 pallor. 
 
 Alexa suddenly covered her face. "No," she 
 breathed. 
 
 " I thought you seemed rather down," ex- 
 plained Dillon. 
 
 " It's nothing," repeated Alexa, in a stifled 
 way. " I hate it here, that's all. I hate it." 
 
 " Hate it ? Why, it's a beautiful place. Now 
 I why, I'm fonder of it than of any other 
 place in the world. I was never so anxious to 
 get back anywhere in my life." Alexa un- 
 covered her eyes, and Dillon noted their depths 
 and the purple light that faded on Alexa's hair. 
 "I know," he went on, "that you haven't 
 many interests. But you might have more, 
 Alexa. Preaching from me has rather a queer 
 sound, but I can't help thinking you might be 
 happier yourself if you were to try to make
 
 98 BOUND m SHALLOWS 
 
 some one else happy. Mr. McBeath, now. 
 If" 
 
 He left off, startled at the change in Alexa's 
 face. 
 
 "Him," she breathed, making a little mo- 
 tion as if she groped in the shadows for some 
 sensible support. "Do yon dare ... do you 
 dare ..." Her voice broke in a rush of tears. 
 
 " You poor child !" cried Dillon, with a dawn- 
 ing comprehension. He had drawn closer, and 
 he lifted Alexa's quivering chin and half smil- 
 ingly questioned the brimming eyes she tried 
 to cover. 
 
 "Tears?" he asked. Her throat fluttered 
 with an imprisoned sob. Dillon bent lower. 
 There was a shrill accent from the piano as he 
 did so, and suddenly drawing away he realized 
 that it was because he had given the keys a 
 stroke of his elbow in resting his lips for a pity- 
 ing instant upon Alexa's wet eyes. 
 
 " Oh, I've been so miserable !" sighed Alexa. 
 Her hand was on his sleeve, and she stroked 
 the stuff as if the very twill of it gave her com- 
 fort. " But you're home now ! And you were 
 truly glad to get back ? you were truly home- 
 sick ?" A delighted, tearful laugh broke from 
 her. " Sure 'nough homesick ? I've fixed your 
 room right pretty since you been gone. Did you 
 notice the splasher ? I worked it myself. Ma
 
 OH. I'VE BEEN SO MISEHAULK !'
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 99 
 
 and I put up the curtains, too. Did you notice 
 how well they hang ? And the rocking-chair 
 we thought you might care to rock awhile 
 evenings. Oh, it was such a comfort to feel I 
 was doing something for you ! I was miserable 
 because I had acted kind of pouty that night 
 down at Buck Sherrer's. I was hurt because 
 you left me so long by myself I'm such a fool ! 
 And then when you went up South Fork with- 
 out saying good-bye, I just thought I'd lose 
 my mind fearing you might be took for a 
 revenue officer and killed. Oh, Fve been pun- 
 ished for my hatefulness ! But it's all right, 
 isn't it? You called me Alexa just now. 
 It's all right, isn't it ?" 
 
 Dillon evaded her clinging hand. "All 
 right ? Of course, child. There's never been 
 anything wrong." 
 
 "How sweet and forgiving you are!" cried 
 Alexa, as Dillon, suddenly turning, strode across 
 the room. 
 
 " What an unspeakably foolish thing to do !" 
 muttered Dillon. And as he went to his old 
 seat on the porch a perpetually recurring sense 
 of dissatisfaction continued to oppress him. 
 He tried to shake it off, to enjoy the evening 
 quietude and regain the feeling of content 
 which had been his so little earlier in the day. 
 But countless annoyances seemed to pervade
 
 100 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 the atmosphere : an exasperating chorus of in- 
 sect noises filled the beeches, frogs were dole- 
 fully croaking, a dog barked at maddingly exact 
 intervals, and somewhere across the porch a 
 man was relating in tones of loud discontent a 
 grievance against the village blacksmith. 
 
 " Shoed me the worst job I ever see ! And 
 when I says to 'm, ' This mare's huffs ain't right, 
 Josh,' blame if he didn't face me down ! Yes, 
 sir. And me born, y' might say, with a bridle in 
 my hand. No, sir ; I got no more use for Josh. 
 I wouldn't kerry him a gourd of water if he 
 lay there in the ditch with his tongue hanging 
 out the len'th of my arm ! That's how I am." 
 
 Dillon got up, knocking his chair aside in a 
 fever of nervous irritation. Out in the dark 
 side-yard he strolled back and forth and watched 
 the switch-light glance along the tracks, plung- 
 ing arrows of scarlet into the dark bosom of 
 the night. The town was lost in shadows, and 
 as he paused and looked down upon the hol- 
 low, its pervasive gloom appeared a sort of visi- 
 ble expression of his own feelings. 
 
 "No," he said to himself, sharply, "I can't 
 go up there now !" And as Lucy's face, in its 
 soft grace of girlishness, crossed his mental 
 vision, he groaned and dropped his head. Yet, 
 presently, leaning there against the black beech 
 trunk, he began to question himself as to the
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 101 
 
 color of his offence. After all, what was it 
 this thing that tormented him so in the remem- 
 brance ? Nothing more than a little impulse 
 of sympathetic kindness, snch a compunctious 
 caress as one might give to a child whom one 
 has unwittingly hurt. "I am straining at 
 gnats," he muttered. "Heavens and earth! is 
 there to be no pretty courtesy in this world ? 
 Must a man go his way in perfectly stolid un- 
 concern, looking neither to the left nor right for 
 fear his dangerous smile shall set off the easy 
 tinder of some school - girl's heart? Have I 
 grown up in lilied cloisters that I should begin 
 to have painful scruples because I have tossed 
 a kiss to a village girl ?" And as he cast his 
 head backward in a little sound of amused 
 disgust with himself, it came upon him that, 
 in point of actual fact, his remorseful qualms 
 were a highly encouraging indication of some 
 very radical difference in him. They showed 
 what seemed to be a change in his attitude 
 towards life. A moral or spiritual fineness 
 which he had long believed lost forever was 
 developing itself, fresh and sensitive, under 
 the dropping, dry remnants of his old self. 
 That was it. 
 
 Things, after all, were not so bad. Perhaps 
 they were better, even, than he could precisely 
 comprehend. He would stroll up the hill,
 
 103 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 he decided, not to stop at the house with the 
 coppice of roses, not to see Lucy or hold any 
 converse with her, but simply to see the roof 
 that sheltered her slant darkly against the 
 starry stretch of upland sky, and catch a breath 
 of the flowers she tended, and perhaps to 
 glimpse the light in her window, the flutter of 
 the thin curtains behind which she combed out 
 her long, shining hair. He climbed the road be- 
 hind the station and passed the hill folk's houses. 
 The rush of the river doubling under the railway 
 bridge rose in stronger murmurs, and far out 
 behind the dwellings on the bluff a whippoor- 
 will uttered its gurgling call. Then a scent of 
 heavy roses wandered through the dew-weight- 
 ed darkness, and the pickets of the Morrows' 
 fence struck white upon the road-side shadows. 
 Some one, it appeared, was standing at the gate. 
 As Dillon advanced he saw that it was Lucy ; 
 while behind her in the vine - covered porch 
 was a pleasant sound of voices and a soft glow 
 of cheerful light. 
 
 " You are back, then ?" said Lucy, holding 
 out her hand. 
 
 She opened the gate ; and as she did this Dil- 
 lon hesitated. "I don't think I was coming in 
 to-night." 
 
 She seemed a little surprised. "Oh," she 
 murmured, "I thought "
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 103 
 
 "I wasn't coming in," said Dillon, slowly. 
 " I happened to get to thinking over some un- 
 pleasant things to-night, and it didn't seem to 
 me as if I would be justified in dragging my 
 shadows through your rose-garden. But some- 
 how those shadows don't appear to be so pon- 
 derous as they were a moment ago. I should 
 like to come in, if you'll let me. And to have a 
 flower, too." His voice rang out gayly over its 
 little undertone of sadness. Lucy laughed as 
 she broke off a green, thorny stem in the hedge ; 
 but her laugh also held a note of some emo- 
 tion that was not gayety.
 
 IX 
 
 WITH the advance of August hazes which 
 had all summer kept their distance, crouching 
 at the feet of the farther knobs, began stealth- 
 ily to approach the village, winding veils of 
 deep blue about the hills and blurring the fo- 
 liage in a rich obscurity. From the valley of 
 the South Fork a cloud as of blown indigo 
 seemed to hang in suspension. Trees lost their 
 greenness in it, and only the highest tufts of 
 leaf retained an emerald tone. The rivers were 
 at low ebb ; business was consequently dull, 
 though a hope of early fall " tides" began to 
 enliven the loggers' conversation, and a story of 
 a recent rain "up yender at New Kiver" was 
 going the rounds of the flats. 
 
 "Summer's on its last legs," announced 
 Mrs. Bohun, observing the date of the news- 
 paper she was reading. "D' know's I care 
 much. Though having fires makes work. 
 Good thing I never took down any of the 
 stoves ! They're where they belong, waiting to
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 105 
 
 be started tip when needed. Of course, they're 
 some rusted and the pipes is mostly choked 
 up ; but as sure as I was to have 'em cleaned 
 there'd be warm weather till New Year. Best 
 let things jog along. Paw, I see the paper 
 states they're prospectin' for ile over in 
 Wayne. Well, well ! it looks like folks is 
 naturally possessed to wear themse'ves out 
 hunting something to work with. I 'ain't not 
 a mite of patience with such doings." 
 
 " A party of strangers went over in the Mon- 
 ticello coach Wednesday was a week," said 
 Bohun. "I understood they was smellin' 
 round for ile. They'll likely stop here comin' 
 back, overnight anyway, for to get the train 
 north. Mebby you might as well name it to 
 Sa' Jane to put some water round in the pitch- 
 ers and a towel apiece in the rooms. They was 
 high-tone lookin' fellers, and I'd like 'em to 
 brag up the house." 
 
 A night or so afterwards, as Taliaf erro came 
 in, tired and dusty with a ten miles' ride, he 
 saw in the office an unusual gathering of well- 
 dressed men. The oil prospecting in Wayne 
 occurred to him in a kind of unification with 
 his sense of something familiar in the air of a 
 young man who stood leaning over the regis- 
 ter, and, advancing a little, he said, " Graves, 
 is this you ?" At which the other wheeled
 
 106 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 round with an exclamation and seized him in 
 a hearty grasp. 
 
 "Is it me? "Well, rather! Been asking 
 about you every five minutes since supper. 
 They said you'd gone to Dick's Jumps Jove ! 
 to Dick's Jumps to see an old lady who had 
 been 'took suddint.' I've been over in Wayne 
 with these fellows you see around. Looking 
 up oil, you know. Say, Nat, you're not looking 
 up to the mark. Climate ? Overwork ? No ? 
 What are you doing down here, anyhow ? How 
 about Paris, and Berlin, and transatlantic clin- 
 ics, and no man being old enough to practise 
 medicine till he's thirty odd, eh ? You haven't 
 lost your ambition, have you ? or your money ? 
 No ; I thought not. You weren't that style. 
 Now, me but I'm a model for the youth of the 
 land these days. Marriage is a wonderfully 
 settling thing. And there's the baby, you know. 
 A man feels different when he has a little fam- 
 ily. By-the-way, Nat, how's the pretty Miss 
 Morrow, who visited at Colonel Desha's two 
 summers ago ? Ah-ha ! lives here, eh ? M-m, 
 I begin to see. Let's get outside, where we 
 can smoke and recall old times when we were 
 school -boys down in Woodford. I've got a 
 tear in my eye, Nat. I was always a sentimen- 
 tal cuss." 
 
 As they put their feet on the rail of the
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 107 
 
 porch's beech - facing end Graves pursued : 
 " Say, Nat, how is this thing, anyhow ? Con- 
 gratulations in order ?" 
 
 " Fll tell you in time," laughed Taliaferro, 
 rather constrainedly. "At present, John, I 
 want to hear about the boy. I suppose he's 
 a good one ? Smart, eh ?" 
 
 " Smart ?" Graves's keen young face expand- 
 ed. He entered upon a lavish history of the 
 boy's six months of brilliant progress through 
 an appreciative world, only pausing an hour 
 later when the hotel gate banged to noisily 
 and footsteps sounded on the hotel steps. Ta- 
 liaferro, glancing round, saw that it was Dillon, 
 with his face set in an expression of abstraction 
 and serenity. Without doubt he had come 
 from the Morrows'. Indeed, he was always 
 now at the Morrows' of evenings, so it seemed 
 to Taliaferro, or, in these days of slack work, 
 rowing Lucy and Corinne upon the river, or 
 looking up rare ferns for Mrs. Morrow. 
 
 Taliaferro had come to understand very clear- 
 ly how matters addressed themselves. Slowly, 
 after that first instant of anguished apprehen- 
 sion, he had grown aware that his own part, so 
 far as regarded the dominating emotion of life, 
 was with the baffled many. Watching his hopes 
 blown frustrate, the young man had hours of 
 mental sickness and depression ; but as weeks
 
 108 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 passed and lie schooled himself to accept his 
 cup of hemlock in the spirit of a man, a kind 
 of fortitude came to him. He told himself 
 that, as between himself and Dillon, it was not 
 strange at all that Lucy should choose as she 
 seemed to be choosing. Dillon, with his mourn- 
 ful charm, his gentle ways, his confidences, his 
 illogical bitterness, which appeared to mask an 
 infinite tenderness for all poor souls in stress 
 Dillon appealed strongly to Taliaferro himself ; 
 that he should appeal also to Lucy was only in 
 the nature of things. The dead level of life 
 did not look particularly promising to Talia- 
 ferro, having caught a glimpse of dream -em- 
 purpled peaks, but he stayed himself with the 
 resolution to tread the flat ways in a sturdy 
 spirit, without the meanness of envy or the fu- 
 tility of regret. 
 
 Yet for all these intentions of fairness and 
 friendliness towards Dillon the doctor had a 
 pang at the sight of the tranquil joyousness 
 which shone in the young man's eyes as he 
 crossed the porch. Dillon himself seemed not 
 at all aware of the figures in the shadowy porch 
 end ; he stepped into the office, absent and 
 smiling a little. A door shut, and his vanish- 
 ing step rang from the bare staircase. 
 
 Graves settled back in his chair. The ashes 
 from his cigar dropped unheeded on his knee.
 
 BOUND IN SHADOWS 109 
 
 " So he's down here, is he ?" he said, in a mus- 
 ing tone. " I believe I had heard that he was 
 sequestering himself far from the madding 
 crowd." And he added, after a moment in 
 which he recalled himself to his cigar, "The 
 hound looked quite at peace with himself." 
 
 Taliaf erro's eyes narrowed. " That's a devil- 
 ish strong term to fling at a fellow, John ; you 
 must have a pretty heavy grievance " 
 
 "Grievance? Me? None in the world. The 
 only sentiment I have for Dillon is the plain, 
 simple sentiment of reprobation which a man 
 who is passably honest may naturally feel for 
 a man who isn't. Dillon -J. Burkely Dillon, 
 you know hasn't been fine in his discrimina- 
 tions regarding the use of capital other peo- 
 ple's capital. He's used money that wasn't 
 his. In short, but for his uncle's influence, 
 personal and financial, our young friend would 
 be wearing the monotonous garb common to 
 such as tamper with the laws of the land and 
 get found out. No, I don't consider that I 
 was far wrong when I called him what I 
 did." 
 
 It had grown very still. Only the top twigs 
 of the beeches, moving in the damp night air, 
 gave off a faint, foreboding sound, while with 
 a stroke as of light, warning fingers a drop or 
 two of rain fell sharply on the vines.
 
 110 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 ' ' You see/' resumed Graves, a little uneasy 
 at Taliaferro's silence, which seemed as if 
 grounded in some incredulity, "I was in a 
 position to know about this matter. My wife 
 was a Jonas, you remember. And as her 
 father makes his home with us I got my in- 
 formation pretty straight. The old man was 
 completely broken up when he found how 
 Dillon had let him in. Dillon was secretary 
 with the Jonas Lumber Company secretary or 
 something on a very confidential scale, in con- 
 sideration of his uncle's interest in the firm. 
 He had every chance for doing the Jonases, 
 and he did them. He wasn't very clever about 
 it. I don't suppose you care to know what his 
 method was ? I don't believe I could make it 
 clear, anyhow ; but it was a system which in 
 moderation might have been successful for a 
 long time. Dillon, however, isn't moderate in 
 anything. He plunged. And the bottom fell 
 out of the profits with such startling force that 
 the firm began to investigate. They found 
 out very soon where the trouble was. They'd 
 never dreamed of it's being Dillon so defer- 
 ential to age, so modest and mild, and such a 
 favorite withal among the gilded youth ! The 
 Jonases were crushed. And as for Dillon 
 well, his capacity for despair is about the deep- 
 est capacity he has. It amounts to a genius.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS HI 
 
 The way he Say, Nat, am I making this 
 thing wearisome ? You're not asleep, eh ?" 
 "Asleep ? No, no, I'm not asleep. Go on." 
 " Oh, that's about all. Old Burkely straight- 
 ened the balance. There was a lot to pay, and 
 it crippled him considerably, I understand. 
 Jove, if ever a man should have suffered the 
 reward of his sins it was Dillon ! No poor 
 devil, mind you, tempted to borrow funds for 
 a sure-to-succeed scheme. No chap with press- 
 ing debts, an extravagant family, or any of the 
 excuses common in these cases. But just a 
 fellow belonging to the common herd of prof- 
 ligates, requiring for a loose life more money 
 than he could lawfully command. That's all. 
 No speculations. No hopes of paying the ' loan ' 
 back. Nothing but a desire of keeping up some- 
 how, anyhow, his end of the rope. Oh, they 
 uncovered some rare Daphnic bits in Dillon's 
 young career, I can assure you ! Gad, it makes 
 me sore to think how the whole thing was 
 hushed up glossed over ! Every one pledged 
 to silence, you know, and a general regret that 
 Mr. Dillon's health should require him to give 
 up business for a time." 
 
 Taliaf erro drew a breath, and Graves added : 
 "Of course, my telling you all this doesn't 
 count. I've always told you everything, haven't 
 I ? Seeing him around brought it out rather
 
 112 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 unexpectedly. " He yawned. " Half -past elev- 
 en. Maybe we better turn in. See here, Nat, 
 you're keeping up a kind of Aggressive silence, 
 aren't you ? It can't be that you and Dillon 
 have vamped up any sort of friendship, can 
 it, that makes you find what I've said par- 
 ticularly uncomfortable, eh ? His doings are 
 nothing to you, are they ? You're not mixed 
 up with them in any way ?" 
 
 Taliaferro had risen too, but there was an 
 unsteadiness in his movement, and his rugged 
 features looked gray and shaken. " No," he 
 said, thrusting back his rough, thick hair in a 
 confused sort of way, "I'm not mixed up with 
 him that I know of at least, not in any way 
 it would be easy to to explain."
 
 IT was two weeks or more since Dillon, upon 
 his return from the South Fork expedition, had 
 stopped in the hotel parlor for that little talk 
 with Alexa which had afterwards rendered him 
 so compunctious. He had quickly decided, in- 
 deed, that there was something quite creditable 
 and encouraging in the impulse to which he 
 had yielded upon this occasion, yet the conclu- 
 sion that it would be advisable to avoid Alexa 
 as much as might be in the future was forced 
 on him by his remembrance of the girl's tears 
 and confession. He had based his ideas of her 
 upon the air of overture, the smiles and gleams 
 and bridlings and flutterings with which Alexa 
 first manifested herself to his consciousness ; 
 but since the moment in which she had clung 
 to his arm half sobbing, surrendering herself to 
 that artless narrative of her sufferings in his ab- 
 sence, her small cares for his comfort, her anxi- 
 eties and self-reproaches and final relief that 
 now all was " right " between them, Dillon had
 
 114 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 not been so sure that Alexa was so slight and 
 soulless a creature as he had imagined. 
 
 He hoped that she would refer his consoling 
 caress to the category of general humaneness. 
 When he saw her again, however, a day or so 
 later, it was instantly plain to him that Alexa 
 had taken the matter in the broadest possible 
 way, without reasoning about it at all, or seek- 
 ing to run it down to the exact emotional source 
 from which it might be derivable. She thought 
 simply that he had comforted her through an 
 instinct of tenderness. Dillon had feared that 
 this would be her interpretation ; and when he 
 observed that she regarded him with believ- 
 ing eyes in which an unmistakable happiness 
 brooded, he realized the justice of his fore- 
 bodings. 
 
 Nor was it so easy to avoid her in their nar- 
 row life. He managed it with infinite diffi- 
 culty ; and in the times which ensued he effect- 
 ually proved to himself the futility of his re- 
 sources. For it appeared that whenever reason 
 and resolution enabled him for a while to elude 
 Alexa, or to use her with coldness and uncon- 
 cern, such occasions were sure to be followed 
 with hours of pitying remorse, when, by being 
 particularly kind to the girl, he undid the salu- 
 tary effects of his wiser attitude. He hated be- 
 yond all things the sight of suffering ; and when
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 116 
 
 Alexa, meeting him about the house, fixed her 
 great, expectant eyes upon him in a shrinking, 
 questioning way, he found it less and less easy 
 to pass her with only a chill word of greeting. 
 At such times her face whitened so suddenly, 
 her lips trembled so piteously, that he usually 
 turned back with a bantering phrase or a light 
 caress, so as to bring life to her looks again and 
 prevent himself from remembering her in an 
 aspect of sorrow and reproach. 
 
 One morning in the end of August, as he 
 crossed the little passage between the stairway 
 and the office, Alexa opened the door of the 
 family-room, and, at seeing him, feigned a poor 
 surprise. "Oh I" she said, "I didn't know it 
 was you." 
 
 Dillon halted, a little annoyed at the prospect 
 of a delay, for he was on his way to the Mor- 
 rows', having arranged to row Lucy and her 
 mother and the little sister as far as the cas- 
 cade which, a short way below the juncture of 
 the rivers, hangs the cliffs of the Cumberland 
 in a hoary beard of spray. 
 
 "Were you wanting to see me about any- 
 thing ?" he asked, looking at his watch. 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing/' faltered Alexa, in a 
 changed voice. "I just thought if it was you 
 I'd tell you that book of war-songs I sent for 
 has come. The music looks right catchy; I
 
 116 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 could play some of the pieces for yon to-night 
 if you wanted me to." 
 
 " Thank you. I shall probably have letters 
 to write to-night." With his hand on the 
 office door he added : "I shall have to go, I'm 
 afraid. Good-bye." 
 
 Alexa made a trembling little forward step. 
 "Good-bye," she said, faintly. "There's a 
 thread on your coat. Wait ! here it is." 
 
 Dillon regarded the bit of lint. He saw that 
 the fingers which held it were unsteady and that 
 Alexa's face was quivering. And seeing these 
 things he laid his hand reassuringly upon her 
 black braids, saying, "After all, Alexa, I 
 think I may get my writing done before night. 
 There ! you are like yourself again, bright and 
 smiling." 
 
 Outside it was clear and bright, with an 
 autumnal crispness in the air that comported 
 with the autumnal scarlet tufting the side of 
 the sphinx knob and flaming from the ledgy 
 brow where the general's signals had burned 
 years before. Leafage everywhere was thin- 
 ning, though in only a slight way, which as yet 
 scarcely permitted the church and half-dozen 
 houses of a neighboring hamlet on a hill across 
 the river to disclose their outlines more defi- 
 nitely than in midsummer. Somewhere up 
 about the railway trestle they were blasting
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 117 
 
 rock, and the booming echoes crashed back on 
 every side from the hollow slopes. Below, 
 through the rich greenness of the valley, the 
 red church spire thrust itself like a stained 
 dagger, and around it the dense leaves, moving 
 slightly, seemed to shudder as if from a wound- 
 ing impact. Straggling scraps of yellow corn- 
 field patched the lush lands here and there, 
 and among them a little gleam of water winced 
 in the sun. Nothing stirred in the lower 
 roads, but up the hill a herd of dun cattle were 
 pushing four or five abreast, and the long 
 horns of the foremost ranks, arching against 
 the heaving mass, resembled a low flight of 
 gulls on a ground of deep red. Along the 
 tracks, too, Lete Haight was trailing her sleazy 
 cottons, dragging by his fat, reluctant hand 
 her yellow-haired child. The baby kept up a 
 lusty roar of displeasure as his mother pulled 
 him on, and tears and molasses mingled in a 
 streaked glaze on his ruddy cheeks. 
 
 "Poor, poor creature/' breathed Mrs. Mor- 
 row, regarding the vacant, shameless, child- 
 like face, as she and Lucy came round the 
 station. " It does seem as if we ought to do 
 something for her. Oh, good-morning, Mr. 
 Dillon. We expected to meet you at the mill 
 chute. Now we can all go down together." 
 
 Up towards the boom-float men were work-
 
 118 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 ing with long pike -poles, loosening the im- 
 prisoned drift and a few staves and ties which 
 had come down the stream in some scant rise. 
 Thick spume heaved along shore, and the sides 
 of Dillon's skiff were painted yellow with the 
 cheesy froth. Dull purple flowers sweetened 
 the air. The herbage gave off a dry, nutty 
 savor, and the searching smell of wet wood and 
 damp sawdust mixed with the odors of flowers 
 and grass. 
 
 The man who had succeeded Bohun in the 
 management of the boom-house paddled by in 
 a dugout, lifting his hairy face and calling 
 " Howdy, all I" to the party embarking at the 
 mill chute. "Mighty heavy pullin' through 
 the dead water yender," he warned Dillon, as 
 the young man set the oars and laid the boat 
 about. Dillon's straw hat was pushed back, 
 leaving an untanned strip of forehead visible 
 below the rim. His eyes were clear and bright, 
 and Lucy noticed how well he looked burned 
 to a healthy brown and with strength in his 
 long, skilful stroke. 
 
 The skiff shot from the branch into the 
 wider stream, the banks of which were ribbed 
 with last-year logs and thatched with culls and 
 strips of black wane. In a moment the village 
 had slipped from sight behind a sudden bend 
 in the shore, and only a magenta end of the
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 119 
 
 mill roof, peeping curiously out, remained to 
 mark its site. The turn of the current brought 
 too a sharp clash of water to the ear, and a 
 stroke or so more developed to the left a 
 wooded steep which seemed to reach into the 
 far blueness of the morning sky. Over the 
 precipice a crystal sheet, fretted into flashing 
 bubbles and tossing foam, broke from the fern- 
 hung maw of a cave below the brow of the 
 bluff. Great twisted trees grew about the pool 
 into which the cataract splashed some little 
 way above the river level ; and around them, 
 and indeed everywhere along the path in the 
 craggy rise, were mossy rocks and broomy 
 sedges and tall ferns and gadding brambles 
 and a marigold waste of fall flowers, wide 
 petal ed and abundant, while from the noisy 
 lips of the cave delicate fronds of maidenhair 
 waved their black-threaded lengths, misted in 
 a whirl of shining spray. 
 
 Dillon moored the boat, and they began to 
 climb the jagged path which led along a mill 
 stream deflecting from the pool, and up around 
 the mill itself, an aged structure, rumbling 
 to the movements of a huge overshot-wheel. 
 Lucy and Corinne went ahead, and Dillon, as 
 he helped Mrs. Morrow through the brambles 
 and stones, was more distinctly aware of the 
 blue flutter of Lucy's skirts in the low green-
 
 120 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 ness before him than of Mrs. Morrow's pant- 
 ing but enthusiastic comments upon the beauty 
 of the scene. 
 
 "How soothing the sound of falling water 
 is I" gasped Mrs. Morrow, with breathless rapt- 
 ure in her sentimental profile. They had 
 reached the basin of rock which spreads its 
 green circle below the mouth of the cave, and 
 as they came in range of the yawning hole in 
 the bluff a breath of cold air rushed sharp and 
 sudden upon them, bursting from the cavern 
 with the thick and as yet unbroken outflow of 
 the underground stream. "And this delicious 
 coolness!" cried Mrs. Morrow. "Do let me 
 sit where I can enjoy it. Corinne, dear, there 
 are some pretty stones. Suppose you build a 
 little house here beside mother. And Lucy, 
 while I rest, you might take Mr. Dillon to 
 the spring. I should like some water, if you 
 find a gourd there, or anything to drink out 
 of." 
 
 The spring was not far away, a tinkle of cool 
 silver ledged in limestone in a solitude of oak 
 saplings and ferns. All around it the ground 
 wore a moist richness of sward ; and when Dil- 
 lon, after they had tasted the water and specu- 
 lated upon its probable mineral constituents, 
 threw himself into a comfortably reclining po- 
 sition upon the grass, Lucy said, "Aren't you
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 121 
 
 afraid of taking cold ? It looks very damp." 
 She herself was sitting in a hollow of a rock, 
 whose gray sides arched above her like a shrine. 
 Her blue cotton dress, dull but definite in its 
 color, hung below her feet in straight folds, 
 while directly across her face a shaft of sun- 
 light, making way between the trees, fell in a 
 strange effect of illumination, gilding the stone 
 arch overhead and falling in a mild lustre upon 
 the herbage at the rock's base. Behind her 
 deepened a narrow sky, speared with a dark 
 tuft or so of brush and the slender spire of a 
 single birch, white and virginal in its isola- 
 tion. "Keally," she repeated, "it isn't safe 
 to sit on this moist ground." 
 
 Dillon, looking up at her, had been lost in a 
 thought of a strait Judean landscape, darkly 
 blue and green, and ringed with faint gold 
 above a lifted face. At the simple common- 
 place of her words he started, with a sense of 
 remote pain. How passionless her voice was ! 
 How impersonal her solicitude ! 
 
 " I don't know that it makes much difference 
 to me whether it's safe or not !" he flung out, 
 in a petulant accent, plucking a few filaments 
 of crimson silk from the spiny hold of a thistle 
 growing hard by him. "Of course, a cold in 
 the head isn't pleasant or romantic exactly. 
 But I've no doubt that properly neglected it
 
 122 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 has served to end more than one fellow's vain 
 bout with fate." 
 
 Lucy was smiling as she asked, "Do you 
 want yours to end ?" 
 
 Dillon deliberated for a moment. Lucy's 
 cheerful expression put him out a little, and 
 presently, in an almost bitter way, he said, 
 "What have I to live for ?" 
 
 Lucy began to feel the weight of his mood 
 and the obligation of removing his gloom. 
 " Haven't you as much as others have ?" she 
 asked, "more, even, than most people ?" 
 
 "Me? More?" 
 
 " Yes. You are young and well. You have 
 friends " 
 
 " Friends !" he burst out. " Friends ! Oh, 
 Lucy, do you suppose any .number of friends 
 even if I had them would mean anything to 
 me now ? That the good-will of the universe 
 could give me a moment's satisfaction, unless 
 you" He left off brokenly. " This defiled 
 hand of mine, Lucy," in a little while he said, 
 recovering his voice, " dare I ask you to take 
 it ? You, in whom mercy and truth meet so 
 graciously ? Lucy, Lucy, there is not a 
 thought of mine that isn't vested in you ! But 
 my life is in ruins. I am clothed in ashes. 
 That is why, though I love you so much, I 
 hardly dare ask you to lift me up and shine
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 123 
 
 upon my darkness and save me. Yet I do ask 
 it, my love, my hope ! I ask it, in spite of my 
 unworthiness, because you are so dear to me I" 
 
 He had drawn close to the hollow rock in 
 which she sat listening mutely, and he leaned 
 upon the ledge beside her, white-lipped, with 
 all the blue gone from his eyes in the widen- 
 ing of the pupils. In speaking to her he had 
 used expressions commoner in prayer than in 
 a plea of love, such phrases as are natural 
 when men entreat mercy and salvation from 
 God. If Lucy felt this at all, the perception 
 reached her in an aura of flattering persuasion, 
 and she caught her breath and looked away. 
 
 " Darling," breathed Dillon, " will you cast 
 off this poor, unstable soul ? It rests in you 
 for redemption, Lucy." 
 
 At this Lucy seemed to him to tremble and 
 to grow very white. " Oh," she faltered, " am 
 I so much to you as that ? ... so much ? . . . 
 then ..." She did not finish this sentence in 
 any actual words ; but she leaned forward with 
 a touching little gesture and laid her hand 
 across his questioning eyes, so that he might 
 not see the color which she felt rising to her 
 face.
 
 XI 
 
 UPON" hearing Graves's disclosure regarding 
 Dillon, Taliaferro's first feeling was one of 
 bitter indignation that a man whose life had 
 been conformable with propensities of so ques- 
 tionable a kind should have been for a whole 
 summer in almost daily association with Lucy. 
 The doctor's kindly sentiment towards Dillon 
 suffered a complete change. He had been like 
 an in eloquent priest, who in a day of solemn 
 festival sees the rites of a beloved and famil- 
 iar altar administered by hands ordained to 
 higher service than his own, but who, since 
 his gods are honored, is not without comfort, 
 though he may not choose but be heavy- 
 hearted at having no share in the pouring of 
 the oil and the lighting of the tapers. Now 
 he felt simply like one who views his shrines 
 in a desecrating hand, and the angry vigor of 
 his impulse to immediate action almost startled 
 him. 
 
 All night long as Taliaferro dwelt upon the
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 125 
 
 matter his conclusions pivoted forever round to 
 the same unalterable point : that the Morrows 
 must know what manner of man sat above their 
 salt. Taliaferro could not decide to what extent 
 Lucy would suffer in the knowledge ; but he 
 said to himself that whatever her pain in it 
 might be, it was necessary that Dillon's defec- 
 tions should be made plain to her. Dillon had 
 wrought dishonor; he was of those in whose 
 way are destruction and misery ; yet as the sky 
 yellowed for dawn and the morning-star failed 
 in a bank of primrose, Taliaferro, bitter in his 
 estimate of Dillon's actions, found himself sud- 
 denly remembering that it is not inconsistent 
 with the plan of our common nature for men 
 to have good and bad in them. The bad was, 
 of course, particularly obvious just now in 
 Dillon ; but the doctor could not say that active 
 principles of virtue might not lurk in the 
 young man's character, strong in their possi- 
 bilities of growth. While it did not seem to 
 Taliaferro that active potentiality of any sort 
 inhered in Dillon, he admitted that Dillon had 
 gentle attributes, and that nothing in him sug- 
 gested the reprobate mind or calloused con- 
 science. It seemed, too, that having a capacity 
 for remorse, Dillon's moral sensibilities must 
 still be fine, though Taliaferro felt a natural 
 doubt as to whether Dillon's overwhelming
 
 126 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 penitence might not have been infinitely de- 
 layed but for the incident of the discovery of 
 Dillon's dishonesty. The emotional disturbance 
 of a man whose sin has been found out cannot 
 always be relied upon to indicate a total rever- 
 sion of moral sentiment. Shame is not remorse ; 
 nor, considered Taliaferro, in view of Dillon's 
 mildness, does it follow that a person who avoids 
 treading on a worm may not be capable of do- 
 ing despite to his brother. 
 
 Taliaferro felt his ground equally uncertain 
 when, sitting on the side of his bed and recall- 
 ing Dillon's personal traits, he made an effort 
 in as unprejudiced a spirit as he could com- 
 mand to adduce from them a testimony upon 
 the essential quality of the man. For by this 
 time it began to seem to the doctor that if Dil- 
 lon was really changed and had sufficient energy 
 of temperament to hold a clean and upright 
 walk henceforward through life, any one who 
 should stop his progress by casting upon him 
 mud from the mire of his past might be doing 
 an extremely reprehensible thing. Dillon's 
 eyes with their peculiar nervous characteris- 
 tics, Dillon's long hands with their slender un- 
 certainty, recurred to Taliaferro in a way that 
 for the instant was subtly corroborative of his 
 own ideas regarding the young man's fallible 
 nature ; but with a qualm of repulsion the doc-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 127 
 
 tor thrust aside the impression. Whatever 
 truth might lie in the science which under- 
 takes to formulate the physical signs diagnos- 
 tic of the irreclaimable delinquent, Taliaferro 
 felt that this was as yet invested with too many 
 inaccuracies to justify its use. There was 
 something in the tribunal of the flesh which 
 appeared to him to a large degree arbitrary. 
 But in foregoing resource to it he asked himself 
 if Dillon, in concealing a certain episode from 
 the Morrow family, had not been a little more 
 culpable than was consistent with any improved 
 standard of honor in him. 
 
 For it seemed as if deception had been prac- 
 tised. Taliaferro knew too well Major Morrow's 
 simple, severe ideas to be able to conceive that 
 the old soldier would readily admit in familiar 
 friendship a man blemished after Dillon's fash- 
 ion. The doctor veered, therefore, to his 
 earlier belief, that the Morrows must not re- 
 main longer in ignorance. And thus deciding, 
 Taliaferro felt himself shrinking from the bur- 
 den of the bitter and thankless task which 
 seemed upon him. By the general suffrage of 
 humanity the tale-bearer is held to be rather 
 more worthy of contumely than the wrong- 
 doer upon whom he informs, and moral repro- 
 bation is always considerably easier to bear 
 than contempt. Lucy, without doubt, would
 
 128 BOUND L\ SHALLOWS 
 
 despise him, Taliaferro knew. Sitting by him- 
 self under the beeches that night, Avorn with 
 conflicting ideas, he called up her image and 
 figured the disdaining poise of her fair head, 
 the curl of her smooth lips, as she would glance 
 upon him when she understood that it was he 
 who had carried this shameful story. 
 
 He dropped his rough head and groaned. It 
 was passing towards dusk ; the sun had his chin 
 on the hills, and, stretching lazily out a rosy fin- 
 ger or two, laid them warmly upon the cold 
 cheek of the shaded earth beneath the beeches. 
 The color lingered there for a moment; then 
 the red faded, and the grass was less green with 
 its vanishing. A man in a long coat and flat 
 hat was coming up the hotel path. He looked 
 towards the solitary figure under the trees, and 
 came nearer, and said, " Good-evening, doctor. 
 Will I disturb you if I sit down with you a mo- 
 ment ?" 
 
 Taliaferro made room on the bench, apolo- 
 gizing for the abstraction which had made him 
 deaf to the preacher's approach. The preacher 
 gazed dreamily upon the shadowy valley. He 
 had taken off his hat, and the gray hair on his 
 neck stirred a little in the air. 
 
 "I was on my way to speak with Mrs. Bo- 
 hun," he said. " But seeing you here made 
 me feel as if I should like to rest for a few
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 129 
 
 minutes. I believe I am tired/' He sighed, 
 and finished by saying, "I have come from a 
 house of mourning no, doctor, it is no pa- 
 tient of yours who is dead. He who has gone 
 home was only an outcast. Probably death's 
 seal on his childish lips is the kindest touch 
 ever laid there. I speak of the poor little one 
 whose mother is the wretched woman living 
 under the trestle. He died of neglect as much 
 as of any serious disorder, I imagine. It was 
 only by chance that I heard of it. I found 
 the mother alone with her dead, sitting on the 
 door-step, and looking up and down the road 
 with apparent unconcern." 
 
 Taliaferro exclaimed, "How well off he is 
 to be out of it all, with such a weight of hered- 
 ity and such surroundings !" 
 
 " So the woman said at least, she signified 
 as much by remarking, ' I ain't grievin' none. 
 He's took from trouble.' " The preacher passed 
 a hand over his eyes. He was the same man 
 who, in another Kentucky town, ugly and out- 
 worn where Streamlet was beautiful and rich 
 in promise, had on a certain morning stood 
 beside the sorrowful figure of old Bob Valley 
 and read the burial service of the girl whose 
 early death left her father so desolate. " I have 
 been very remiss," he resumed. " I have not 
 striven as I should to waken this poor girl to
 
 130 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 a sense of her condition. I have often spoken 
 with her, indeed, but I have let myself be 
 disheartened by the stolid wonder, the heavy 
 apathy which I encountered in her. Now/' 
 he pressed on " now I must try to make up 
 for my lukewarmness. I must see if we cannot 
 set her in ways of honest service. That was 
 my mission here this evening to consult Mrs. 
 Bohun upon the chances of work and a home 
 for this woman. We are indeed slack servants 
 of our Master if we do not strive with such as 
 are a reproach among us and dead in sin." 
 
 Taliaferro was sunk in silent deliberation. 
 Presently he asked, " Do you believe, then, that 
 all sin and suffering and shame and wretch- 
 edness are removable from the world, and that 
 it is our duty to try to remove them ?" The 
 preacher looked surprised. 
 
 " Of what use is the lesson of Christ's min- 
 istry," he propounded, with an accent of re- 
 proach, "if we who walk after him do not 
 also comfort the sorrowing, visit the impris- 
 oned, and labor with the perverse ?" 
 
 ' ' I don't think I meant to question the uses 
 of kindliness and mercy and charity," said Ta- 
 liaferro. "But I have just been wondering if 
 perhaps a man's first duty may not imply right 
 living in a passive way rather than in a per- 
 petual running after those who seem to have
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 131 
 
 a natural instinct for miring themselves in the 
 world's rnnd. Isn't it enough to render men 
 their dues and attend to one's own affairs ? Or, 
 after all, is it nobler to risk the entanglements 
 and stains that come of occupying ourselves 
 with the sins and moral sicknesses of others ? 
 Sometimes I have almost believed that what 
 concerns others is eternal, and that one would 
 be presumptuous to interfere, even with the 
 best intentions." 
 
 The preacher looked aghast, and inquired, 
 " Is all life to be sunk in egoism, and unselfish- 
 ness and sacrifice and philanthropy to be wiped 
 out ?" 
 
 Taliaferro said, gently, "Is egoism less nat- 
 ural and honorable than altruism ? Or is un- 
 selfishness not, in real truth, at the base of 
 many evils ? Often, lately, when I read that 
 crime is increasing steadily everywhere, it has 
 seemed plain to me that unwise benevolence 
 is at the source of the growth of many of these 
 social wrongs. I think we are suffering from 
 our philanthropy from our weak, mistakenly 
 kind way of dealing with crime." 
 
 " We can't very well relapse into barbarism, 
 doctor." 
 
 "No. It mightn't be bad if we could, in 
 certain directions. Sin and the penalty of sin 
 among savages have an immediate relation, you
 
 132 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 know. Now that we have grown in culture, 
 and the simple law of like for like offends our 
 sensibilities, the malefactor feels pardonably 
 secure. He knows that justice suffers long 
 and is kind ; that if the worst happens, pris- 
 ons are very comfortable places ; and that even 
 if he is ungovernable and vicious under re- 
 straint, no prison official will dare to punish 
 him with any severity, for fear the whole world 
 should rise up in a wail of horror. The 
 worst so seldom happens, however, that, as a 
 recent statistician has pointed out, the profes- 
 sion of a criminal offers greater profits and 
 fewer risks than any other career open to the 
 indolent poor. Humanitarianism has some- 
 thing of this to answer for. It has taught us 
 so to falter and palter over the disturber of our 
 peace, so to weigh his health, sanity, grievances, 
 genealogy, and motives, that his sin gets over- 
 looked. The greatest good to the wrong-doer 
 is apparently what we are tenderly and piously 
 considering, and how far we can make the way 
 of the transgressor agreeable and safe. That 
 is why I say that philanthropic motives may 
 be productive of endless social demoralization/' 
 "Well/' hesitated the preacher, "charity 
 must guide us the charity that hopeth all 
 things. If the seed we cast forth with prayer 
 springs up in thistles, it is not for us to dwell
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 133 
 
 on. The wheat must some time reveal itself. 
 We must continue to use all men with mercy." 
 
 "Yes," said Taliaf erro ; "only it seems as 
 if we are rather merciless to good men when 
 we encourage those that prey upon them. But 
 upright men have got to get along the best way 
 they can. Virtues, somehow, always seem a 
 little ridiculous as connected with manhood. 
 A fellow's got to have considerable stamina 
 nowadays to venture to live an unblushingly 
 decent life. He is apt to be laughed at, you 
 know, while the erring are wept over. One 
 would rather be wept over than laughed at." 
 
 "You are no longer serious," smiled the 
 preacher. 
 
 "I am serious in saying that we weep too 
 much over the erring." 
 
 " No !" said the other, " no ! no ! It is right 
 for us to seat him at our hearth and succor 
 him in his weakness, and make him a partaker 
 in our walk with God. Purification is possible 
 even with such as are mistakenly called wholly 
 abandoned, and how much more with those 
 who have only stepped a little aside !" 
 
 "I don't like to seem to disagree with you 
 on this point, Mr. McVeigh. Of course it's 
 the difference between the religious and the 
 ethical point of view. I was going to remind 
 you of its having been said that the influence
 
 134 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 of men in whom vice has not yet entirely de- 
 stroyed all good qualities is infinitely more 
 harmful to the public well-being than the ex- 
 ample of the wholly depraved ; just as infec- 
 tious diseases are more likely to be communi- 
 cated while in progress than after reaching 
 their height. I think it is Macaulay who has 
 mentioned this , an out-of-style authority, per- 
 haps, but one in whom I am unprogressive 
 enough to find unbounded stimulation and 
 pleasure." 
 
 "Oh, from the ground of a figure of 
 speech " 
 
 " But isn't sin a disease a rank disorder of 
 the social organism ? Why don't we treat it as 
 a disease, then ? Certainly it doesn't appear 
 to us kind to nourish the plague in our bosoms. 
 It doesn't appear to us that our healthfulness 
 is such as to allow us to mingle unharmed with 
 lepers. Men yield swiftly, irresistibly to dis- 
 ease, but any return to health is uphill work, 
 slow and laborious. A germ of fever can in- 
 fect a whole nation. Moral disease is just as 
 potent, perhaps ; why shouldn't it be feared 
 and segregated, then, instead of touched and 
 fondled ?" 
 
 "It is our mission to cure it," signified the 
 preacher. 
 
 "And our nature to catch it," smiled Talia-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 185 
 
 ferro, rising and brushing back his hair. " I 
 see that I can't persuade you." 
 
 "No, you haven't persuaded me. And I 
 imagine that in an actual case you wouldn't 
 carry into practice your harsh views, doctor ! 
 You can't make me believe that you wouldn't 
 do as much as any one to help a poor sin- 
 stricken fellow to get well again. You 
 wouldn't be at all afraid, in pure fact, of tak- 
 ing any ill from him. Nor would you hesitate 
 about it any more than you would hesitate to 
 go among the dwellers of a pest-house." 
 
 " Doctors are exempt from contagion," said 
 the other, grimly. " But if I saw at large an 
 individual who manifestly ought to be in such 
 a house as you mention, I think I should be 
 justified in warning people that they had bet- 
 ter avoid him." 
 
 It had grown very dark, and a scattering of 
 stars shone in the sky, over which, too, the 
 Milky Way unrolled a beamy strip. Bats were 
 whipping through the dusk. Owlets were cry- 
 ing. From the hotel office voices echoed, and 
 as Taliaferro came slowly up the porch steps 
 a man, whose feet were comfortably planted 
 against one of the pillars, stopped him with a 
 gruffly cordial exclamation. 
 
 " Where have you kept yourself lately, doc ? 
 Anything wrong ? Lost a patient, eh ? Here,
 
 136 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 sit down by me a while. I want to talk with 
 you." Dunbar laid his hand on Taliaferro's 
 arm as he spoke, and pointed out a chair. 
 "What's up, eh?" 
 
 Overhead the uncertain keys of the parlor 
 piano were beginning to emit a complaining 
 resonance. A voice essayed a note or two, 
 failed, and resumed : 
 
 "We shall meet, but we shall miss him, 
 
 There will be a vacant chair, 
 We shall linger to caress him, 
 When we breathe our evening prayer." 
 
 At this point Dillon appeared in the door of 
 the office, a slight, modish figure, with a flower 
 in the satin lapel of his short coat. He paused, 
 and a sort of frown marred the composure of 
 his good-looking face as the strains of the 
 ballad reached his ears. Almost at once, 
 however, the air of displeasure left him, and, 
 tossing a word of greeting to the men by the 
 porch post, he ran down the steps. 
 
 Darkness at once blotted out the alert shape ; 
 but Taliaferro's eyes did not withdraw them- 
 selves from the gloom of the pathway ; and 
 Dunbar, noting the fixed gaze, uttered a little 
 growl of invective. 
 
 "Nat/' he came out, presently, "we're good 
 friends, eh ?"
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 137 
 
 " If we aren't" 
 
 " Well, I just wanted to say this : Dillon and 
 Mrs. Morrow and Lucy were at the cascade this 
 afternoon. I saw them coming back, and 
 and now of course Fm an old mustache! 
 It's been some time since I saw Pan in every 
 goat-track. But it seemed to me as if the 
 young man looked rather assured, and all 
 that. Nat" he lowered his voice "you're 
 not giving up ?" 
 
 " Giving up ? My renunciations are almost 
 too passive to be described in that way. Nor 
 do they belong to the present. It's been some 
 time since " 
 
 Dunbar let his chair legs down with a crash. 
 " Good heavens, Nat ! you don't tell me 
 coolly you don't sit there and " 
 
 " Well, what could I do ? She'd never 
 thought of me at all. That was the sum of 
 it." 
 
 " Sum of it ?" Dunbar struck his knee. 
 " Why didn't you make her think of you ? 
 What why where was your tongue eh ? eh ? 
 Don't you know you've sat blandly by and let 
 this fellow huh ! He's lacked no blarney, I 
 promise you ! He hasn't got a smack of the old 
 sod in him for nothing I Oh, I'm sick ! I'm 
 sick ! Maybe I oughtn't to say it, but I don't 
 believe much in Dillon. He's got a crooked
 
 138 BOUND EN SHALLOWS 
 
 streak in him,, I'm afraid. He won't make that 
 girl happy. He's burned candles at too many 
 shrines. It's only a fancy with him, contiguity, 
 and a lack of interests. Maybe you don't know 
 that he's been as wild as a hawk ? v 
 
 ' ' Oh yes, I do," said Taliaferro. 
 
 "Yet you had no conscience about leaving 
 Lucy to his wiles ? Poor, little Lucy ! as sweet 
 and credulous a girl " 
 
 " See here !" cried Taliaferro, desperately, " I 
 know all about him. I know that he's been 
 worse than merely reckless. He's been I'm 
 going to tell you what he's been. Maybe you'll 
 know what to do about it I don't." And brief- 
 ly, in a sentence, he went over the matter of 
 Dillon's dishonor. " That is all. He may be 
 far removed from the chance of such depart- 
 ures. I've ceased speculating upon it. I only 
 know one thing : that if Lucy were my sister, 
 instead of of the woman I've loved so long, I 
 should feel that she must not at least, in ig- 
 norance marry such a man." 
 
 Dunbar had a stunned air, and he came to 
 himself with a resounding word. 
 
 ' ' So you've been doubtful about your duty in 
 this matter ? You've speculated upon it, eh ? 
 Well, thank God, I am a sane man ! I've got 
 no delicate qualms and scruples ! I shall take 
 it on myself to tell Major Morrow a thing or
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 139 
 
 two. I'd go up there right off if I didn't have 
 to make the night train. Yes, I'm going North 
 for a few days. But just as soon as I get back 
 I shall make it my business ; and while I'm in 
 Cincinnati I'll make a few inquiries concerning 
 this young gentleman, whose fits of gentle mel- 
 ancholy have seemed so unaccountable. Burke- 
 ly ought not to have kept me in the dark. But 
 it wasn't an easy thing to tell. Poor, old man ! 
 Eh? Shall I ask Dillon to resign his position at 
 the mill ? No, I think not. I won't keep him 
 from honest work, and I shall not spread abroad 
 any tale of his delinquencies. But when it 
 comes to doing what I can to keep him from 
 marrying a friend's daughter gad ! that's an- 
 other thing !"
 
 XII 
 
 THERE was the usual noontide clatter of dish- 
 es in the hotel kitchen. The Monticello coach 
 had gone down the hill road, the North-bound 
 morning train was crossing the bridge, the sig- 
 nal stood closed, and loungers were dispersing 
 on the station platform. 
 
 In the back yard of the hotel a white cow wan- 
 dered, nibbling at the shoots along the slope. 
 The solitary hog, rubbing his nose against a bar 
 of the pen, uttered an off-and-on sound of pen- 
 sive discontent. Occasionally a dry leaf coursed 
 through the seeding grass, foretelling fall, 
 though the tall red and white hollyhocks out- 
 side the family-room windows still flaunted gay 
 rosettes, one of which now and then tilted to 
 the murmurous descent of a bee. Against the 
 pale, thick stalks was a low bench, and extend- 
 ed upon it in the shade of the rough leaves, 
 Alexa lay at length, with skirts that spread 
 wing-like on each side. 
 
 Alexa's hair, tightly wound in a black strand,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 141 
 
 trailed down and lost itself in the little pun- 
 gent, wart -centred blossoms of dog -fennel 
 growing thickly about. Her eyes were shut, 
 and the metallic-looking lashes laid an added 
 darkness on the brown cheeks. Across her 
 brows a white towel was bound evenly, like an 
 Eastern head-dress, with fringed ends outlining 
 the slim neck. She lay quietly listening to a 
 murmur of voices in the family-room, taking 
 note presently of a suggestion of farewell in 
 these mingling and confused accents. Then a 
 door closed ; silence fell ; and a moment later 
 Mrs. Bohun came to the kitchen threshold, and 
 cast from her limp, black sunbonnet a glance 
 towards the hollyhocks. 
 
 "Elex," she called, "I got somethin' to 
 tell you ! Why, what you got your head all 
 wrapped up for ? Hunh ?" 
 
 Alexa stirred with an irritable movement as 
 she said, " Haven't I been sweeping the parlor ? 
 Do you reckon I want my hair white with the 
 dust there is in that old carpet ?" 
 
 " You'd ought to'v sprinkled tea-leaves onto 
 it," Mrs. Bohun advised her, "though mercy 
 knows I never encouraged you to scratch round 
 in dusty corners or blind yourse'f hunting out 
 little cobwebs. Spiders is as much God's creat- 
 ures as we, and them that's always persecutin' 
 'em '11 have it to explain to the Most High. I
 
 143 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 hain't it on my conscience that ever I gredged 
 house-room to spiders or mice or flies no, nor 
 even to roaches ! Live and let live, says I." 
 
 Alexa passed by her mother's exaltation in 
 this pious remembrance. She asked, yawning, 
 " What was you going to tell me ?" 
 
 " Law, if I hadn't in-a'most forgot it ! Par- 
 son's niece was just in, Elex. She came to ask 
 me about Lete Haight. You mind parson 
 being at me to give her work ? Well, Miss 
 Linda called to see how I'd decided. And what 
 do you think she let out ? You was right, 
 Elex. Since I had the grip I ain't so clear- 
 sighted as I was. You was right. And I'm 
 just as glad things have turned out like they 
 have, for your paw he's heard it chirped round 
 lately that Mr. Dillon 'ain't always been as 
 mild-mouthed and mincin' as he is just now. 
 They say he used to be lively as a cricket, and 
 up to more snuff than ever any person would 
 believe that sees him setting round here with 
 his heels h'isted and his hat into his eyes, look- 
 ing as peaceable as an unweaned kitten. It was 
 a drummer for plug terbaccer and cigars give 
 your paw the hint. Your paw said he judged 
 that Mr. Dillon was just natchelly trifim' one 
 of them kind that's always a-slipping and a- 
 straightening, neither dead cull or good timber, 
 but 'bout like a buckeye log that '11 rot at one
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 143 
 
 end while it sprouts at the other. Kememberin' 
 about that copperhead snake, your paw wasn't 
 willing to believe a word agin Mr. Dillon. But 
 he 'lowed that reason was one of the meanest 
 things in the world for f orgin' ahead in spite of 
 you. 'N' I just called it to mind what that 
 drummer'd hinted, and how't Mr. Dillon wasn't 
 no Mason, and all that, while Miss Linda Mc- 
 Veigh was smiling and going on and saying 
 how befittin' the hull thing was, and how like 
 dear Lucy for to make her choice outside of 
 worldly consideration and such. * I just think,' 
 suz I, * I'd a heap ruther it was Lucy Morrow 
 than my Elex.' " 
 
 Alexa had been listening without any evi- 
 dences of interest. Suddenly she opened her 
 eyes. 
 
 " What are you talking about, ma ?" she de- 
 manded. " You ramble on till a person loses 
 all track. What are you what " She had 
 lifted herself on an elbow and her face had 
 changed. " Lucy Morrow ! what about her ?" 
 
 Mrs. Bohun was searching in her bosom for 
 a pin with which to fasten the buttonless collar 
 of her gown. "'Ain't I just done telling you ?" 
 she asked. "'Ain't I just said that, after all, 
 you was right when you said Mr. Dillon had a 
 notion for Lucy Morrow ? At the time I thought 
 you was only letting on about there being noth-
 
 144 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 ing betwix' yon and him ; now I see you was 
 plumb serious, and I prize your good sense in 
 not being took in by his wheedlin' ways. 'T 
 run in my mind when I set and heard Miss 
 Linda goin' on." 
 
 Alexa was sitting erect. Her face had grown 
 almost haggard. " Will you tell me what she 
 said ? I can't make out anything. What 
 what are you waiting for ? Why don't you 
 say something ?" 
 
 "Elexy, you go on at me like I'd done 
 something ! It's like I tell you, honey. Miss 
 Linda said that Mrs. Morrow had told her, 
 quiet and conferdential, that Mr. Dillon had 
 asked for Lucy, and that her and the Major 
 had given consent. That's all. Except that 
 I wasn't to breathe it, because they didn't 
 mean to ( announce' it, so she said, till later 
 on." 
 
 Alexa gave a long breath. She sat with 
 knees wide and with her figure slouched for- 
 ward. Her hands hung limply over the sag- 
 ging hollow of her lap, and her face had a va- 
 cant, ugly stare. Mrs. Bohun began to tremble. 
 
 "Elex!" she besought, faintly; "oh, Elex ! 
 you didn't care none for him, did you ?" 
 
 Alexa's face hardened, and her lips puffed 
 contemptuously as she said, " Care ? Haven't I 
 told you there wasn't anything ? I'm think-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 145 
 
 ing of Lucy Morrow that's all. I'm thinking 
 of her." 
 
 "She'll have her hands full a-workin' to keep 
 him straight," surmised Mrs. Bohun, reassured. 
 "A man like that is like a horse without a 
 mouth ; pull and haw as you may, you never 
 got no purchase on him. I'd ruther trust my- 
 self with a critter that 'd take the bit and light 
 right out ; you know where you're at sooner." 
 
 Alexa rose, murmuring, "I haven't dusted 
 yet." And, stumbling a little, she turned the 
 house corner and entered the side door, and 
 struggled blindly up the stairs. She did not 
 know where she was going; she had simply a 
 wild instinct of escape, of eluding the sunshine, 
 the open air, the mocking noises of leaf and 
 wind. 
 
 From the parlor a shaft of light, still fibrous 
 with dust, widened across the hall. Alexa's 
 eyes avoided it. Treading on her skirts, she 
 went on up the second flight, tearing the gath- 
 ers from the cotton belt with every unheeding 
 step. Midway of this higher staircase a dark 
 landing intervened, and as the blessed shadows 
 of it fell upon Alexa a sense of giddiness and 
 failing came over her, and she sank on the step, 
 casting her hands against her dizzy eyes. 
 
 This was the end of her dreaming. This 
 was the bald, pitiful end. A crew of dim, 
 
 10
 
 146 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 hateful presences reeled and whirled before 
 Alexa a host of furies with spectral faces and 
 blood-flecked breath. In their taunting lips 
 rang a perpetual laughter of scorn and the 
 jibing reiteration of the fact which she had 
 sometimes feared and yet only half believed, 
 and altogether sought to banish from her con- 
 sciousness the fact that Dillon did not love 
 her in the least, and had only amused himself 
 a little with her fondness and her folly. 
 
 Alexa's whole being revolted in a burning 
 rush of self-contempt as she remembered how 
 lavishly she had poured her heart out at Dil- 
 lon's feet, and how passively he had received 
 the oblation. It seemed now, in this moment 
 of awakening, as if he had not made any effort 
 to deceive her regarding his affections. She 
 could not recall that he had ever spoken of 
 love. It was all her own doing, this tor- 
 ment which encompassed her. She had been 
 blind; that was it blind, and possessed to 
 rear a celestial dome upon a tottering fabric of 
 baseless hopes. A few careless kisses, caress- 
 ing looks, smiles, flatteries these had meant 
 nothing to Dillon ; but Alexa, in thinking 
 what they had meant to her, especially at the 
 first, began to feel in her bosom a flame of in- 
 dignation and a growing sense of a lack of jus- 
 tice in his treatment of her. He had said lit-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 147 
 
 tie, indeed ; but had he dealt with her in a fair 
 and manly way ? Had he not tacitly let her 
 believe that he cared for her ? Had he not 
 been grieved to see the least cloud upon her ? 
 Had not his passing fits of indifference been 
 always foiled by moments of the gentlest con- 
 sideration ? 
 
 Alexa asked herself these things angrily, rec- 
 ollecting how she had explained his varying 
 humors upon a theory that he was troubled 
 over a question of the propriety of taking to 
 wife a girl whose station had once been so 
 humble, and whose father still challenged so- 
 cial approbation by an occasional slap at the 
 gods whom the hill folk honored and upheld. 
 
 " Oh," moaned Alexa, reviewing this falla- 
 cious idea, "I am dying ! dying !" There was 
 a step on the stairs, but Alexa, in her scorn of 
 herself, did not hear it. A man came hurry- 
 ing up the steps, whistling a bar of some light 
 melody. At the head of the baluster he caught 
 the despairing breath in the landing above, and 
 looked up and started somewhat. Alexa's face 
 was hidden. Only a line of black hair showed 
 between the white towel about her brows and 
 the pink nails of her clinched hands ; while, 
 down below her feet, straight as a whip, the 
 even braid fell. In her bent, quivering shoul- 
 ders was an intimation of such suffering as held
 
 148 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Dillon at a stand ; and almost at once lie sur- 
 mised that she had heard of his betrothal. He 
 winced at the thought of addressing her ; but 
 his instinct of keeping out of the range of un- 
 pleasant experiences by a reactive force made 
 him determine to plunge into the chasm and 
 be done with it. So he said, in a kind, ques- 
 tioning voice, " Alexa \" 
 
 Alexa dropped her hands, her face stiffened, 
 and she arose. 
 
 " At odds with life again ?" he pursued. 
 " "Why, the whole business isn't worth it I" 
 
 Above him in the shadowy landing Alexa 
 stood mutely. The fringed towel-ends denned 
 accurately her slight, yellow throat, which, 
 swollen a little, beat at the side with a slow 
 pulse. Below the linen her thick brows and 
 heavy lips, of the hue of unbaked clay, dully 
 red and motionless, gave her a stolid look, 
 which did not mitigate the growing uneasiness 
 in Dillon's mind. 
 
 " Has one of your pigeons died, Carita ?" he 
 went on, keeping up his air of jesting. 
 
 "No," said Alexa, getting at a fair sem- 
 blance of a voice. And as he came a step or 
 two nearer, and would have taken her hand, 
 she added, "Don't come up here !" 
 
 He paused, and his eyes flashed. "Very 
 well," he said, as quick to wrath as to tender-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 149 
 
 ness. "As you please." It occurred to him, 
 however, that for him to be offended with 
 Alexa's pettishness was rather absurd, and he 
 continued, " I am sorry. Forgive me for break- 
 ing in upon your unhappiness. I had no right 
 to ask you about it, or to feel that my friendly 
 sympathy might perhaps lessen the sum of any 
 trouble you may have/' 
 
 Alexa was maintaining an admirable reserve 
 as she coldly regarded the aspect of his lifted 
 face, its swarthiness of sunburn, its clear blue- 
 ness of eye, and little, gold-dappled, stripling's 
 mustache. How he must be inwardly smiling 
 at the distress which he had surprised ! wait- 
 ing, perhaps, to feign wonder and regret if a 
 word of reproach should escape her. Alexa, 
 thinking thus, suddenly determined that no 
 such word should gratify him. 
 
 "Trouble ?" said Alexa. "I have no trou- 
 bles. Unhappiness oh, that's different. A 
 gyrl wouldn't deserve such a home and parents 
 as I have if she didn't feel bad to think of 
 leaving them." 
 
 " Leaving them ? Are you " 
 
 Alexa had gathered her torn skirts about 
 her, preparatory to going up the last three 
 steps. Her hand was on the baluster, and she 
 looked back with a fair show of smiling. 
 
 " Didn't you know ? Gyrls generally have
 
 150 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 to leave home when they marry. I don't reck- 
 on Beau McBeath would care to live in any 
 house but his own." Her little sharp laugh 
 flung out above him. Alexa was gone, with 
 some scrap of a war-song on her lips. 
 
 Dillon felt oddly taken down. Then he 
 echoed her laugh below the breath. Blended 
 with his relief in her attitude was something 
 not unlike hurt vanity ; a certain disbelief in 
 Alexa's statements wavered midway of these 
 two impressions, but he told himself that since 
 the matter had ended so satisfactorily he would 
 do well to forbear to question it. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the gabled room overhead, 
 where the soap advertisements unfolded their 
 rainbow gloss and the patchwork carpet lay in 
 a mingled woof, Alexa was pacing in long, hard 
 steps ; back and forth she tramped, common, 
 fierce, and wild in her tearless pain. Dillon's 
 mildness and smiling air had pricked her to 
 added bitterness ; and as she thought of him 
 and his look of gayety, she stopped short and 
 stretched a sudden hand towards the soft sky 
 beyond her dormer-window, and cried out, pas- 
 sionately, " God ! don't let him be happy ! 
 don't let him be happy I"
 
 XIII 
 
 IF Alexa's explanation of the cause of her 
 tragic mood had affected Dillon with a certain 
 sense of incredulity, he found, during the fol- 
 lowing days, many things which appeared di- 
 rectly confirmatory at least of her statement 
 regarding a betrothal. 
 
 Beauregard McBeath's long, fawn - colored 
 coat and broad felt hat and bright blue neck- 
 scarf and beaming face seemed to pervade the 
 hotel ; and always at the hour of Dillon's re- 
 turn from the mill Alexa, smiling, blushing, 
 and demure, was sure to be about the porch or 
 office, listening indulgently to McBeath's talk, 
 interlarded as it was with long looks of speech- 
 less rapture. 
 
 " Yes," owned Bohun, looking damp and red 
 around the eyes, "they got it fixed up! I 
 hardly know whether I'm cryin' or laughin' 
 about it, I'm so dazea like. Seems like we'd 
 oughtn't to give way, seein' her and Beau is 
 s' happy and all. I says to him when he ast
 
 152 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 me, says I, ' I'd ruther it was yon, Beau, than 
 sever'l many I could name you havin' took 
 three degrees and all. But yet it's drorin' 
 teeth for to give up a unly gyrl,' says I. ' You 
 want to keep her in cotton-wool/ I 'lowed, be- 
 ginnin' to blubber, ' and f ahly carry her 'round, 
 or you 'n' me '11 have words.' And Beau he 
 was moppin' his eyes, same as me, and clearin' 
 his throat, and he 'lowed nothing wouldn't be 
 too good for Elexy so long as he had a day's 
 work in him. And what do I do but whim- 
 per out, ' God bless ye, Beau !' like I was a 
 believin' man and hadn't reasoned past that 
 there. Yes, sir, I did. And I never took it 
 back neither ; for think, suz I, ' it won't do 
 no harm, and may do some good.' '' 
 
 Once returning from the flats a little earlier 
 than usual in the afternoon, Dillon came 
 upon McBeath, who, for once alone, sat on a 
 rock at the hotel gate whittling a stick to 
 shreds. 
 
 "I haven't told you yet," said Dillon, stop- 
 ping, " how much I congratulate you on your 
 good-fortune. Your lot is enviable, McBeath." 
 
 " Thanky," rejoined McBeath, glowing. " If 
 there's a better-favored gyrl in the State than 
 Alexa, I've never met with her." 
 
 "And when is the happy event to be, Mac ? 
 soon, eh ?"
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 163 
 
 McBeath's luminous visage shadowed, and he 
 shut his knife with a cheerless click. " That's 
 what's bothering me/' he confessed. "She's 
 all for delaying and putting off, and having 
 a lot of furbelows built, and a church wed- 
 ding, and cyards printed, and a big infair. 
 Why, first off she was going to hold me off 
 for a year ; but I plied round and carried on 
 so high that she came down to six months. 
 I felt as if I dassent try to narrow the time 
 like I'd like to, on account of of " Mc- 
 Beath paused, and opened his knife again, 
 and thoughtfully tried the blade. " You see, 
 it's this way," he burst out : " I'm in a kind 
 of a hole. I feel as if 'twon't do me no hurt 
 to name it, you and me being hail-feller-well- 
 met and all that. But Alexa's always said she 
 wouldn't marry no man that couldn't turn in 
 and build her a house up yender on the bluff. 
 And I've always promised to do it, for I al- 
 ways judged that there walnut wood of ours 
 would come into the market all right sooner 
 or later, and I never worried much. But t' 
 tell you the dead truth, I ain't so well-heeled 
 right now as I'd find accommodating. I got 
 to figure round a heap. I can't ask Alexa to 
 come and live over in Wayne, in the old place ; 
 she'd have a kniption-fit ; and my mother and 
 her wouldn't gee no way ; and I can't raise a
 
 154 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 cent on the homestead. It's run down, and 
 it belongs, anyway, to my mother. So, yon 
 see, I'm studying a heap these days. Lord, if 
 I could only straighten out that walnut-tract 
 business !" 
 
 "A splendid piece of timber," remarked 
 Dillon. " I saw it when I went up the South 
 Fork inspecting." 
 
 "Prettiest grove in the State. Ought to 
 bring ten thousand." 
 
 Dillon, listening, pulled out his mustache 
 in remembering at how much larger a reckon- 
 ing the logger who was with him on the South 
 Fork trip had estimated the value of the wood. 
 " Eight on to the water aidge like it is," the 
 old logger had declared, "all you got to do 
 is to cut it, and there you are. No hauling or 
 such ; the river just waiting to freight the 
 sticks to your chute. Lord a'mighty, but the 
 company 'd like to git their hands on that 
 there timber ! Walnut's got so skerce the mar- 
 ket's clamoring for it, and the mill has orders 
 filed away as it '11 never git to fill on the face 
 o' the yearth !" 
 
 " It's a pity to have the tract tied up in the 
 way it is," agreed Dillon, setting his foot on 
 the stone step beside McBeath, "but I sup- 
 pose there's no way out." 
 
 " It's all in trust to my mother," explained
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 155 
 
 McBeath, "and she'll never see a twig lopped 
 till she knows for certain about that there 
 Maria Conner." 
 
 "And you're making no headway in the 
 search ?" 
 
 "No, sir. That's just it. We ain't. If 
 I'd of got at it sooner maybe matters 'd be 
 different. But Alexa 'd never pass me no 
 promise, and I just left it to Judge Kinney. 
 ' When I hear from Maria Conner I'll let you 
 know/ says he. Judge is getting pretty old, 
 and his mind ain't what it was. He's had a 
 stroke just lately, and they've took him to the 
 Hot Springs. Lord knows when he'll be able 
 to tend to anything." 
 
 " Somehow it doesn't seem exactly a busi- 
 ness-like arrangement," mused Dillon, think- 
 ing of the mill's orders for walnut. 
 
 "It ain't," cried McBeath, gloomily. He 
 added, after a while, " It's no use for me to 
 worry myself thin as a June shad, though. 
 Any day may come a letter from the West stat- 
 ing that Conner's sister's dead, or willin' to 
 compromise, or some such trick. Something 
 ought to come to us off that tract. Judge 
 Kinney said so himself. 'Ain't we watched it 
 continual ? Why, they wouldn't be a stick of 
 it left if we hadn't gyarded it like a pair of 
 hawks ! Yes, sir ; whichever way the cat
 
 150 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 jumps, I stand to win. All I ask is a let- 
 ter." 
 
 "A letter would certainly ease the situation/' 
 smiled Dillon. "When it comes, Mac, if it is 
 such as to put the wood at your own disposal, 
 I wish you would give me a chance to handle 
 it. I'd pay you as much as any one." 
 
 McBeath echoed his laugh, put into a gay 
 mood by this prospective bargaining. "I'd 
 rather it was you than most/' he cried. " Time 
 was when I hadn't much use for you, but 
 I've got over that. You see, I kind of mis- 
 trusted you was beating my time in yonder !" 
 He nodded towards the house. "ButAlexa 
 like to died laughing when I mentioned it to 
 her the other day said the love lost between 
 you and her wouldn't serve to wad a shot- 
 gun." 
 
 " Oh, I never had a chance !" sighed Dillon. 
 " Well, I must go, Mac. You'll remember me 
 when you come into your kingdom ? Half 
 down, eh, half when delivered ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ! Yes, sir !" gurgled McBeath. 
 " Lord, I wisht I could sign the papers to- 
 morrow !" 
 
 " Maybe you can," smiled Dillon. " It all 
 depends " He drew up, with a sudden thrill- 
 ing of the pulses, startled, appalled, fascinated 
 by the idea which had flashed on him from
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 157 
 
 those light, unthinking words. In his tem- 
 ples he could feel a strange trembling, as of 
 quivering nerves. His eyes dazzled, and he 
 perceived himself to be striving to hold his 
 thoughts suspended, to be struggling to keep 
 them from wheeling on to a conclusion which 
 he seemed to see even while he tried to see 
 nothing. Like a man who on the edge of a 
 precipice has begun to fear a vertigo, he made 
 an actual step backward. But the chasm 
 still drew him ; its depths called him ; and 
 with an effort to regain himself he passed a 
 hand over his eyes, and attempted to fix his 
 gaze upon some detail of the scene around 
 him. 
 
 It was past the middle of the afternoon, but a 
 glitter of heat still struck the railway tracks, giv- 
 ing them the look of rivers whose water leaped 
 and sparkled in the green distance. In the 
 singular acuteness of perception which Dillon 
 felt the sky seemed to him to be full of atoms, 
 frothing and whirling in a rush of blue, cease- 
 lessly active, as if life, vibrating in the atmos- 
 phere, were endowed in its least point with 
 all the barren restlessness of the soul of hu- 
 manity. Through the greenish - bronze tints 
 of the opposite hill a little air stirred fitfully, 
 and on the brow of the massive shape a light- 
 ning-charred tree, revealing its riven shape
 
 158 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 against a distorted cloud, gave him a fancy 
 of a carven crucifix pressed to dying lips. 
 
 Village sounds spent themselves distinctly. 
 Dillon was aware of the smallest whir of the 
 insects in the grass beyond the path, yet noth- 
 ing blurred the sharp outlines of the ideas 
 thronging swift and persuasive below his sense 
 of outward things. What a master - stroke it 
 would be to secure for the mill this cried-up 
 reach of timber ! In how many ways it would 
 profit him if only he were able to secure it, 
 and acting independently, yet in the interest 
 of the company, to deliver the wood to them 
 in the great December tides ! There would 
 be, first of all, a large percentage of profit ac- 
 cruing to him from the operation ; for the 
 price which McBeath had suggested, based 
 upon a better stocked market, would enable 
 the dealer, while disposing of the timber at a 
 fair price, to realize a very considerable mar- 
 gin. As to other matters, it was plain that the 
 mill people could hardly fail to appreciate Dil- 
 lon's attitude in consigning them the wood ; 
 the way to a partnership in the firm might be 
 managed with Mr. Burkely's aid, and this aid 
 Avould not be withheld when the old man un- 
 derstood how much skill and energy his nephew 
 had displayed in the transaction. Thus Dillon's 
 marriage would be divested of all those material
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 159 
 
 difficulties which were beginning to weigh upon 
 him, and life would become an easy thing, and 
 comfort and satisfaction be added to every 
 one. 
 
 There was no confusion in Dillon's mind. 
 After that first sense of dizziness everything 
 had grown quite clear. He had no conscious- 
 ness of yielding to an ugly impulse ; there had 
 not been struggle enough to make him feel 
 anything like a moral defeat. It was in a sort 
 of impersonal way that he heard himself add- 
 ing, " On a letter ; everything, it seems, de- 
 pends on just a letter." 
 
 He was directly sensible of a subtle suggest- 
 iveness in his voice a suggestiveness which 
 the air and meadows and hills appeared to 
 understand and develop, but which McBeath 
 might be too doltish in his mental equipment 
 to catch at even dimly. Dillon turned a little 
 and set a casual eye upon the young man. 
 McBeath's lips had fallen apart and his gaze 
 was wide, as if in a blank observation of some 
 unfamiliar and astounding object. 
 
 Viewing him, Dillon felt a rush of spirits, 
 and he cried, gayly : " We won't despair. Per- 
 haps there's a message even now on its way to 
 assure your mother that the walnut wood is 
 hers and yours. Butte City was the place, 
 wasn't it, from which you last heard of this
 
 160 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Hannah or Maria Conner ?" And with his 
 customary little wave of the hand Dillon went 
 on up the path, leaving McBeath in a sort of 
 mental vacancy upon the stone ledge. 
 
 When he afterwards thought of it all a cer- 
 tain vague discomfort touched Dillon. He had 
 a sense of uneasiness and distaste ; yet he was 
 able to soothe himself with the assurance that 
 he had said to McBeath nothing which the 
 world might not have heard. If a covert sig- 
 nificance had indeed lurked in those few words 
 spoken so lightly, that significance depended 
 entirely upon McBeatb/s interpretation. If 
 McBeath chose to turn to unadvised account 
 the obscure implication of a passing phrase, 
 the issue lay with him. 
 
 He wondered, however, what the character 
 of McBeatlrs ruminations might be ; for, dur- 
 ing the next day or so, McBeath certainly 
 seemed to be ruminating upon something. 
 Upon the following Sabbath, as the young 
 countryman went down the road beside Alexa 
 on his way to church, the air of unusual 
 thoughtfulness which environed him was par- 
 ticularly evident, and elicited a jest or two 
 from the loungers about the station. 
 
 "Begins to see that marriage is a serious 
 thing," said the agent. 
 
 "M-yes," agreed the engineer. " Feels the
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 161 
 
 hook in his gills, and begins to think of the 
 skillet !" 
 
 That afternoon, as Dillon sat with several 
 men in the side-yard, waiting for the three 
 o'clock train to bring the Cincinnati papers, 
 he saw McBeath approaching him in the shade 
 of the trees. 
 
 " Awful hot, ain't it ?" said McBeath, wip- 
 ing out his hat. And making a gesture tow- 
 ards the sphinx knob, he inquired, " Ever been 
 on top ?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Well," declared McBeath, with an earnest- 
 ness which the subject seemed scarcely to war- 
 rant, " you'd be surprised the way the air stirs 
 up there ! There's a breeze on top of that knob 
 when not a breath's whiffin' down here. And 
 the view, too ! Something great !" 
 
 "Yes?" said Dillon. 
 
 " Er why you wouldn't care to go up ?" 
 
 " I don't think I would. It's something of a 
 climb, Mac." 
 
 "No, sir ! no, sir ! easy path jogs up the side." 
 McBeath paused, and kicked a hole in the turf 
 with his heel. " To tell the truth," he owned, 
 " I'd like to get off some place. I been turn- 
 ing something in my mind overnight, and I'd 
 like to advise with you, if you didn't care." 
 
 Dillon let the legs of his chair down. "It
 
 162 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 isn't train-time by an hour/' lie said. " I don't 
 know that I mind a stroll, if I can be of any 
 service to you." 
 
 The sphinx knob did not confirm McBeath's 
 assertions regarding the ease of its ascent ; it 
 appeared to Dillon steeper than any one would 
 have dreamed from a casual inspection of its 
 bulk ; and more than once he fetched up 
 breathless in the ragged cow-path braiding its 
 side in wandering curves. Tall yellow weeds, 
 thick with straw-tassels, rustled sharply as the 
 two men brushed through them. A world of 
 insect murmurs rose under their feet, and tree- 
 toads overhead were uttering a reedy presage 
 of rain. 
 
 The head of the knob was coifEed in fiat lime- 
 stone, over which a kind of ivy, brightly scarlet 
 and of a waxen texture, trailed a flaming net. 
 White-oak saplings, also reddening, burned 
 from every crevice of the upland rock, and 
 here and there a wand of golden-rod charmed 
 the air with languid passes. Purple flowers, 
 low-growing and rich in odors, carpeted the 
 flat places along the ridge of the rise, where, 
 grazing the late pasturage, a few long-horned 
 cattle ranged with a pastoral tinkling. 
 
 Below, like a toy world, the little trees and 
 houses of the village scattered the valley. High 
 on the east bluff the hotel, buttressed in hewn
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 163 
 
 rock, peaked its slight towers in a density of 
 surrounding leaf. Something impressive and 
 picturesque was lent it by the shade and dis- 
 tance ; it might have been a deeply moated 
 stronghold, and the garment hung to dry in 
 one of the gable windows a betokening scarf ; 
 while a lank gray horse rounding the hill road 
 added a graphic detail to the scene, though in- 
 stead of a mailed knight he bore only a bare- 
 legged lad, who straddled a housing of ancient 
 blanket. 
 
 The Cumberland bent like a hook in its high 
 banks. The bridge was a mere web, a thing 
 of froth and spray, caught in the foliage of the 
 cliffs. The red church spire was more than 
 ever like a rapier painted to the hilt ; and above 
 the far-off tracks the railway signal, like a 
 scarlet cap lifted on a bayonet, suggested some 
 wild trophy of war, set off against the sadder 
 emblem of carnage and defeat. 
 
 " There wasn't no fighting hereabouts during 
 the war," remarked McBeath, pausing "at 
 least, not any nearer than Mill Springs. But 
 that there lightning-burned tree yender used to 
 be a staff for signals. It's got bullets in it, too. 
 Look at that one peeping from the rotten bark. 
 I reckon the soldiers fired into it for luck." 
 
 Dillon picked up a fragment of wood in 
 which a blue, leaden spot shone dully. " Noth-
 
 164 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 ing altogether belittles the dignity of a bullet," 
 he said. " I respect a bullet. It has an 
 air of potentiality. It may not be doing any 
 harm, but it looks capable of it, like the eye 
 of a pretty nun." 
 
 " One of the biggest trees in our walnut 
 tract has a spike of lead in it," advanced Mc- 
 Beath. "It's the one Conner was laying un- 
 der when they found him. Yes, sir, it's been 
 there thirty year. The more I think of it 
 the more Why, say, Mr. Dillon, I'll tell you 
 what's come into my head this last day or so. 
 You remember passing the remark that every- 
 thing seemed to hinge on a letter " 
 
 " I suppose there isn't much doubt of my 
 profound observation being true, Mac !" 
 
 " Er no. But seems like I got a new light 
 on it when you says it over, kind of signifying 
 and slow." 
 
 " I'm glad if I said anything of an enlight- 
 ening nature I didn't know it, certainly !" 
 
 McBeath faltered a little. " Well, I didn't 
 know whether you meant anything or not." 
 
 " Meant anything ? What are you driving 
 at, McBeath ?" Dillon turned with an inquiring 
 frown, dropping the hand through which he 
 had been looking at the Daniel Boone, a nut- 
 shell of a boat, resembling a fleck of rust on 
 the scythe-like twist of the river.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 165 
 
 " I somehow got the notion," stammered 
 McBeath, " that you sympathized with me, and 
 felt like I do about its being dog-gone fool- 
 ishness to keep that tract standing while we 
 search all over creation for some one to come 
 and claim it. And about the the letter, 
 you know. Why, I figured round, and I'll tell 
 you the idea that struck me. S'pos'n' my 
 mother could be got to sign a quit-deed or 
 some such thing, would there be anything 
 wrong in me selling the walnut and building 
 me a house and laying the rest of the money by 
 at good interest, so in case the Conner heirs 
 turns up I could hand 'em over the balance, 
 and give 'em a mortgage on the new house, 
 if they didn't see fit to allow me that much for 
 my trouble in keeping the timber for 'em?" 
 
 "I don't see anything wrong in that. Only 
 your mother how would you satisfy her 
 morbid scruples ?" 
 
 McBeath caught joyously at the last words. 
 " That's it !" he cried. " She's plumb mor- 
 bid over this business. And when folks gets 
 all skew-gee brooding on things, why, it seems 
 only right to straighten 'em out, even even " 
 
 " If one has to use strategy ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. Trouble is, I ain't much of a 
 mechanic that way. When it comes to de- 
 ceiving any one "
 
 166 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 "Deceiving? Are you thinking of But it's 
 your own business. Of course, we both know 
 that truth is only a question of the point of 
 view. A hawk looks white as a dove in some 
 lights." 
 
 " Of course. Everything's the way you look 
 at it, ain't it ? At the same time why you 
 see, I hate to come right out and tell my mother 
 what isn't true, and let on that I've had word 
 from Butte City when I haven't. Beating round 
 the bush wouldn't work with my maw. She'd 
 ask me flat-footed if the woman was dead." 
 
 " And do you know she isn't ?" Dillon's 
 voice had a note of weariness. 
 
 McBeath brightened as he declared that, 
 after all, he would probably be inside the lim- 
 its of strict truthfulness if he should positively 
 announce Maria Conner's demise. They had 
 begun to go down the briery path, disturbing 
 a covey of little brown birds which, like a rush 
 of dry leaves, fluttered on before them. Dil- 
 lon began to speak of the nature and habits of 
 these small creatures, dismissing, apparently, 
 all thought of McBeath and McBeatli's plans 
 and projects. Alexa's lover began to look 
 troubled at this withdrawal of interest. At 
 the foot of the hill he stopped. 
 
 " Do you want to handle that timber ?" said 
 he, in a sort of brusque, defiant fashion.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 167 
 
 Dillon glanced mildly into the other's per- 
 turbed face. "When it's in the market/' he 
 said, " I should certainly like to have a chance 
 at it." 
 
 McBeath kicked a stone out of the way. 
 " Half down, you said ?" 
 "That is usual, I believe." 
 " Could it be fixed by next week ?" 
 " Oh, I think so !" smiled Dillon, watching 
 the train swing into sight across the bridge.
 
 XIV 
 
 "!F 'twas me," sighed Mrs. Bohun, while 
 she threaded a needle in a dreamy way, " I'd 
 have me a porch facing the station, so's I could 
 set out and see who came and went on trains. 
 And I'd have a good big press built off the 
 kitchen, so's I could just pile the dishes into 
 it and leave 'em stand overnight when I didn't 
 feel like worshin' 'em. And every last " 
 
 "Ma," broke in Alexa, "do quit planning 
 over that house ! Why, Beau isn't really paid 
 down on the lot yet." 
 
 " Well, he's got it all picked out, ain't he ? 
 Law, Elex, it's a great mercy that his timber 
 track's all out of litigation ! I was right pleased 
 when word came that he could go ahead and 
 sell. Of course," interpolated Mrs. Bohun, with 
 an afterthought, " I mourned as sincere as any 
 one over Maria Conner being gone, but she's 
 better off, and we got to bow to God's will. 
 And seein' we never knew her makes it easier 
 to bear !"
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 169 
 
 A great scarlet-and- white quilt, pieced in the 
 " Lost Lover" design, was spread on stretchers 
 in the family-room, and at one end of it Mrs. 
 Bohun, bending over the frame, was taking 
 little stitches in the checkered surface. Alexa 
 sat opposite, languidly drawing her needle 
 through the squares. 
 
 " Seems like you ain't half as proud of the 
 fine new house Beau's going to raise for you as 
 I was over the log-cabin your paw took me to. 
 Law, them was days ! Both Pulaski County, we 
 was, born and raised. Our kin immygrated 
 from Tennissy mighty nigh a hundred year ago, 
 Elex. Yes, 'n' they fit the Injuns. I've heard 
 your great-gran'pap Hopper narrate about fight- 
 ing under Lieutenant McClure and downing 
 a hull raft of redskins up yender. They had 
 slaves in Pulaski in them days, and a full and 
 plenty of everything wild turkey and deer for 
 the powder, and good crops and fine whiskey 
 to their hand. And, law, the log-raisin's and 
 corn-huskin's they used to have ! These hill 
 folks, they hold their heads high and are mighty 
 notionate and fine-haired, but they hain't any 
 idy of real good times. Not one of 'em's 
 simon-pure Pulaski. I wouldn't wish to throw 
 it up to 'em, of course, but so 'tis. Now your 
 great-gran'pap Hopper minded well when they 
 wasn't but the one store in Somerset. He
 
 170 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 was Pulaski to the backbone. Law me, Elex, 
 you'll have to take lesser stitches than them ! 
 I wouldn't have old lady McBeath pitch an eye 
 on to them stitches for nothing on the face 
 of the earth. She's a terrible finicky house- 
 keeper, they tell." 
 
 Alexa leaned back in her chair with a dark- 
 ening face. " She won't be called on to over- 
 look my affairs," said the girl. "I don't feel 
 any too friendly since I heard she named it 
 that she didn't believe in Beau's building, and 
 that I'd ought to be satisfied to come and live 
 in the old place. Huh, I'd like to see myself !" 
 
 1 ( I'd rather pull fodder for a living than live 
 with a husband's folks," agreed Mrs. Bohun. 
 "Young couples ought to be to theirse'ves. 
 I've never yet seen the house was big enough 
 for two families. Hark, Elex ; ain't that No. 10 
 blowing ? Bun and see if anybody gets off." 
 
 Dillon was swinging himself to the rear plat- 
 form of the North-bound train as Alexa reached 
 the window. He wore the air of contentment 
 which had lately become usual with him, and 
 was waving a gay farewell to some one on the 
 station steps probably to Corinne Morrow, 
 who, as the train moved and the throng on the 
 tracks lessened, disclosed herself in her father's 
 hand, still tossing kisses after the vanishing 
 cars. Alexa's lips tightened.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 171 
 
 " How I hate him I" she thought. And in an 
 instant, as Dillon's smiling eyes and gesture of 
 farewell were still before her, she repeated, " I 
 hate him \" and caught a sob in her throat and 
 lost the haunting vision in hot tears. 
 
 Meantime Dillon, unfolding a newspaper, 
 had composed himself for the half -day's jour- 
 ney to Cincinnati, and while his eyes scanned 
 the news was arranging certain details of a 
 coming interview with his uncle. He had writ- 
 ten to Mr. Burkely that in spite of his own mi- 
 worthiness he had found grace with Lucy. He 
 had not, so he wrote, deceived her in the gen- 
 eral matter of his past life. As to the actual 
 happening which most deeply marred that 
 past, this, he said, he had not spoken of. His 
 heart failed him when he thought of reading 
 to Lucy so dark a page, not because he feared 
 that she would turn from him in contempt 
 for she was too sweet and gentle to despise a 
 broken heart and contrite spirit but because 
 he could not bear to shadow her youth with 
 such knowledge of sin. Lucy had lifted him 
 from the ashes where he lay; she had saved 
 him, renewed him, knowing that he had walked 
 in dark and thorny ways and taken many a 
 hurt. Was it necessary that she should have 
 to see in ugly exactitude the grinning shape of 
 every gin which had taken him by the heel ?
 
 172 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Was it not wiser to leave these traps and toils 
 in obscurity, telling her only of their presence, 
 and saving her from the pain of actual sight ? 
 
 Dillon said that he had often and anxiously 
 pondered upon the question, and had decided 
 against the revelation of any knowledge which 
 may be depended on to embitter an innocent 
 soul. Over the new life to which his spirit 
 looked with so much hope and thankfulness he 
 could not bring himself to cast a darkness that 
 must change Lucy's sunlight into shade. His 
 own days could never free themselves from a 
 bleak and hateful memory ; but Lucy ! must 
 Lucy bear, too, the burden of his shame ? 
 
 So Dillon had written, adding that if his 
 uncle believed it wiser to disclose everything 
 to Lucy's people, he would bow to the decree. 
 In reply Mr. Burkely had telegraphed : "Can- 
 not decide; come North at once; much dis- 
 turbed." 
 
 This message arrived in the nick of time, for 
 the matter of the walnut wood had meanwhile 
 arisen, and Dillon's need of seeing Mr. Burkely 
 had become additionally imperative. He had 
 a feeling that it would not be hard to persuade 
 his uncle to agree with him regarding the folly 
 of distressing Lucy with those old mischances. 
 And as to the question of the walnut, Dillon 
 was sure that Mr. Burkely would find satisfac-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 173 
 
 tion and pride in assisting him with the pre- 
 liminary payments. 
 
 " So he gave you the option, did he, as soon 
 as he came into possession this young man 
 McBeath ? Preferred to deal with you rather 
 than the mill ?" the old man would chuckle. 
 "Well, Burkely, it seems to pay this being 
 an agreeable fellow. Go ahead, my lad, and of 
 course you may draw on me for the advance/' 
 
 A prevision of this cheerful declaration was 
 running in Dillon's head as he glanced from 
 the window at Junction City and saw the 
 South-bound train on the opposite track. A 
 man in the smoking-car nodded towards him 
 in a gruff fashion. It was Dunbar, red and 
 square of visage behind the lowered pane. 
 
 " What's taking the fellow North ?" mused 
 the mill president, returning to his cigar. 
 " Mischief of some sort, no doubt. Yet it 
 isn't easy to associate the idea of mischief 
 with that eye of his. And his diffidence, or 
 f urtiveness, or whatever it is, rather prejudices 
 a man in his favor." Dunbar sighed. " Poor 
 Nat ! he doesn't appeal to the imagination, I 
 suppose. Lucy couldn't identify him with her 
 ideals. He's too simply planned, too obvious- 
 ly good. Not theatrically and imposingly good, 
 but plainly and undramatically upright, with- 
 out wings or halo. This other fellow, no doubt,
 
 174 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 seems to her much more of a man. His sins, 
 if she knows them, probably seem to her evi- 
 dences of superior virility. Women have some- 
 how got the idea that vice in men is sex ; that 
 we are masculine in proportion as we are bad. 
 In such a condition of things a young man's 
 got to have considerable moral courage to vent- 
 ure to live decently. All women's fault ! all 
 their fault ! Well, thank God, I've no mission 
 to set the times right. Let 'em wag ! My 
 present object is to climb the bluff and request 
 a few words with Major Morrow. " 
 
 Yet this duty was not an enviable one, and 
 on alighting from the train at Streamlet, Dun- 
 bar looked about to see if Taliaferro might not 
 be in sight for a moment of strengthening con- 
 ference. The doctor, however, did not seem 
 to be among the men on the platform, and 
 upon asking for him in the office he found that 
 he was supposed to be "down Tateville way." 
 
 When D unbar finally came down the hotel 
 steps addressed doggedly to his task it was late 
 in the afternoon, and the four-o'clock express 
 had already thundered by, casting the usual 
 mail-bag over the brow of the hill, where it lay 
 in a brown heap. A white cow stretched itself 
 at ease in the path, mouthing its cud with plac- 
 id, black -lined lips, and switching a long tail 
 over its ridging back. Dunbar stepped around
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 175 
 
 the recumbent shape and made his way up the 
 last little rise of the road. 
 
 Under one of the great wayside trees a pile 
 of cedar posts lay in a square block, and at sight 
 of them Dunbar felt a desire to sit and rest 
 himself in the shade ; but though he paused he 
 did not yield to his inclination to stop and en- 
 joy the prospect and so put off the evil hour, 
 but only planted his feet more firmly in the 
 road and pressed forward. 
 
 All the roses in the Morrows' yard were past 
 blooming, and many of the slender, finely pi- 
 coted leaves of the thick coppice were white now 
 and transparent with the ravages of some worm 
 or bug. The lawn was fresh as ever, and the 
 porch vines had still a wide purple flower here 
 and there in their dark tangles, like a scatter- 
 ing of gems in a woman's hair. Behind them, 
 according to his habit, the Major sat drowsing. 
 At the sound of Dunbar's steps he awakened 
 with his customary dignity and rose. 
 
 " Well," said Dunbar, seating himself, "this 
 weather doesn't look much like a tide/' 
 
 " Singularly dry/' agreed the Major "singu- 
 larly so." And presently, as Dunbar continued 
 to maintain an embarrassed and peculiar si- 
 lence, he asked, "Have you lately returned 
 from the North ?" 
 
 "Yes," admitted Dunbar, put to the plunge
 
 176 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 by this opening. "Yes just got in an hour 
 since. And, Major, while I was in Cincinnati 
 I had occasion to look rather narrowly into the 
 ways of a young man in whom perhaps you, as 
 well as myself, have some interest. I speak of 
 Mr. Burkely's nephew. It it isn't a pleasant 
 topic. I don't know just how to begin to to 
 speak of the matter." 
 
 He seemed indeed at a loss, and the Major mur- 
 mured, deeply, " You surprise me very much." 
 
 Dunbar took breath, and faced round and 
 struck into his story. He made short work of 
 the relation, sitting bolt-upright, with his eyes 
 on the distant rivers. At the end of a moment 
 the Major also had become very erect in his 
 chair, and, with his immobile eyes fixed incred- 
 ulously on the other's rubicund face, was strik- 
 ing his knee in a disturbed fashion. 
 
 " I can scarcely credit this," he confessed. 
 "There is no possibility of mistake ?" 
 
 " No, Major Morrow, I'm sadly afraid there 
 isn't. I went to the Jonases myself. As I was 
 already in possession of the facts, they couldn't 
 well deny me the word of confirmation which 
 was all I asked. Oh, Burkely shouldn't have 
 concealed this thing at least, not from me ! If 
 he'd been frank with me I should have taken 
 the young man into the mill just the same, for 
 I only did it, anyway, on Burkely's account, and
 
 BOUND IK SHALLOWS 177 
 
 it might have made a difference" Dunbar 
 hesitated " in some other directions." 
 
 The Major seemed to be plunged in thought. 
 After a moment he said, slowly, "Yes, it 
 might have made a difference. I need not tell 
 you that Mr. Dillon has been on a very familiar 
 footing in my family yes, very. In short, I 
 have listened to his proposal for my daughter's 
 hand." The Major's voice had a moved ac- 
 cent, and Dunbar, greatly distressed, rose sud- 
 denly. 
 
 Women were talking somewhere within the 
 house, and a girl's laughter rang out softly as 
 Dunbar said : " I am pained pained. Major, 
 believe me, I " 
 
 " I have to thank you for an inestimable ser- 
 vice," Major Morrow interposed, also rising. 
 He had a worried look as he added : " I am 
 afraid to think how this will affect Lucy. She 
 I'm afraid she is very much attached to the 
 young man." 
 
 "Better a single sharp wrench than a life- 
 long anguish," fell in Dunbar, grasping the 
 Major's hand. " Good-bye. I hope I've acted 
 wisely. I've tried to. Good-bye, Major !" And 
 he tramped down the walk, clearing his throat 
 with some violence. 
 
 An hour later, as the west began to yellow 
 
 for sunset and birds were noisily disputing for 
 12
 
 178 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 sleeping-quarters in the persimmon-trees near 
 the gate, Mrs. Morrow, who had been engaged in 
 a long conference with her husband, appeared 
 at the library door, pressing her handkerchief 
 to her eyes and murmuring : " My poor, sweet 
 child ! Oh, Major, I don't see how I can tell 
 her! Oh,Lncy! Lucy!" 
 
 "Leave it to me," insisted the Major; but 
 though his tone was not in the least insistent, 
 Mrs. Morrow began to demur. 
 
 " No," she sobbed " no, Major ; it is a wom- 
 an's part. I do not say you would not try to 
 break this dreadful news gently ; but a mother, 
 Major a mother will find the tenderest way." 
 She composed herself thereupon, and crossed 
 the wide hall and halted in the open doorway 
 of the drawing-room beyond. 
 
 The frilled, thin curtains were moving in 
 the evening air, a breath of which rippled also 
 through the fleece of a great white pelt before 
 the log -heaped fireplace. Even the sharply 
 split leaves of a tall palm in a corner stirred a 
 little in the soft breeze. Everything had an 
 aspect of life and energy, and Lucy's hand, as 
 it moved among the small teacups of a spidery, 
 old-fashioned cherry table near the south win- 
 dow, seemed to be impelled with the same 
 gentle force which animated the objects round 
 about.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 178 
 
 " Are you going to have some tea at last ?" 
 inquired Lucy, regarding the tiny spurt of flame 
 below the small brass kettle. "It's really too 
 late. But you all seemed so deeply engaged in 
 the library that I didn't venture to disturb you. 
 The water seems to be all boiled away. Will you 
 wait ?" She looked up from the pretty array 
 of blue delf and bits of fringed linen and little 
 spoons. Above her the greenish wall gleamed 
 with a narrow mirror, branching at the base 
 in two spiring groups of wax-candles, which 
 seemed to repeat the sunset-tinged whiteness 
 of her simple, short-waisted frock and the shine 
 of the pearl in the single ring upon her hand. 
 
 " Lucy I" said Mrs. Morrow, coming nearer. 
 " Oh, Lucy !" 
 
 Lucy turned sharply, with her brownish eyes 
 aghast and her lips falling apart in a horror of 
 apprehension. 
 
 " Don't look so frightened," besought Mrs. 
 Morrow. "Nothing is is wrong. That is 
 oh, I wish I knew how to tell it ! Mr. Dil- 
 lon" 
 
 " Is he dead ?" whispered Lucy. 
 
 "Dead ? No, he isn't dead. Perhaps if he 
 were it would be just as well !" 
 
 " Mamma I" 
 
 "Lucy, I mean it. I fear we have all been 
 very much deceived in Mr. Dillon very, very
 
 180 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 much deceived. We have just discovered that 
 he hasn't been at all frank with us about him- 
 self. Lucy, he hasn't been what he should 
 have been I" 
 
 Lucy mechanically set straight the lid of the 
 tea-caddy. Her delicately lined brows were 
 twitching. 
 
 " He hasn't deceived me," she said. "From 
 the very first he told me that " 
 
 "Yes, Lucy. In a large, general way he in- 
 dicated that his life had not been altogether 
 irreproachable. He intimated this to us all, 
 and we thought him laudably conscientious. 
 But he didn't tell us, Lucy, that he'd been real- 
 ly dishonorable. He didn't say that he'd be- 
 trayed a a business trust, and that if his uncle 
 had not settled everything he would have had 
 to suffer the punishment appointed for such 
 deeds." 
 
 Lucy was standing up and pushing back her 
 light, bright hair as if it blinded her. " Dis- 
 honorable !" she repeated, in a sort of vacant 
 voice. " What how " 
 
 "Dearest child, it is only too plain his 
 wrong -doing. But, thank Heaven, we have 
 found out his unworthiness in time. He has 
 been dishonest, Lucy, and sadly dissipated as 
 well. Your father will tell you the details if 
 you want to hear them."
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 181 
 
 Lucy had taken a step towards the door, still 
 with a look of dulness in her white face. " I 
 have got to hear them," she said, heavily. And 
 then her voice, her glance, became suddenly 
 infused with life. " But I am sure sure be- 
 forehand that there will be nothing I do not 
 know or cannot forgive." 
 
 She brushed into the hall, and Mrs. Morrow, 
 dropping into a capacious chair, fell to weep- 
 ing. Some time later she heard a door close, 
 and, bending forward, she heard Lucy going 
 slowly up the curving staircase. 
 
 " Lucy," she cried, gently, " has he told you ? 
 Have you " 
 
 Lucy looked over the baluster, upon which 
 her arm lay heavily. She was mortally white. 
 Her features seemed shrunken and hollow. 
 "Yes," she said, simply, " I have heard every- 
 thing. When Mr. Dillon comes back, will you 
 tell him that I would rather not see him any 
 more ?"
 
 XV 
 
 Two days afterwards, as the afternoon train 
 burst from the darkness of the tunnel and shot 
 out upon the airy brightness of the lofty bridge, 
 Dillon, gathering up his luggage, was sensible 
 of a throb of pronounced happiness. He had 
 been away scarcely half a week, yet his return 
 had the zest of a long and enforced absence; 
 and when he looked from the window and saw 
 how beautiful Streamlet was in its autumnal 
 guise, he said to himself that his pleasure in 
 seeing the knob again was explainable on more 
 grounds than one. 
 
 All over the hills a mingling sheen of red 
 and saffron and purple subtilized the waning 
 foliage, while the coarse grass and tall weeds of 
 the lowlands were matted in a snarl of dull 
 olive. Through thinning masks of leaf the stern 
 faces of the cliffs began to frown, and where a 
 hint of white had scarcely touched the wayside 
 thickets walls of little houses were stealing into 
 sight. Summer seemed as if catching together
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 183 
 
 her green skirts, drawing in their rich abun- 
 dance for a swift departure. Already her light 
 foot faltered in the fat valley, and the mellow 
 atmosphere hung low and soft, as it might be 
 in a parting benediction. 
 
 Mountain showers had swollen the rivers 
 enough to enliven trade a little in the town, 
 the mill-stacks were misted in vaporous whiie, 
 stave - buckers were beating away at piles of 
 rugged oak, and certain crimson-wrapped par- 
 cels in the arms of an occasional passer in the 
 lower roads indicated increased activity on the 
 part of the stores. 
 
 Everything had prospered in Dillon's hand 
 during his absence. Mr. Burkely had made no 
 question of his willingness to advance whatever 
 might be necessary in concluding the purchase 
 of the McBeath timber, and he had further- 
 more expressed considerable interest in his 
 nephew's plans. 
 
 "So they've at last put the wood on the 
 market, have they ?" he said. " I've heard that 
 there was some legal complication in the case. 
 Be sure of your ground, Burkely. This is quite 
 a deal for you, my boy quite a deal. We will 
 show them yet that you are a trader !" Then, 
 with a different and less assured manner, he 
 continued, " I wish I felt as able to decide 
 upon this other business this affair which con-
 
 184 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 cerns Miss Morrow. Of course, it pleases me 
 to know that yon have won the regard of such 
 a girl as she appears to be. I remember her 
 very well. She seemed to me a nice, maidenly 
 young girl, like the girls in the books I read 
 when I was young girls who wore roses in 
 their hair, and blushed easily, and belonged 
 generally to the soft and milky rabble of woman- 
 kind that is so despised nowadays. At first I 
 had an idea that Miss Morrow might be of the 
 modern type a man hears so much about 
 critical, and full of philosophies and theories 
 and God knows what. But after I had looked 
 at her a while she seemed to me very young 
 and gentle somehow, and I felt I felt as if I 
 should have spoken more plainly concerning 
 you. I'm an old-fashioned man, you see, and 
 it touched me her not seeming exactly of the 
 highly intellectual and determinedly progres- 
 sive order, but just a simple-hearted girl, like 
 the girls I told you I used to read of and like. 
 These girls who used to be popular in stories 
 had always, I recall, the firmest sort of prin- 
 ciples, despite their liability to faint away when 
 anything happened. Maybe that's why Miss 
 Morrow reminded me of them. There's a sort 
 of austerity in her face, Burkely, though it's 
 a little face enough, and soft-featured, and all 
 that. I remarked it. And I'm not so sure she
 
 BOUKD IN SHALLOWS 185 
 
 would take certain revelations which, I be- 
 lieve, ought to be made, as composedly as you 
 fancy. A few simple, primal intuitions of 
 right and wrong, honor and shame these are 
 harder to combat than any amount of theories 
 and philosophies and systems." 
 
 " You think, then, that in being frank with 
 Lucy I would risk everything that gives my 
 life promise ?" 
 
 " Burkely, I" 
 
 " Yet you are going to induce me to tell her 
 the whole wretched business. Very well. I 
 had hoped to save her the pain of it. That 
 is all. For I believe you are mistaken in think- 
 ing she won't forgive me." 
 
 "Perhaps, Burkely, perhaps." The old 
 man's tones were incredulous but wavering. 
 
 After this they talked over the matter a long 
 time and from different points of view, till 
 finally Mr. Burkely, worn out and unsettled, 
 conceded the argument. " You may be right," 
 he said. " I seem to to feel that you may be 
 wiser than I in this. But " 
 
 " I don't want to oppose your judgment." 
 
 " "Well, well," commented the other, with a 
 kind of querulous impatience, " let things be. 
 You're not trying to save yourself. That's 
 what persuades me. You're trying to save 
 her."
 
 186 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Dillon felt sure he had no other motive than 
 the generous one imputed to him, and he be- 
 gan to have a nobly sacrificial sort of feeling, 
 as if, somehow, his own burden were made 
 heavier by his refusal to slip half of it upon 
 Lucy's shoulders. Some pleasant haunting of 
 this sentiment was still with him when he 
 reached the hotel office and set his travelling 
 traps on the ink-stained table and stood de- 
 bating upon the satisfaction he would have in 
 seeing Lucy for the briefest moment before 
 going to the mill. Unquestionably, it would 
 stand him in good stead to go straightway to 
 the mill and exhibit a praiseworthy interest 
 in business affairs. But Lucy was to be con- 
 sidered too ; it would please her to know he 
 had yielded to his desire to see her ; and upon 
 this gratifying base he decided to go up hill 
 instead of down. 
 
 The door of the family-room was ajar, and 
 Mrs. Bohun's tones, lifted in an exculpatory 
 accent, ranged through the office. 
 
 " I done what I could, Mr. McVeigh," she 
 was saying. " More, angels haven't the pow- 
 er. I sent her word she could come and help 
 with the worsh, and she 'lowed she had a hang- 
 nail and couldn't rub. And I got out a passel 
 of sheets for her to turn and darn, and she 
 sent word she'd never 'd had no knack at sew-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 187 
 
 ing, and wouldn't like to try. So findly I 
 told the boy to put out and see could she clean 
 winders a thing, Mr. McVeigh, which, I pass 
 my word, I don't need done no more 'n a cat 
 needs two tails and she said she'd like well 
 to oblige me, only she was liable to get dizzy 
 setting on to a sill. And I just says, 'Well, 
 if that Lete Haight can't help herse'f some 
 little, it's a pore show for them as tries to help 
 her.' She ain't honing much to turn a new 
 leaf, Mr. McVeigh. Nature is nature. A buz- 
 zard '11 leave fresh meat any day for carrion." 
 
 " But by mercy and truth iniquity is purged," 
 argued the preacher. " How shall we answer 
 in the last day if we have been slack to seek 
 out the faltering and set straight the feet of 
 them that stumble ?" 
 
 Mrs. Bohun cleared her throat in a way 
 which suggested that she had taken this ques- 
 tion as an imputation upon her piety. 
 
 " I don't know how some '11 see fit to an- 
 swer," she declared. " But if any such ques- 
 tion's put to me, I'll say flat-footed that I had 
 other fish to fry. I'll tell 'em all that since I 
 was high enough to pick terbaccer worms off 
 my great-gran'pap Hopper's patch I 've labored 
 and slaved, and spun and wove, and worshed 
 and i'ned, and cooked and tended babies, and 
 seen to my family, and lent a hand to any neigh-
 
 188 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 bor who was sick or hard-pressed, and went to 
 meetin' when I got the chance. And I'll tell 'em 
 that I've never seen the time when I was free 
 to go traipsin' about hunting them as had the 
 same sense as others for to stick to the path 
 and be respected, but liked it better to cavort 
 around and give the town a bad name. Though 
 the serryphims and them should thwack me 
 over the head with their harps for being so 
 free, I should tell that I never refused bread 
 to the hungry, or cherished hard feelin's agin 
 a livin' soul. And if I got to go and burn in 
 quenchless fire because I hain't shed tears over 
 thieves and rapscallions, and took mean women 
 and murderers and sots to my bosom, all right, 
 I can go, and no bones broke." 
 
 The preacher began to expostulate, and Dil- 
 lon went on his way smiling, yet with an in- 
 definable discomfort, which, as he came in 
 range of the Morrows' dwelling, entirely dis- 
 appeared. Beyond, in a shady place at the 
 edge of the bluff, a woman was sitting a 
 woman who, upon nearer view, appeared to 
 be Mrs. Morrow, with her romantic face pen- 
 sively inclined upon her hand and a great vol- 
 ume of light draperies billowing around her 
 on the grass. 
 
 At her feet, with small slippers in the air, 
 Corinne lay crooning over a large book ; it was
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 189 
 
 she who first caught sight of Dillon, and as 
 she did so she scrambled np and clapped her 
 hands and cried out. To Dillon's surprise 
 Mrs. Morrow turned upon the child a face of 
 stern interdiction. He could not hear her 
 words, but he saw Corinne, with her book 
 clasped to her bosom, cross the road and let 
 herself in at the gate and go wailing up the 
 path. 
 
 A forecast of wrong and trouble retarded 
 his step. Mrs. Morrow, without regarding his 
 approach, sat in some appearance of awaiting 
 it. When he came up with rather an uncer- 
 tain phrase of greeting, she bowed, but so 
 coldly that his heart failed. 
 
 "Lucy/' he stammered, "she is well ?" 
 Mrs. Morrow's eyelids expressed a moderate 
 confirmation concerning Lucy's health. " She 
 is not ill ; but of course the storm which 
 has broken upon her has not been with- 
 out its result. It is necessary for me to say, 
 Mr. Dillon, that we have all suffered very 
 much from your er injustice towards us. 
 Yon have deceived us. It is, of course, a pain- 
 ful subject. Perhaps it will be better not to 
 dwell on it. Lucy desires me to say that 
 that " She felt herself hesitating. In Dil- 
 lon's absence it had seemed impossible not 
 to credit the proof of his delinquencies. In-
 
 190 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 dignation towards him and a purpose of reso- 
 lute austerity were easy and natural. But 
 now that he sat beside her on the bench, with 
 a sort of boyish wonder and perplexity and 
 pain in his blue eyes, with all the swarthy 
 color dying in his face and a piteous tremor 
 in the scrap of fair beard, it was unexpectedly 
 difficult to believe him of a froward and repro- 
 bate nature, one who had been skilful in evil 
 devices, weak, and without honor. 
 
 As to Dillon, a darkness seemed to be widen- 
 ing about him. Corinne's distant laments mul- 
 tiplied about him till the whole soft Septem- 
 ber air appeared to be thronged with grieving 
 spirits. An anguish of comprehension en-' 
 gulfed him. They had uncovered, then, his 
 transgression ; and on a sudden his life was 
 laid waste and empty, with a breeding of net- 
 tles where roses had so lately been. 
 
 "I regret it," said Mrs. Morrow, not very 
 clear as to what she was saying, and overcome 
 with something remarkably like pity for Dil- 
 lon, who, with a groan, had sunk back in the 
 seat. He looked stunned. His hands lay 
 upon his knees, and though his lips were apart 
 they seemed breathless. 
 
 "I couldn't bear to have her know/' he whis- 
 pered. " My dove, my dove ! I couldn't bear to 
 wound her I" His eyes were wet, and he set a
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 191 
 
 dim gaze upon the ground. " I knew I wasn't 
 worthy of her. If I had known her sooner I 
 shouldn't have been what I am. And even 
 afterwards she could have made anything of 
 me. Honor and power but now there is 
 nothing left for me, I suppose, but perdition. 
 The shortest way is the way I had better 
 take." 
 
 Mrs. Morrow began to have a queer ob- 
 struction in her throat. She wished he would 
 try to exonerate or defend himself, so that 
 her powers of reason and judgment might 
 make way against the emotion which was ris- 
 ing in her at the sight of his simple abasement. 
 But he did not attempt excuses, and at length, 
 11 You had bad companions, I suppose ?" she 
 advanced. 
 
 Dillon did not make use of this foothold. 
 "I was my own worst enemy," he said, in a 
 sort of still despair. "I don't think any one 
 is to blame for my folly. I don't know how it 
 happened. I was down before I realized that 
 I had stumbled. And afterwards I made no 
 effort. I had nothing to live for ; not even a 
 memory. My poor mother, always pale and 
 scared, my father, with his besotted cruelties 
 these weren't things to look back on. A 
 stronger-fibred man might have felt responsible 
 for himself. I am not strong, except in my
 
 192 BOUKD IN SHALLOWS 
 
 affections. I thought it was all over till I 
 met Lncy. She could have saved me. I was 
 clay in her hands. Now" he cast a burning 
 glance about him "now, I suppose, I shall 
 never see her again." 
 
 Mrs. Morrow was stammering, "Perhaps 
 it's better so. She she does not wish it 
 she" 
 
 At the first word Dillon cried out, "Not 
 that ! Oh, not that ! Let me see her once 
 only once more ! She was to be my wife ! Oh, 
 Lucy !" 
 
 Mrs. Morrow was convulsively searching for 
 her handkerchief. The Major would be very 
 angry if she should permit Dillon a last word 
 with Lucy no doubt he would be very 
 angry ; but perhaps they had been too severe 
 in their judgments upon this stricken young 
 man, whose sins, after all, lay far behind him, 
 and of whom Lucy might have made anything. 
 " We who are strong ought also to bear the 
 infirmities of the weak," she reminded herself, 
 apologetically. What right had she or any one 
 else to withhold the hand from a fellow-creat- 
 ure who sought to lift himself from the edge 
 of an abyss ? to say to him, " Stand by thy- 
 self ; come not near to me, for I am holier 
 than thou ?" 
 
 " Only for a word," Dillon was pleading. "I
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 193 
 
 won't try to move or unsettle her. She is 
 right to to decide against me/' 
 
 "I may be doing wrong/' breathed Mrs. 
 Morrow, " but I cannot bring myself to refuse 
 you. Lucy is walking in the highland pas- 
 ture out behind the house. I hope I " 
 
 Dillon got up with a murmur of passionate 
 gratitude, and turned and went up the road a 
 little way, and presently vanished in the path 
 which swings about the brambly knoll over- 
 looking the bridge. Beyond the bluff a reach 
 of wild upland grass coursed off to the limit of 
 the blue-and-white sky. Trees grew sparsely, 
 and the bushes were low and threadbare from 
 the sweep of high winds. Even the grass had 
 a coarse, dishevelled look, and matted the 
 ground in a confusion of sallow green, over 
 which a small herd of common cattle was 
 browsing, cropping the bearded blade and nos- 
 ing the scattered mullen. 
 
 Across the rough sward a cow-bell or two 
 rang peacefully, and there was no other sound 
 except the light rustling of the breeze and the 
 occasional plaintive outcry of a red calf, which 
 stood in the shade of some saplings at the edge 
 of a marshy basin to the southward. 
 
 Hard by this damp hollow a solitary beech, 
 throttled in wild grape-vines, spread its branches 
 against the low blue of the sky with an effect 
 
 13
 
 194 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 of appeal against the crashing, clinging para- 
 site. And as Dillon came upon the levels and 
 sped a hurried eye along the lonely length of 
 houseless highland, he saw that Lucy was 
 standing near the tall tree, tranced in some in- 
 curious study of the far-off hills. 
 
 He drew near with a muffled step, hurt to 
 the heart at the difference in Lucy's looks. 
 In the little lapse of these few maturing days 
 she appeared to have grown visibly older. The 
 hint of sternness in her face had deepened and 
 developed, and a kind of patient and repressed 
 sorrow clouded her spring-like beauty. She 
 leaned slightly forward, as if she listened. One 
 hand was set against her waist ; the other hung 
 as if it had dropped in a heavy, hopeless gesture. 
 
 All the smallest details of her presence im- 
 pressed themselves on Dillon as he stayed him- 
 self to watch her through the vague green of 
 the vines which encompassed her in woodland 
 shades and set vernal traceries upon the flat, 
 colorless folds of her gown. The set lines of her 
 mouth, the sad preoccupation of her eyes, the 
 shining of the loose hair about her brows, these 
 one by one he took in, not missing such trifling 
 things as the gray shade on the breadth of her 
 thin sleeve, or the fringe of Spanish needles in 
 her garment's hem. 
 
 Some rustling in the sun-cured grass carried
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 195 
 
 his footstep to her, and without appearing 
 startled Lucy turned a quiet face and saw him. 
 Her attitude had barely altered, and her eyes 
 fell on him in so distant and composed a way 
 that Dillon faltered. This was not the pliant 
 girl whose heart had been so easily won to pity 
 his years of pain and misadventure, and whose 
 noblest intuitions of responsibility and protec- 
 tion had been roused by his dependence. Grief, 
 he could see, had made her a diviner of many 
 things. She was no longer wondering and gen- 
 tle, and simple as truth and innocence are 
 simple. It seemed to him that her heart, upon 
 the softness and tenderness of which he had so 
 confidently reckoned, was as a fountain sealed, 
 a spring shut up. And overwhelmed with a 
 new and complete sense of hopelessness, he 
 cried out, bitterly : 
 
 " Lucy ! Is this you, so cold and hard as 
 this ? Have you nothing to say to me not 
 one word ?"
 
 XVI 
 
 As his voice rang out in the stillness of the 
 upland meadows Lucy caught her breath and 
 seemed to tremble a little. She did not speak, 
 however, and Dillon, in a broken way, ex- 
 claimed, " He was right poor old man ! My 
 uncle was right. He felt sure that you would 
 cast me off if you were told everything. But I 
 said I believed you were too gentle and kind 
 to strike down the wretched hand that appealed 
 to you for life. Yet it's happened. You've 
 done this, Lucy you, whom I have loved better 
 than my own soul ; and you have done it at the 
 first breath of accusal, without giving me any 
 poor chance of justification. I'm not complain- 
 ing, though it's hard to be left to perish at the 
 very gate of of heaven. I only want to tell 
 you, Lucy, that I didn't deceive you through 
 cowardice or meanness exactly. If I withheld 
 the particular instance which I suppose they 
 have brought before you whoever they are 
 it was because I felt it would be wrong to
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 197 
 
 make yon share my unending punishment. 
 That was what kept me silent nothing but 
 that. God knows, I believed that, since you had 
 been so generous in forgiving the general evil, 
 you Avould not be merciless to a specific sin. 
 For I didn't deny, did I, that my life had been 
 all wrong ? That I had loved to wander and 
 had not refrained my feet ? Didn't I even say 
 that I had come to feel as if my moral nature 
 must be defective, somehow ? Wasn't I alto- 
 gether hopeless till I met you, Lucy, and was 
 renewed saved, I thought ? God, the mis- 
 ery of the change ! Now " He paused, and as 
 the memory of some words, solemn and impres- 
 sive in their Old Testament simplicity, floated 
 upon him, he added, " Now thorns have come 
 up in the palace that I builded; nettles and 
 brambles have sprung on the threshold where 
 in dreams I saw your dear foot pass. It is be- 
 come a habitation for dragons, a court for 
 owls." He was shaken with tears. "Say 
 something!" he implored her. "Oh, Lucy, 
 say something to me !" 
 
 " I don't know what to say," faltered Lucy, 
 distressed at the sight of his emotion. "When 
 I heard what you had done I felt ashamed and 
 dishonored. I but I don't want to talk about 
 it. I can't ! I hoped I might never see you 
 again, because I hoped to be spared this the
 
 198 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 pain of telling you that I feel as if it would be 
 degrading, debasing, to continue to love a man 
 who has been guilty of despicable actions. I 
 hate to use such a word, but I want to be 
 plain." 
 
 Dillon staggered back, saying, "Plain ! that 
 is plain enough, certainly ' despicable !' " A 
 breath of anger touched him like a flame, and 
 for the instant he felt himself the victim of 
 some cruel defamation. "So you despise me ? 
 Your love was only a flower of spring to fall 
 in the first wind ; not deep, noble, loyal, as I 
 thought it. When it came to the test you 
 thought not of me, but of yourself not of 
 my salvation, but of your own detriment. So 
 long as you were safely housed, what did it 
 matter if the storm whirled me away ?" 
 
 Lucy's eyes fell and her brows twitched. 
 "You will have to think me selfish, I sup- 
 pose," she said. "But I feel that no woman 
 can love what is unworthy of love without de- 
 spoiling her own nature. When respect ends, 
 esteem must end, or else we profane what is 
 the best in us." Her tone was clear, and she 
 spoke with a sort of painful effort, as if she 
 were aware of dealing with unaccustomed 
 thoughts. 
 
 Dillon had cast himself upon the coarse 
 grass. " ( Love is not love/ " he said, with a
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 199 
 
 bitter accent, " ' which alters when it alteration 
 finds.'" 
 
 " If it doesn't/' she rejoined " if it doesn't 
 change Avhen it finds a moral change in its ob- 
 ject, then it must be founded in the very dregs 
 of life." 
 
 " Ah, a moral change ! In me the change 
 was for the better, Lucy. This thing they 
 have told you about, it belongs to the long ago. 
 You're judging me on a kind of ex post facto 
 ground, you see. Not what I am concerns you, 
 but what I was. Mayn't a man leave his error, 
 then ? Is the hand of the Lord shortened ?" 
 
 Lucy's face contracted. "I told you I 
 couldn't discuss this," she said, taking a step 
 forward as if to pass him and end the matter. 
 With her movement Dillon's hopes failed and 
 his confidence gave way;, dropping his head 
 upon the grass, he said, in a stifled fashion : 
 "Whatever you do, Lucy, I know is right. 
 Forgive me for for casting this shadow into 
 your life, dearest. You are right to hold aloof 
 from me. I am a poor devil ! A troubled sea 
 whose waters cast up mire and dirt f A miser- 
 able vessel moulded with a flaw in the stuff ! 
 Good-bye ! Leave me to my fate. And don't 
 remember that I was so ... unmanly ... as 
 to cry like a child ... at the last sight of you. 
 I would like to thank you ... if I could . . .
 
 200 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 for all you have been to me a refuge from the 
 storm, a shadow from the heat. . . . Good-bye 
 . . . good-bye . . ." 
 
 Lucy stood looking back at him as he lay 
 there upon the ground in these extremes of an- 
 guish. While he strove to make a stand against 
 her judgments she had felt her firmness im- 
 pregnable. Neither his defences nor his ac- 
 cusals had affected the principle which actu- 
 ated her. But now that he had entirely given 
 up the struggle, had surrendered every point 
 and lay crushed, urtpanoplied, weaponless, and 
 wounded at her feet, an unspeakable pain and 
 pity rushed over her. 
 
 No doubt he had been without excuse ; but 
 he had trusted and loved her; and through 
 her heart a sudden throb, almost material in 
 its significance, beat sharp and strong. His 
 silence was eloquent of a helplessness which 
 drew her as by powerful hands. His weakness 
 was a plea. His tears persuasive rhetoric, his 
 sobs convincing logic. 
 
 Had he not made sackcloth his garment, 
 ashes his bed ? Having wandered from the 
 way, had he not found it again ? Was he not 
 safe thenceforth from all adventuring in dark, 
 outer paths ? She thought of his assertion of 
 some temperamental flaw in himself. If, in- 
 deed, through an inherent weakness he was
 
 s 
 
 -I
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 201 
 
 more liable than others to mistake, would she be 
 blameless in leaving him to this slackness of will, 
 which made him feel defenceless without her ? 
 
 Dillon's errors had not, in her first obscure 
 perception of them, belittled him in Lucy's 
 mind ; on the contrary, he had loomed larger 
 for the hints of cloud and tempest which en- 
 veloped him. Now as the poverty of his char- 
 acter became clear to her, as he revealed him- 
 self to her in an aspect no longer aggrandized 
 by an atmosphere of deeds which, however 
 dubious, had yet a certain suggestion of manly 
 force and dash and enterprise, she asked her- 
 self if womanhood might not find in upholding 
 him a holier office than lay in any merely safe 
 and happy wifehood. 
 
 To save ; to redeem ; the example which God 
 himself, filled with pity for our lost condition, 
 had set before the world, draining to this end 
 the sacrificial cup, walking with the poor and 
 sinful and outcast, dying on the tree. Lucy's 
 heart rose in an almost intolerable wave of 
 feeling. Pity and love and religious emotion 
 mingled in her, and with them was a little 
 flavor of personal power, a faint, uplifting, en- 
 trancing breath of something which belongs to 
 the spirit of sacrifice. 
 
 A strong exaltation seized her. There seemed 
 an unearthly glory in the sunset on the cliffs.
 
 203 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 White, luminous faces shone in the clouds. 
 Asphodels unfolded their dewless buds along 
 the shadow-flecked upland, and the rushing 
 wings of a swift, victorious host sounded wild 
 and high in the freshening wind of evening. 
 While in the east, where the afterglow reflected 
 its length of living light, walls of jasper seemed 
 to mass themselves about a city having no need 
 of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon 
 it by day or night. Then in a breath the vision- 
 ary moment lapsed, and there were in sight 
 only the brushy uplands, the marshy pool, the 
 grazing cattle, and, outstretched on the rough 
 sward, Dillon's prone, despairing figure. 
 
 Lucy drew herself step by step across the 
 little space between them, and as she spoke he 
 uncovered his face and looked up, showing a 
 seamed, flushed forehead, and reddened, swol- 
 len eyes. "I won't go away," she said; "I 
 ought not to have thought of going. I see 
 that that I was wrong." 
 
 At this Dillon cried out, " Lucy ! you are in 
 earnest ? You mean this you " He mar- 
 velled at the fervid brightness of her eyes. 
 " You mean that you are not going to leave 
 me to perish ? That you are going to stay " 
 
 "Always ! always !" she interrupted, in a 
 voice that sounded faint and tired.
 
 XVII 
 
 ONE day, not long after, Dunbar, happening 
 to meet Dr. Taliaferro in a straggling byway 
 of the town, stopped, and, after a word or two 
 upon general topics, said, abruptly, "Well, I 
 looked up that matter you mentioned last week. 
 It's so. Jonas gave me the details. I demanded 
 'em. He hated to do it. Fve set the Major 
 straight concerning our young friend. He 
 was cut up greatly cut up the Major was. 
 Said that Dillon had come and gone like a 
 member of the family, and, indeed, had well- 
 grounded hopes of becoming one. Yes, I'm 
 sorry to say things had got as far as that. Dil- 
 lon's probably got a very definite back-set by 
 this time. Major Morrow's indignation is 
 quiet but effective. What bothers me is to 
 understand Dillon's composure in these trying 
 circumstances. He's at his desk daily, quiet 
 and smiling as ever. He must have a very 
 superior kind of nerve ; or, perhaps, this sharp 
 deal he's made in walnut wood sustains him
 
 204 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 the calm triumph of a modest pride, you know. 
 Eather keen of him, wasn't it, to get his fingers 
 on that tract ? Hadn't you heard ? Yes, Con- 
 ner's sister has considerately withdrawn to a 
 better world, I believe. It must be all right 
 and a square deal, or Mrs. McBeath would 
 never have set her mark to a paper. She's 
 honest as the day and sharp as a tack, except 
 for her fits of melancholy. McBeath's superin- 
 tending the felling, I understand. Dillon sent 
 out a force of men and ox-teams yesterday. 
 Of course we'll get the logs mighty glad to 
 get them ; but I can't just make out why 
 McBeath didn't deal with us directly. Dillon 
 must have charmed away what little sense the 
 poor fellow originally had." 
 
 "McBeath has bought the lot next to Mr. 
 McVeigh's," said Taliaf erro ; " the restrictions 
 on the timber have been removed very oppor- 
 tunely for him." 
 
 "A fool's luck," remarked Dunbar, as they 
 parted. 
 
 Taliaferro went on his way, knitting his 
 brows over Dunbar's remarks. It seemed to 
 him, as it had seemed to Dunbar, a peculiar 
 thing that Dillon should appear quite unmoved 
 at the disastrous turn of his affairs. The doc- 
 tor studied upon the matter, and came finally 
 to the conclusion that this serenity was alto-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 205 
 
 gether factitious, a mere mask into which Dil- 
 lon's pride forced him. 
 
 Not long afterwards the time of the county 
 fair came round, and, on the day of the open- 
 ing, Streamlet, with a commendable persuasion 
 of the duty of upholding state institutions, for- 
 sook all its usual business in order to attend 
 the yearly festival. The fair was held at Som- 
 erset, and the morning train entirely failed to 
 accommodate the throngs which, from an early 
 hour, had filled the station platforms not only 
 of Streamlet, but of numbers of little hamlets 
 below. The coaches were filled to the last ex- 
 tremity of the hand-rails ; men surged over the 
 steps with a recklessness perhaps born of long 
 familiarity with wet boom-sticks, and as they 
 clung they tossed consolatory jests at those 
 who had been unable to secure even this pre- 
 carious privilege. 
 
 Taliaf erro had secured a foothold among the 
 more fortunate, but as the train took the swag- 
 ging curve he asked himself why he had felt 
 even a momentary satisfaction in attaining this 
 advantage. Certainly he felt nothing of the 
 holiday spirit which enlivened his neighbors, 
 and an intelligent curiosity was hardly possi- 
 ble to one who had assisted at so many exhibits 
 of vegetables and patchwork and cattle. The 
 young man, without settling upon any respon-
 
 206 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 sible motive for his presence in the cheerful 
 multitude, alighted with it, and elbowed his 
 way to the 'buses and wagons drawn up behind 
 the long depot. 
 
 An air of bustling activity hung upon the 
 large town. Clouds of dust from the numer- 
 ous vehicles directed to the outlying fair- 
 grounds cast the climbing, stony road in a 
 haze of yellow, which blurred the clay -banks 
 on either side, and gave a dim, illusory effect 
 to those who were afoot in the lower walk. 
 Off in the distance knobs and knolls, redden- 
 ing with fall, showed sometimes a relatively 
 solid group of houses, but oftener merely the 
 trim outlines of an isolated dwelling or so, 
 which seemed to regard with a suspicious and 
 watchful air the encroachments of progress on 
 its exclusive position. The town lay in a hap- 
 hazard sort of fashion among these jagged lit- 
 tle hills. Its site was one which seemed to 
 offer considerable resistance to human effort, 
 but a spirit of determined enterprise had ap- 
 parently arisen in proportion to the necessity 
 for it, with the result of giving the place a dis- 
 tinctively Western air. The traditional lan- 
 guor of the South, except so far as some sug- 
 gestion of it lay in a log - cabin or two, quiet- 
 ly going to pieces here and there among the 
 modern structures, was only inferential. The
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 207 
 
 thronged public square and ominous-looking 
 iron arches of the new court-house, hurrying 
 carryalls, and rows of shops with wares spread 
 here and there outside the doors these, with 
 the nomadic intimations of a photographer's 
 tent lifting its white peak hard by the door of 
 one of the hotels, brought up some city in the 
 shadow of the Eockies, sprung to sudden and 
 vigorous life from the nucleus of a mining 
 camp. 
 
 The number of negroes in the busy streets 
 was not without consequence in recalling the 
 mind to Somerset's actual situation. Many of 
 the youth of this cheerful race held positions 
 of advantage on the top rails of the meadow 
 fences overlooking the fair-grounds ; from the 
 grandstand they had the look of a flock of 
 crows chattering and fluttering upon the verge 
 of a newly harvested field. 
 
 All the hamlets round about had given 
 liberally to the throng within the enclosure. 
 A mingling of farmers, lumber-men, and vil- 
 lagers everywhere blocked the way, segregated 
 usually from the townfolk themselves, and dis- 
 tinguishable, generally, by soft hats, plum-col- 
 ored coats, and striped trousers. A rainbow 
 effect of coloring pervaded the attire of the 
 younger women from the hilly regions outly- 
 ing. Those who were in years wore black of
 
 208 BOTJND IK SHALLOWS 
 
 many tones and textures. When the stuff was 
 wool it seemed always to adapt its folds in 
 square creases, revealing the shape and size of 
 the chest in which from year to year it had 
 been frugally laid by. 
 
 Children were everywhere under foot. 
 Crowds of half -grown boys straggled along the 
 tiers of the grandstand, scattering pop -corn 
 and tracking the overflow of the water barrels 
 after them in distinct, five-toed footprints. 
 A continual outpour of music came from the 
 brass - band beside the race - track, an oblate 
 half-mile expanse, smooth and dry, and spend- 
 ing a faint, sulphurous breath in the breeze. 
 Here a blanketed, booted horse was exercis- 
 ing, and unwilling Durham cattle, deterred by 
 the music, were being dragged about for the 
 judges' inspection. One splendid bull, of a 
 mahogany richness of hue, curled and creased 
 of neck as the Assyrian sculptures of his race, 
 butted an indignant blue - ribboned horn at 
 the boy in charge of him, thereby occasion- 
 ing alarmed little shrieks from the women who 
 were looking on. 
 
 A man with a conspicuous lavender badge 
 rode close to the stand guard, issuing impera- 
 tive orders to some one inside. Beyond him, 
 half-way up the rough steps, an old negro 
 limped along at a stiff, consequential gait, ac-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 209 
 
 counted for in the great tufts of blue and red 
 ribbon fluttering from his ragged bosom. 
 
 Taliaferro and D unbar had met at the gate. 
 They stood now at the edge of the track, in- 
 specting the multitude in the stand and com- 
 menting upon the largeness of the attendance. 
 
 " Every one seems to be here," said Dunbar, 
 in the gratified tone of a man who has finan- 
 cial as well as social and patriotic reasons for 
 his complacency. And as he spoke he scowled, 
 and looked long and fixedly in a certain direc- 
 tion. " Nat," he said, " maybe I don't see as 
 well as I used to maybe not. But it seems to 
 me that Miss Morrow and Dillon are sitting 
 amicably together in the upper range of seats. 
 After what has happened Bosh ! I this 
 sunshine has made my eyes I eh ? How 
 does it look to you, Nat, eh ?" 
 
 Taliaf erro's light, clear glance had narrowed, 
 and his lips set themselves rigidly. It was 
 not likely that he should mistake any one else 
 for Lucy. There against the strip of sky be- 
 low the roof she sat, smiling in the soft, absent 
 way he knew so well, with her light hair loose 
 about her serene brows and a shimmer of deli- 
 cate green in the broad sleeves which flared 
 airily against the rough back of the high seat. 
 There she sat smiling, while beside her, en- 
 grossed and unconscious of any thought of 
 
 14
 
 210 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 observation, Dillon leaned forward, talking 
 steadily. 
 
 There conld be little doubt that a complete 
 sympathy united them. No shade of doubt or 
 displeasure or deliberation touched either face. 
 If there had ever been any question between 
 them its happy settlement was vouched for in 
 their aspect, as well as in the circumstance 
 that Mrs. Morrow herself, a complete embodi- 
 ment of parental acquiescence, sat close by, 
 fanning herself and bowing sweetly to such of 
 her acquaintance as fared below. 
 
 " It's plain enough that I might have spared 
 myself the unpleasantness for it was deuced 
 unpleasant of telling the Major what I did," 
 remarked Dunbar. " Evidently Lucy has re- 
 fused to give the fellow up. He's justified 
 himself ; juggled Avith her reason. Fd lay dol- 
 lars to little red apples that I could tell the 
 exact line of his argument. He's pointed out 
 that any suggestion of the possibility of show- 
 ing a miserable hound ' too much mercy ' is ab- 
 surd, outrageous, illogical cant, and that to 
 shrink from a close communion with villany 
 is a proof of mean selfishness. He's persuaded 
 her that his immortal welfare lay in her hands. 
 That's what's done it. Women are terribly sus- 
 ceptible to this sort of compliment. It implies 
 a kind of deification of their womanhood.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 211 
 
 Where a plain, respectable lover can only ask 
 to be loved, a scalawag can demand regenera- 
 tion as well, and this presupposes his recogni- 
 tion of higher qualities in the lady than a de- 
 cent chap needs to go hunting out. "Well, 
 sir \" he stamped his stick irately into the 
 ground "she'll marry him, I reckon. I sup- 
 pose it's a foregone conclusion. And after 
 the ecstasy of the novice will come the stone 
 cell, the bed of cinders. She can't do any- 
 thing with Dillon any more than she can build 
 stairs of sand. It isn't in the stuff. He isn't 
 half so capable of betterment as if his offences 
 had been downright and vigorous instead of 
 furtive and forceless." 
 
 "But" 
 
 " Oh, don't stick in any ' buts ' ! When mercy 
 instead of simple justice was meted out to Dil- 
 lon in the Jonas matter, society suffered a wrong 
 whose consequences are practically incalcula- 
 ble. There wasn't an extenuating detail in the 
 transaction." 
 
 "His uncle would have had to suffer, too. 
 It is hard to see justice in a blow which is go- 
 ing to sweep down the innocent as well as the 
 guilty." 
 
 " Very well," said Dunbar, speaking loudly, 
 to make himself heard above the bass drum, 
 "go on making things pleasant for the law-
 
 212 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 breaker, then ! As I say, it's cant not to side 
 with him. Only remember this quarter aphor- 
 ism : ( When yon make de jail too nice yon 
 better strenken de hog-pen !' " As the music 
 slackened a little he continued : " As to the 
 Major and yet I think I can see how he too 
 has been worked. He's a man for heroics, for 
 magnificent charges. There wasn't a braver 
 man in the Confederacy. I recall a splendid 
 onslaught of his, when the dastardly Yanks 
 eh ? Oh, I forgot your folks fought on that 
 side, Nat ! No offence. A good fighter 1 love, 
 whatever his uniform. As I say, the Major's 
 dash was great but battles aren't won that 
 way. ' It's dogged as does it !' steady, calm 
 persistence. In this matter he's probably raged 
 round for a day and then quit. Lucy's tears, 
 the tears and persuasions of the others well, 
 well. I see him yonder now. Coming this way, 
 isn't he ? I'm sorry for the Major." 
 
 Major Morrow had indeed an air of gloom. 
 His military erectness seemed slightly to ac- 
 commodate itself to some spiritual depression, 
 and as he advanced he stroked his gray mus- 
 tache in a troubled sort of way. 
 
 Some one drew Taliaf erro aside, and the Ma- 
 jor, finding himself alone with Dunbar, said, al- 
 most at once : "I hoped to see you to-day. I 
 felt as if I should like to explain " He paused,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 213 
 
 and let the matter of the explanation go. "My 
 daughter you will probably see here in Mr. 
 Dillon's company. You may wonder at this. I 
 I can easily understand your surprise. Lucy 
 does not feel justified she thinks it would be 
 very reprehensible in short, her ideas on the 
 subject are such as as " 
 
 " I see," said Dunbar, finding the other piti- 
 fully embarrassed in his phrases. 
 
 " I know how ill-advised opposition in such 
 affairs is," went on the Major, " so I tempo- 
 rized. I yielded, however, only a provisional 
 consent to the the continuance of this matter 
 only a provisional one. It is my hope that 
 Lucy will be led to see how er mistaken her 
 position is. Mr. Dillon I admit that he has 
 persuaded me of his penitence and and all 
 that. No doubt he is changed. But reform 
 always suggests a weak moral texture : rents, 
 holes, patches a poor stuff. I may be too 
 hard. I see my wife in the upper tier, Mr. 
 Dunbar. I will wish you good-day." 
 
 A girl in red passed by just now a lithe scar- 
 let figure, with poppies above the dark brows 
 and defiant eyes. With Alexa were Beauregard 
 McBeath and a straight, stiff old woman whose 
 white hair had a framing of rusty crape, and 
 whose compressed lips and set gaze gave her a 
 stern, judicial expression.
 
 214 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 " Alexa looks a little discontented/' said Mrs. 
 Morrow to Dillon. " Old Mrs. McBeath she 
 really isn't so old as one would think is rath- 
 er a trying person to get on with, I fear." 
 
 11 Beauregard himself seems care-worn and 
 sad," said Lucy, looking towards the passing 
 group. 
 
 "I hadn't noticed it," Dillon remarked, winc- 
 ing a little. He also regarded Alexa's passage. 
 It was hard to believe that this tall girl, moving 
 in the throng as unconcernedly as a princess, 
 could be the tearful, trembling creature who had 
 once clung to him in a stammering confidence 
 of self-reproach and love. Dillon lost himself 
 in a momentary effort to recall if he had felt 
 pleased or pained in the hour when Alexa bab- 
 bled out her simple heart. 
 
 He glanced from her to McBeath, and bit at 
 his mustache and drew his brows a little. And 
 as he did so he saw that McBeath had evident- 
 ly pointed him out as the purchaser of the wal- 
 nut wood ; for, with her falcon face turned and 
 her cavernous eyes lifted, Mrs. McBeath stood 
 staring up at him over the intervening heads.
 
 XVIII 
 
 LEAF by leaf the year passed. The transi- 
 tory beauty of early fall lapsed, and in the 
 chill pure light of the late October sun every- 
 thing about Streamlet had a pallid, threadbare 
 look. Fields of stacked fodder seemed as if 
 piled with lustreless armaments. The slopes 
 were scattered in dead leaves and barren stalks. 
 Under the beeches hogs nosed for mast, and 
 the side-yard of the hotel was a waste of lean 
 branches. There had been frost, and flocks of 
 robins, satisfied of the end of summer, spun 
 southward across the pale sky. Sparrows clam- 
 ored shrilly in the empty trees, and birds not 
 common to the knobs settled upon such hips 
 and haws and other autumnal fruitage as re- 
 mained. The rainy season was well on by the 
 second week in November, and though no real- 
 ly heavy "tide" was likely to occur till later, 
 business was brisk in the town, and all the usual 
 winter activities were in full play. 
 
 Part of the walnut wood was already felled,
 
 216 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 and the logs lay in black, regular tiers above 
 the bank of the river. By the time of the 
 Christmas rise all the timber Avould be ready to 
 be put afloat. The arrangements were com- 
 plete. Dillon had no occasion to give much 
 thought to the matter, and his duties at the 
 mill were indeed pressing enough to demand 
 his entire attention. 
 
 During the month he had not been uncon- 
 scious of a marked coldness in Dunbar's manner 
 towards him. Taliaferro, too, seemed different; 
 and Dillon had little difficulty in deciding that 
 to one or both of these men he owed the dis- 
 closure of his offence. Since their efforts had, 
 however, resulted only in attaching Lucy to 
 him the more deeply, he felt that he had not 
 suffered enough to be vindictive towards any 
 one. 
 
 Some thought of the matter was running in 
 his mind one morning as he stood talking with 
 the sawyer about an order which he had just 
 written and was tacking to a post hard by the 
 saws. Piles of parti-colored dust lay all about, 
 and to the right a mountain of waste ridged its 
 pyramid of culls and wane and ends of timber. 
 A smell of oil and wet wood and a deafening 
 whir of machinery were everywhere manifest, 
 and through the clangor of steam and steel the 
 sawyer's voice came in a tone of negation.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 217 
 
 " That's a sorry piece of wood to get any 
 bill-stuff out of/' he said, indicating the poplar 
 log they were rolling over for the second cut- 
 ting. It was pale yellow near the bark, then 
 green and rippling in the grain, and finally of 
 a brown, sodden hue at the heart, evidencing 
 decay. 
 
 " You know more about it than I," began 
 Dillon, stopping as he saw that the sawyer did 
 not appear to be listening, but stood gazing 
 over the lumber piles at a man who was urging 
 a jaded horse up the hill road. 
 
 "I never saw Beau McBeath push his horse 
 like that before," commented the sawyer. " Er 
 no, 'tain't McBeath. It's Bud Petty, one of 
 the felling gang over yender. He's on Mac's 
 horse all right. I wonder if anything's hap- 
 pened ? See him lightin' at the doctor's office ? 
 Mebby the old lady's sick. Well, I'll put this 
 log into planks, and get up some fresh wood 
 for the bill. Let 'er go, Jim." And as the log 
 rolled by him the great circular saw at his 
 elbow daintily sliced off the wet rind. 
 
 Dillon turned back to the mill office, and 
 with the movement he saw that the ferryman 
 was coming up from the float, and that the 
 ferryman's weather-beaten face wore an ex- 
 pression not common to it. 
 
 "Jy'all see Bud Petty lopin' up the hill?"
 
 218 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 he inquired, shrilly, pitching his voice in a key 
 to carry the words above the scream of the 
 saws and the splash of the log car. "Hell? 
 Seen him, did ye ? Well, sirs, I sensed they was 
 somethin' amiss when I see him on the fur 
 bank a-whoopin' and hollerin' and raisin' a ruc- 
 tion for me to hurry over and git him. Yes, 
 sir, I heh ? Why, no ; 'tain't the old lady. It's 
 Beau hisself . They hain't no notion he'll live. 
 He was standin' like this, as I got it, and the 
 tree they were notchin' stood like where the 
 head of the chute is. The men they shouted at 
 him for to step out of the way, and he looked 
 round and see the tree swayin' to drop, and he 
 'peared to git rattled, and went first one way 
 'n' another, and the bole split off sudden and 
 strek him down. Pinned him across the chist, 
 Bud says. Old lady McBeath she's goin' on 
 like a wild person a-ningin' her arms up and 
 gabblin' about them trees bein' stained with 
 blood, and sech talk. Well, there's Doc Talia- 
 ferro mouutin'. I'll git back so's not to hold 
 him." 
 
 Dillon mechanically watched his departure. 
 Then he sat down on a log near the bank and 
 tried to overcome the faint sense of sickness 
 which had stolen over him. He hardly knew 
 if what he felt was poignant regret at his own 
 part in the mischance which had befallen Me-
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 219 
 
 Beath, or only a simple, heartfelt sorrow that 
 the young fellow should thus be cut down on the 
 threshold of life, with happiness in his hand. 
 
 Then, too, he remembered that once since 
 the felling began McBeath, troubled with some 
 compunctions, had come to him, and in a dull, 
 stammering fashion asked if it was not pos- 
 sible to drop the whole matter of the sale, and 
 let things be as they had been. 
 
 "And how about the money you have paid 
 for the lot next the preacher's ? how about 
 your new house ?" Dillon had asked. 
 
 At which Mc'Beath had breathed heavily, and 
 sought the ground with miserable eyes. "I 
 reckon I'm pretty near a fool," he remarked. 
 
 " Oh no, you're not," Dillon assured him. 
 " You're in the full possession of your senses. 
 And I should like you to understand that this 
 is also true of me." 
 
 Dillon, recalling this episode, wondered if, 
 in pure fact, he was any more culpable than 
 McBeath. True, there had been a certain con- 
 nivance. He had no longer admitted that the 
 first suggestion of the affair had come from his 
 own lips. McBeath was at least equally in 
 fault ; there could be no doubt of this, though 
 Dillon found it oddly necessary to keep on re- 
 peating to himself the assurance of McBeath's 
 guilt.
 
 220 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 The sun came out bright and warm as he 
 sat there watching the yellow water unwind 
 its slugglish coils, but the heat of it did not 
 soothe or cheer him, and he felt neither sur- 
 prise nor an added pain when somewhat later 
 he saw Taliaferro coming back in the road 
 across the river, and heard him, in reply to the 
 ferryman's question, " How's the case, doc ?" 
 call back simpty, "All over." 
 
 But Taliaferro, in riding past the mill, had 
 a sense of pity and self-reproach and some 
 amazement as he saw Dillon sitting there by 
 himself, with tears in his unseeing eyes. 
 
 "He must have something good in him," 
 thought Taliaferro ; "actually fond of poor 
 Beau. Perhaps Lucy has more reason for her 
 love and loyalty than is apparent." 
 
 In an hour the tidings were spread every- 
 where. McBeath had been, in the village 
 phrase, "well liked," and the news of his 
 death was discussed with general regret. 
 
 " So young and good-hearted as he was !" 
 said Mrs. Morrow. " He used to be in my 
 Sunday-school class, and though he never knew 
 the lesson he always sat very still and listened 
 to everything with his eyes and mouth wide 
 open. I must go at once and see Alexa. There 
 may be something I can say to comfort the 
 child."
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 221 
 
 Alexa, upon hearing the news, had thrown 
 herself face downward on the hair-cloth sofa 
 in the family-room ; and though her mother 
 had striven with her and wept over her all 
 day, Alexa had never spoken. 
 
 When Mrs. Morrow came and bent over her 
 and laid a warm, soft hand on her black head, 
 saying, " Dear child ! dear Alexa ! try to 
 bear it bravely for the sake of those who love 
 you/' Alexa, for the first time, turned a little 
 her sodden eyes and purplish cheeks. 
 
 " Our hearts are all torn for you I" pursued 
 Mrs. Morrow, beginning to weep. He was so 
 good, so kind " 
 
 "A Mason, highly respected by all," burst in 
 Mrs. Bohun, sobbing. " Oh, law me I" 
 
 "And so fond of you, Alexa ! You will al- 
 ways have his love, dear, to remember. And 
 you must reflect that, though we have 1-lost 
 him, he has gone where there are no no 
 more tears or sorrows. There, Alexa ; there !" 
 for Alexa had at last broken into passionate 
 sobs. 
 
 " He's singin' sams of p-p-praise," wailed Mrs. 
 Bohun. " Don't y' cry so, honey ; don't you !" 
 
 "He's happier than ever I could of made 
 him," breathed Alexa. " But, oh, if I'd only 
 been different to what I was ! If I'd treated 
 him kinder !"
 
 222 BOUND IK SHALLOWS 
 
 The day of the burial dawned clear, with a 
 mildness in the air like that of summer, and a 
 warm, generous blue and expanding in the 
 November sky. A sunny yellow shone from 
 the drifts of fallen leaf along the paths ; bushes 
 and way-side hedges held a sepia glow, and 
 matted sward and fields of stubble stretched a 
 soft russet expanse below the hills. 
 
 Towards the middle of the afternoon people 
 began to climb the rutted hill road, passing 
 out behind the hotel to compose themselves in 
 little groups while they rested and talked and 
 awaited the coming of the poor funeral train. 
 Some of them went on towards the graveyard, 
 where, set in dry weeds and scanty firs, the 
 path, a mere fiat rift in the red clay, wandered 
 up past a scattering of mounds to the crest 
 of the knoll. Most of the people, however, 
 villagers and hill folk, were still lingering in 
 the lower road when at the turn of the station 
 the small body of McBeatb/s fellow-lodgemen 
 appeared, with their short linen aprons and 
 various ensigns of office shining in the pleasant 
 sun. 
 
 Behind them a heavy wagon jolted slowly 
 over the railway tracks. For security a rope 
 spanned the projecting end of the long pine 
 case it carried, and following it were other 
 farm wagons and a few country buggies.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 223 
 
 In the seat of a small cart Mrs. McBcath sat 
 by the side of the driver, a youth in faded 
 jeans. She had lost her look of vigor and stiff- 
 ness, and seemed to be huddled together in a 
 lax black heap, which swayed with the motion 
 of the wheels. As the cart advanced she stared 
 a little wildly from the rusty crape about her 
 withered face, muttering to herself, "0 Lord, 
 have mercy on me this day ! Lord, have 
 mercy !" 
 
 The throng of wagons and people turned in 
 from the road at the gate afield, and, crossing 
 the expanse of shining stubble, labored up the 
 briery rise. The men tramped heavily through 
 the sunburnt grasses, planting their heels in 
 the slippery soil ; the women made way less 
 surely, detained by the brambles which caught 
 at their skirts in passing. 
 
 Only a few saplings cast slight shadows on 
 the crest. These and a stunted fir or so alone 
 assuaged the barrenness of the place, with its 
 tumbling mounds, its half-dozen black-topped 
 picket - fences, and occasional head -pieces of 
 rudely lettered pine. All about it the brown 
 land rolled its rim of leafless hills. Cows, red 
 and white, browsed in the valley, and cheery 
 smoke from a little shed not far away spent a 
 delicate grayness on the sky's flowery blue. 
 
 Towards the ridge of the knoll a heap of
 
 224 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 freshly turned earth lay bright and moist. Be- 
 side it a man in a hickory shirt rested on his 
 spade while he issued directions to some unseen 
 worker in the hollow at his feet. Some little 
 delay arose, and in the interval people waited 
 silently or spoke in whispering tones. The 
 lodgemen stood apart, grave and motionless. 
 One of them upheld a tall staff. The breast 
 of another glittered with a silver cross, while 
 upon the shoulders of a man near by the vivid 
 blueness of a satin stole shone brightly. 
 
 A little aloof from the press a village girl 
 looked blushingly into the face of a young man 
 who, in talking with her, set his foot in the sod of 
 a baby's grave. A woman beyond them hushed 
 a child against her cheek. And over the low 
 murmurs of the crowd now and then a long 
 wail sounded: " My boy ! my sweet boy ! I got 
 to give him up ! Lord have mercy ! Lord bless 
 his sweet soul this day !" 
 
 Lucy, standing with her mother and the 
 Major at a short distance, felt her heart swell- 
 ing with pity ; and Dillon, as he regarded her 
 saddening face, felt his consciousness of those 
 mourning cries deepen painfully. 
 
 Just now the throng appeared to be drawing 
 towards the open grave. The lodgemen sur- 
 rounded it, forming a hollow line as the bear- 
 ers advanced. Behind the long pine shape Mrs.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 225 
 
 McBeath staggered, sustained by the arms of 
 two old women, whose limp black skirts clung 
 close about their lean limbs as they faced the 
 wind. Mrs. McBeath's dingy crape seemed to 
 draw all the shadows of the scene about her 
 hollow face and staring eyes. She looked an 
 embodiment of woe, unchastened and desper- 
 ate, as, spent with years and troubles, she let 
 herself be dragged through the brambles to the 
 side of the open grave. 
 
 As the service proceeded her outcries grew 
 fainter. A sort of childishness stole into her 
 lessening voice. " He was all I. had," she kept 
 repeating. " Lord save him ! He never went 
 to wrong no one. Lord, it was me all me ! I'd 
 ought to have told him. But it's well with 
 him now. He freed hisself of sin. Lord, oh, 
 Lordy ! I'll never see him no more !" 
 
 Alexa, clothed in black, with her face half 
 veiled, stood at the coffin's foot, immovable of 
 feature and ashen of hue. Her vacant eyes 
 sought some immeasurable distance, and as 
 Dillon observed this dark, empty gaze, he found 
 himself thinking that for once Alexa's tragic 
 beauty had reached its fullest purport. 
 
 They began to lower the box, but Mrs. Mc- 
 Beath no longer made any lament. She stood 
 silently watching the lodgemen cast one by one 
 their sprigs of green into the grave, not even 
 
 15
 
 226 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 uttering a sound as the clods began to fall hol- 
 low and heavy on the coffin lid. 
 
 Presently the men in the hickory shirts were 
 flattening the sides of the new hillock and 
 deftly rounding the head and foot. The crowd 
 was visibly thinning. People spoke freely 
 again as they passed down the slope. An op- 
 pression seemed to have passed from the earth 
 with the closing of the mound. 
 
 Alexa's father had helped her into a wagon 
 and was untangling the reins preparatory to 
 starting. Mrs. McBeath's little cart awaited 
 her, but she still lingered by the grave, stoop- 
 ing once to smooth out with her toil-worn hand 
 some roughness in the fresh surface. 
 
 At length she lifted herself and made a step 
 towards the cart. As she did so she stumbled, 
 and Dillon sprang to her aid. At the sight of 
 him Mrs. McBeath paused. There was no one 
 near except the Morrows ; but even the Mor- 
 rows Mrs. McBeath seemed unaware of. She 
 saw only Dillon's proffered hand. And seeing 
 it she lifted her own and made a gesture as if 
 she fiercely thrust back his assistance. 
 
 " You come to see him laid away, did you ?" 
 she said. " Your work all your work ! He'd 
 be alive to-day if you'd never crossed his path. 
 You needn't to say anything. You know your 
 own heart and what's in it ! Yes, 'n' I know,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 227 
 
 too ! My boy lived long enough to tell me how 
 he'd deceived me how t' Conner heirs was 
 livin' and all, and how you'd a took the timber 
 notwithstandin'. I got it all out of him ! Even 
 hoAV he went and ast you to call the bargain off 
 after the first acre was felled, and how 't you 
 laughed in his face. Yes, I know it all." 
 
 Dillon glanced towards Lucy. She had 
 shrunk back and was plucking at her father's 
 sleeve, as if she besought him either to take 
 her away or to speak in Dillon's behalf to the 
 stern-faced woman confronting him. 
 
 The Major cleared his throat. "Mrs. Mc- 
 Beath," he expostulated, "this is a very se- 
 rious charge. I beg you to to unless you 
 have good grounds " 
 
 " Hain't I my dyin' boy's words ?" asked 
 Mrs. McBeath. "If you ask proofs fur and 
 beyond, look into this man's face." 
 
 Dillon struggled to recover himself. " I 
 if you will listen " He began to falter, per- 
 fectly aware that any hesitation would be fatal- 
 ly confirmatory of guilt, yet in some strange 
 way unable to speak out a firm denial. 
 
 " Did ever my son show you any proof of the 
 heirs' death ?" 
 
 "Proof? No, hut " 
 
 " Did he so much as tell you they was out of 
 the way ?"
 
 228 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 " If you desire to criminate your son," began 
 Dillon, angrily. Then it seemed to him as if 
 dignity would be a better resource than indig- 
 nation, and he added, coldly, " I will not dis- 
 cuss it. Another time and place " 
 
 Mrs. McBeath silenced him with a contemp- 
 tuous word. " You see for yourself, Major," 
 she said. 
 
 The Major's face had been reddening vio- 
 lently as he listened and looked. " Come, 
 Lucy," he said, "come. There's too much 
 truth in this, evidently too much." 
 
 Lucy's face wore a look of anguish. She 
 leaned upon his arm, whispering, " Yes, yes ; 
 let us go." 
 
 " Seein' y'all knew my boy," said Mrs. Mc- 
 Beath, in a gentler way, " I want y'all to know 
 they ain't no blemish on him, not for all the 
 p'isinin' and pollutin' of this man. Beau hed 
 a right to the walnut. I've known for better 'n 
 a year that the tract was ourn. Jedge Kinney 
 rode out our way last fall and told me how he'd 
 ben barkin' up the wrong tree yender at Butte 
 City, and that Joe Conner's sister died the 
 same year as Joe, down in Virginia, where they 
 was raised." Mrs. McBeath shuddered, as if 
 some chilling memory had arisen in her. " And 
 I ast Jedge Kinney to keep the news from Beau. 
 ' He's young and lacks jedgment,' I says. ( He'd
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 229 
 
 never rest till Fd signed the tract away, and I'd 
 rather keep it for him till he gits the money 
 sense and he's a good wife one as won't marry 
 him for what he's got/ says I. And the jedge gi' 
 me his word. Afterwards, when Beau came and 
 told me there was nothin' to prevent onr sellin' 
 the wood, I says, 'Hev yon heerd from the 
 jedge ?' And Beau nodded he never give me 
 the lie outright ! And I thought jedge had 
 forgot his promise, bein' old and stricken. Oh, 
 Major, you mind how simple-hearted my boy 
 was ? Deceivin' wasn't never his disposition. 
 And when he told me everything, lyin' there 
 all crushed, I eased his mind and prayed God 
 to forgive him, and he laid his head agin my 
 bosom like a little child, and said now he could 
 go in peace. And he did he went smilin' !" 
 She had her eyes on the mound as she ap- 
 proached the cart. "Push on," she com- 
 manded the boy ; and, turning to Dillon, who 
 stood a little away, she added, "The wood's 
 yourn, fair and square, every stick and every 
 stain of it. 'Twon't profit ye none. Push on, 
 boy. Night's fallin'."
 
 XIX 
 
 THE sun was charring the west in a ragged 
 rim of brown as Major Morrow and Lucy 
 walked homeward from the bnrying-ground. 
 Dillon had made no show of accompanying 
 them, but, with his hat in his hand and eyes 
 abased, had stood silently aside while they 
 passed. 
 
 "His sense of dramatic fitness is simply ir- 
 reproachable," thought the Major, with an 
 unuttered oath. 
 
 Lucy said nothing to her father as they went 
 along ; but when they entered the house she 
 flung herself suddenly on his neck and broke 
 out, in a husky whisper, " Oh, send me away, 
 papa ! I want to be where I can't see him. I 
 want to forget everything." 
 
 "You believe, then, that I was right?" 
 asked the Major. " You understand " 
 
 " Oh, I understand everything !" she cried. 
 " He he has never really changed at all. He 
 is what he was and will remain. It was only
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 231 
 
 my folly, my miserable conceit, that made me 
 believe I could make another man of him. I 
 thought God had called me to undertake this 
 high and holy office ! God! I don't suppose 
 He knows or cares " 
 
 " Lucy ! Lucy ! don't let this harden your 
 heart ! Pity, charity, love don't let this bit- 
 ter experience seal up those springs of life. 
 You haven't been foolish or egotistic to feel 
 that every one who is sad or sinning has a claim 
 upon you for sympathy. Only don't let your- 
 self be whirled away in any delirium of sacri- 
 fice again. It's a mistake, Lucy, to think 
 God has put evil here for the express purpose 
 of occupying our time, or that we are here 
 for the express purpose of stamping it out. 
 We're here to grow, to be happy, to do good 
 without martyring ourselves in the effort ; 
 to attend to our own affairs, in short, and 
 leave His business to Him. That's how it 
 seems to me, Lucy. I don't say this is a pro- 
 found view of life, but it's a sane view, I 
 think." 
 
 Lucy did not seem to be following very 
 closely her father's unusual length of speech. 
 She was clinging to him still, and she mur- 
 mured, "What is to become of him, papa ? 
 What is to become of him now ?" 
 
 The Major felt his spleen rising, and he ex-
 
 232 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 claimed, sharply enough, "Are yon going to 
 worry over that ?" 
 
 Her voice was very humble as she re- 
 joined : " Papa, I it is only that I was won- 
 dering if it can be true that that there are 
 some who can't be helped much, or direct- 
 ed, or made better. Is it true ? Can it be 
 true ?" 
 
 The Major dragged his mustache down. 
 " God knows !" he said. " Statisticians would 
 tell you that such people certainly exist. I 
 perhaps it's not a very fruitful topic of dis- 
 cussion. Your idea, Lucy, that a change of 
 scene would help you to forget all these un- 
 pleasant matters is, I think, very reasonable. 
 Shall I take you up to Woodford County ? 
 Your cousins " 
 
 " No, oh no ; I don't think I could bear 
 having so many people around me just now. I 
 don't want gayety, papa ; I couldn't stand it. 
 I want to be quiet and let alone. I will go and 
 visit Janet a little while." 
 
 "But this isn't the right time of year to 
 visit Janet," demurred the Major, thinking, 
 however, that some wholesome influence might 
 indeed be exerted upon Lucy by an association 
 with the friend she mentioned the good 
 woman who had cared for his child when she 
 was left motherless.
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 233 
 
 "If you prefer to stay a short while with 
 Janet I shall not oppose yon/' he added. 
 
 Yet, some days later, when he and Lncy 
 alighted from the train at a little station some 
 miles below Streamlet and found Janet's hus- 
 band awaiting them with a vociferous welcome 
 and a large farm wagon, the Major, surveying 
 the scene, began to doubt the wisdom of con- 
 signing Lucy to so lonely an environment. 
 He had established his impressions of the 
 place upon several midsummer excursions ; but 
 what had been wild and beautiful in these 
 visits wore now a bleak and dreary air which 
 did not reassure him. 
 
 The crests of the Cumberland Mountains 
 rose near and far in a cold mist of light blue 
 no longer mere knobs, rolling their half -grown 
 shapes over the ground in a sort of sportive 
 cubhood, but tall, majestic piles, wearing an 
 imperial fleece of fir-flecked white upon their 
 shoulders. 
 
 Nor did the landscape grow more enlivening 
 as the farm wagon rumbled on its way in the 
 ever -rising road. Deep valleys and distant 
 peaks diversified both sides of the ridge along 
 which the horses toiled. Sometimes a sand- 
 stone spring dropped icily by the way ; an ox- 
 team or so passed ; occasionally a little house 
 looked shyly from the road-side ; and through
 
 234 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 interstices of the adjacent woodland stripped 
 tanbark oaks rose sterile and bare, and num- 
 berless pines showed their dark pyramids. 
 Leaves drifted everywhere, a changing weft 
 of brown and yellow and light red ; a perpet- 
 ual sibilance murmured in the papery wastes ; 
 and presently, as the wind altered, a long, 
 mournful resonance echoed through the stark 
 branches the sound of the falls of the Cum- 
 berland, eight miles away, plunging with the 
 affluence of winter tides down the crescent 
 break in the rock-bed. 
 
 Then a small cove disclosed itself far below 
 the ridge, lying safe and warm in the bosom 
 of the hills. A low log-house sat in the hol- 
 low beside a spring and a wintry garden space. 
 Smoke curled from the big chimney, and in 
 the door a woman stood waving her apron in 
 greeting, while a brown setter leaped about 
 her, barking in an anguish of joyous antici- 
 pation. 
 
 " I'd never V dared come home if anything 
 hed happened to delay y'all," remarked Janet's 
 husband, turning a mild, red-whiskered face 
 upon his guests. "She's ben like something 
 crazy ever since we got word y'all was coming. 
 Janet hain't felt right on account of Miss Lucy 
 not spending a week along of us this gone July 
 like she always done heretofore."
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 235 
 
 Janet, one of those flat-figured, plain, beam- 
 ing women who seem always young through 
 either a virginal lack of curves or an abound- 
 ing joy in life, caught Lucy to her blue-cotton 
 bosom in an ecstasy of welcome. 
 
 " But what y'all ben doing to her that she 
 looks so white ?" queried Janet after a little, 
 as she held the girl off for critical inspection. 
 " Major, she cert'n'y ain't over rosy ! Too much 
 parties and dancing and visiting round, I reck- 
 on though her ma was fair-complected as ever 
 I see. But you trust me, Major. I'll not give 
 Lucy back tell she's got more color to her 
 cheeks than she lies now." 
 
 "Yes, papa," smiled Lucy, glancing round 
 the room, in which a great log fireplace ex- 
 panded a ruddy glow, lighting up the beamed 
 ceiling and four -posted bed and turkey -red 
 hangings and array of rifles and powder-horns, 
 " I am going to stay here till I am quite my- 
 self again." 
 
 The brown setter sniffed at her hand, with- 
 holding recognition for a moment, and finally 
 bounding upon her in an abandonment of sus- 
 picion so complete and fervid as to occasion 
 his temporary banishment. 
 
 "That houn' ain't right full-witted yet," 
 signified Janet, putting on the kettle, "being 
 unly six month old and unwaywise. His
 
 236 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 name's Luther. Josliaway allows that lie car- 
 ries his tail wrong. He says a setter ain't no 
 'count lest his tail flags out stiff as a whip. A 
 course we wouldn't V named him Luther if 
 we'd suspicioned he wasn't going to fill the 
 specifications." 
 
 She was blustering about in preparations 
 for supper. Outside, twilight was drawing the 
 mountain-tops to infinite heights, owls hooted 
 in neighboring forests, and through the dusk 
 the wild, changing rhythm of the falls spent 
 an utterance of lament. The little windows 
 framed a vanishing world, lonely and strange 
 in its blurring features. But the flaming log 
 on the hearth, the lighted candles and singing 
 kettle and shining plates gave the big room a 
 look of friendly cheer which lightened the 
 Major's forebodings. 
 
 "When he went away early fn the following 
 afternoon he felt convinced that Lucy had 
 been wise in coming to the cove. 
 
 " The largeness of the outlook," mused the 
 Major, "will clear the child's mind. She was 
 right in her instincts." 
 
 The largeness of the outlook was not, in 
 point of fact, especially evident to Lucy's per- 
 ceptions. In spite of it and of the small oc- 
 cupations with which she filled her days in 
 the seclusion of the hills, bitter and sorrowful
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 237 
 
 thoughts haunted her. Sometimes, indeed, 
 these musings lifted for a day, and a hint of 
 life and possible content came to her as she 
 walked through the woods about the house, 
 or rode to the station with Janet's husband, 
 or visited with Janet some humble neighbor 
 across the ridge. But oftener there was a 
 sickening remembrance upon her, from which 
 nothing offered release. 
 
 When there was service at the church, a win- 
 dowless log structure, with puncheon seats laid 
 on cross-sticks in its expanse, she went with 
 the others to enjoy the preaching of such moun- 
 tain exhorters as chanced along. 
 
 " They ain't book-1'arned," said Janet ; " but 
 even when you don't hear a word that cheers 
 or instructs you from the preacher's mouth, I 
 claim it's a good thing to go and set for an hour 
 in the house of the Lord. The world sort of 
 loosens its grip on you, seems like, and you 
 got more stren'th to fight it, tooth and nail, 
 when it jumps on to you agin." 
 
 "And the air sharpens a body's appetite 
 for Sunday dinner," added Janet's husband, 
 thoughtfully. "Religion is a mighty good 
 thing any way you take it." 
 
 Once, in a day when the winds were still and 
 a breath of summer retook the chilled earth, 
 they rode to the Cumberland itself, and, de-
 
 238 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 scending a gorge, viewed the broad sea of wa- 
 ter which widens in a lake-like stretch above 
 the falls. At this point the noise of the cata- 
 ract was a deafening roar. Dashing in a fall 
 of sixty feet, the current blinded the air as 
 with the smoke of a field of battle. Logs 
 blackened the stream, showing the terrific 
 speed of the current as they dashed over the 
 break. Now and then a piece of timber nos- 
 ing the shore showed the familiar brand of the 
 mill at Streamlet impressed in the wood long 
 before, when the mountain runnels were only 
 trickling threads. 
 
 Beyond the river the roof of an old hotel, 
 used as a place of entertainment for summer 
 visitors, extended its long roofs and spray-wet 
 walls. It was closed and desolate-looking in 
 the hold of the winter cliffs and with the tum- 
 bling river at its doors, but as Lucy looked 
 along the porches where, in a by-gone August, 
 she had walked and idled with her "Woodford 
 County kinsfolk, a sudden remembrance of 
 summer green and rich vines and serene wa- 
 ters came upon her. 
 
 Life had seemed then so soft, so pliant in its 
 substance, waiting to be pressed with light and 
 happy fingers into any beautiful and permanent 
 shape that one might choose ! Now it appeared 
 to her a stuff of stern fibre, not easily moulded
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 239 
 
 by any one according to his desire, but settling 
 of itself into scarcely alterable figures, warped 
 or straight according as it would. 
 
 " There's a rock yender where you can stand 
 and see three States," remarked Janet's hus- 
 band. 
 
 "Yes, I've stood on it," said Lucy, fastened 
 still to those older memories. "It seems very 
 long ago." 
 
 In the middle of December a letter from 
 Dillon came. He had easily found out her 
 whereabouts, and had written, he said, because 
 he could not help it. He made no mention of 
 Mrs. McBeath's denunciations. He said noth- 
 ing now of his unworthiness or grief or peni- 
 tence ; he spoke only of his love. His diction 
 had its usual smack of allusion. Phrases of 
 the patriarchs mingled with felicitous turns 
 caught from modern singers, and gave the 
 written sheets a certain atmosphere of famil- 
 iar charm. But, despite his verbal aptitude, 
 the matter of the letter was vapid and point- 
 less. He loved Lucy still. He hoped still for 
 sympathy and comprehension, and he knew too 
 well her loveliness of character to feel that she 
 would any longer withhold the assuring word 
 he asked. 
 
 The very sight of his hand, graceful, easy, 
 half feminine, moved Lucy deeply. Even be-
 
 240 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 fore she tore away the envelope she had a dizzy 
 feeling. The walls of her little room seemed 
 to be whirling away, and her fingers were weak 
 and unsteady. She read the closely written 
 pages in a sort of passion of haste, impelled by 
 an incomprehensible mixture of interest and 
 contempt ; and when she had finished she let 
 the letter fall, and shrank back in her chair, 
 trembling. 
 
 A dimly defined peril appeared to be lurking 
 near her. She feared to see its face, and yet 
 something in her pressed her to look calmly 
 upon it and accept it. All the little belong- 
 ings of her daily life began to give her a sense 
 of distaste ; she seemed to be sensible of a 
 loathing for everything which held her to a 
 stern remembrance of what her ideals had 
 been, and of the kind of woman she had tried 
 and hoped to be. In a kind of scared haste 
 she put on her wraps, and went out to see if 
 air and movement might not restore her. 
 
 It was clear and cold in the low places about 
 the house, and clearer and colder still as she 
 mounted the southern rise, and, with Luther 
 darting before her at jack-rabbits and squirrels, 
 came into the higher levels. The sky was pur- 
 ple with snow that had already begun to fall 
 lightly as Lucy passed under the tanbark oaks. 
 She walked at a smart gait, seeing little before
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 241 
 
 her, struggling only in a frightened way to 
 shake off the impulses that were with her. 
 
 But neither the swift movement nor the 
 sharp air served to scatter the vision she strove 
 to avoid ; on all sides Dillon's face appealed 
 to her, not for forgiveness now, or help or com- 
 passion or comfort, but simply by the magic 
 of its gentleness, its confiding lips, its seeking 
 eyes, its passion of youth and love. Lucy could 
 see his dark pupils widen in a fixed, long gaze ; 
 his nervous hands touched her hair, and his 
 voice, with its flexible, sweet undertone, rang 
 constantly in her ears. 
 
 " Oh," she cried out, turning her face to the 
 skies, " I beg you to help me ! Lord, I am 
 greatly in need !" 
 
 Then upon her hot, closed eyes there came 
 a sight of women with flushed faces, of men 
 laughing and reckless, gathered in some wild 
 carnival of gayety ; of glasses shattered in an 
 uproarious toast; of songs and shouts and li- 
 cense ; of hateful music and a riot of reeling 
 forms. Her ignorant fancy took in this scene 
 with a faltering, vague sense. The insight was 
 clearer when there came to her some idea of 
 an office with the aspect common to business 
 places, and occupied with grave men who list- 
 ened while one among them lifted his old 
 voice in a plea for mercy upon the abased, dis- 
 
 1G
 
 242 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 honored figure crouched beside him. It was 
 vivid enough,, this imagining ; but not so vivid 
 as the bare burial knoll which swept it by 
 the bare burial knoll of Streamlet, with the up- 
 land wind stirring the rough grass around a 
 new yellow mound, and carrying the accents of 
 a bitter voice away beyond the rude crosses. 
 
 Lucy turned back. There was a rigidity in 
 her face as of resolution enforced by a difficult 
 effort. The following evening Dillon found in 
 his post-office box a letter of one line. It was 
 from Lucy, and it asked him not to write to 
 her again.
 
 XX 
 
 IN Streamlet it was winter and desolate. 
 The hills were bald and bare. The sphinx 
 knob, denuded of foliage, revealed ledge upon 
 ledge of grinning rock ; it looked as if showing 
 its teeth fiercely, as if snarling a menace upon 
 the little town crouching below, pitifully small 
 now in the emptiness of the valley, where fall 
 had nibbled close the last stalk, the last leaf. 
 The house of the general, with its huge chim- 
 ney and heavy walls, alone seemed able to with- 
 stand the weather. The other dwellings of the 
 bottoms appeared shrunken and insufficient. 
 Even the hotel wore a stark, chill air, as if the 
 rigors of frost were in its timbers. 
 
 Snow came at frequent intervals, banking the 
 higher roads in dry white, and melting along 
 the lower places of the town in illimitable red 
 mud. The rivers were become great rushing 
 currents, yellow and dense as viscid oil, and 
 floating an enormous drift of logs and staves 
 and tangling bark.
 
 244 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 The walnut wood had not been put in reach 
 of the December tides, for the incoming timber 
 of the mill had proved unusually large, and the 
 full capacity of the boom was required in han- 
 dling it. To risk a crush had not been thought 
 advisable, and the McBeath timber was there- 
 fore reserved for later water. 
 
 Towards the beginning of February Dillon 
 had finally arranged for its delivery, but an ex- 
 pected rise, upon which he depended to bring 
 down the logs, fell short, occasioning a delay 
 which gave him some concern. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," said the sawyer, " so long 
 as she don't spring a freshet on you. Though, 
 to tell the truth, I don't like it when she holds 
 up this time of year and just simmers along. 
 Things are beginning to melt up yender in the 
 South Fork kentry. Well, you'll have to put 
 your trust where you jedge it '11 do most good. 
 Mountain streams is as treacherous as the fe- 
 male sext." 
 
 Dillon uttered a note of irritation. "What's 
 all this talk ? Isn't the boom solid ?" 
 
 The sawyer assumed a noncommittal expres- 
 sion as he said: "You kin blow a mountain 
 holler if you got powder enough. A boom's a 
 boom ; 'tain't the wall of Ohiny ner the Bank 
 of England." 
 
 Dillon turned on his heel. The months had
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 245 
 
 not dealt kindly with him. He had grown heav- 
 ier, indeed, but the uneven color threading his 
 face in little broken lines hardly contributed 
 to a suggestion of entire well-being. A look of 
 continual annoyance marked his face, and in 
 matters so small as the suggestion of careless 
 smoking in the burned ends of his mustache a 
 certain listlessness or recklessness was defined 
 in his appearance. 
 
 Lucy's letter, which he had received some 
 weeks before, had surprised and angered him. 
 He had feared that she might not write, in- 
 deed ; but if she wrote at all he had thought 
 it would be in a sorrowful vein, making some 
 tender feint of renouncing him, giving him a 
 tacit hope, or, if not hope, at least such con- 
 solation as might lie in the demonstration of 
 her grief. The sharp, hard line of the real let- 
 ter struck him sorely. He had believed his 
 hold upon Lucy deeper, stronger ; and at sight 
 of the simple words, which told him nothing of 
 the actual weakness underlying their apparent 
 force and firmness, he was sensible of a chagrin 
 involving almost his last shred of self-con- 
 fidence. 
 
 Then, too, the McBeath affair had become 
 generally known throughout the town, and ev- 
 erywhere Dillon began to encounter looks of 
 coldness and contempt. These he was able to
 
 246 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 endure ; but when the common idlers of the 
 place began to treat him with the rough famil- 
 iarity which, in lieu of reprobation, coarse minds 
 usually display towards a man who has relin- 
 quished all right to their respect, Dillon grew 
 keenly aware of the levelling power of his con- 
 duct. 
 
 His position at the mill would not be tenable 
 much longer. He realized this in Dunbar's man- 
 ner, and he determined upon leaving Streamlet 
 immediately upon the conclusion of his timber 
 transaction. 
 
 Any delay in this business was consequently 
 very trying to him, and he welcomed with en- 
 thusiasm the news which one day came of heavy 
 rains at New River. The South Fork, lifting 
 convexly in its banks, began to run high and 
 fast, and at dusk of the day of the tidings, as 
 Dillon talked with a shoe drummer in the ho- 
 tel office, a logger came to tell him that the wal- 
 nut was pressing into the boom. 
 
 Several men sat smoking in the moderate 
 glow of an oil-lamp on the office table. The 
 tall, whitewashed stove roared cheerfully, and 
 managed to render less dreary the swishing of 
 rain on the great windows and the monotonous 
 drip of water from the laths in the broken ceil- 
 ing. Under this patch of fallen plaster a black 
 pool was forming and oozing slowly off between
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 247 
 
 the boards of the floor. Mud had dried in a 
 crust on the foot-rail of the stove, but slipping 
 tracks of it about the door seemed like an in- 
 vasion of the clay-cowled paths outside. 
 
 Now and then the door opened to admit a 
 drenched man and a flow of wind. A stock of 
 heavy boots and shoes invested two long tables 
 under the pillars to the right, and a smell of 
 fresh leather blended with the prevailing odors 
 of tobacco. 
 
 Dillon dismissed the messenger and returned 
 with renewed spirits to the conversation. He 
 was finishing the narration of some story in 
 which the shoe drummer exhibited a flattering 
 interest when the logger came back, leaving the 
 mud about the door honeycombed from his 
 spiked soles. 
 
 " I bought a stack of the whites," Dillon con- 
 tinued, half turning. "Things were looking 
 pretty desperate about that time, and, wheth- 
 er it was the color or not, the luck turned; 
 everything began to come my way, and Well, 
 what is it now ?" 
 
 A nervous pallor struck him as he listened. 
 The river was growing terribly full, and the 
 logs were plunging down altogether too fast. 
 More men were needed to help to store the 
 timber in the boom. Cables were necessary, 
 urgent measures imperative.
 
 248 BOUND IN 8IIALLOWS 
 
 "Davis says he's going to set all hands to 
 rafting/' said the man, wringing out his hat. 
 "He needs more rope and staples than he's 
 got, and he says you better git 'em there as 
 quick as the Lord '11 let ye ; the boom's chuck- 
 full. If she ain't eased she's liable to let the 
 stuff through." 
 
 Dillon, cold with foreboding, made his way 
 into the stormy darkness. The big bare beech- 
 es were whipping in the wind, the signal-light 
 smeared the wet ties with oily orange. About 
 the station it was dark and still, and farther 
 away everything was hooded in impenetrable 
 night. Not a hint of the town broke through 
 the lessening rain till, at the brow of the hill 
 road, the bowl -like dip of its site suddenly 
 became apparent. It was prayer-meeting night, 
 and the church's narrow windows shed slits of 
 red upon the darkness. A sound of singing, 
 baffled and frustrated by the wind, came and 
 went. Other lights shone round about. They 
 shook in the wet like so many lanterns set in 
 the prow of boats moored in a hill-locked har- 
 bor. 
 
 Down in the slushy bottoms the clamor of the 
 rivers took Dillon's sense, intermingled with 
 the hoarse cries of the loggers, the heavy thud of 
 driving staples, and the sibilant cackling of the 
 fire in the iron baskets along the bank. Then
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 249 
 
 the swollen currents came in sight, splashed 
 across with fiery vermilion and ribbed with 
 timber and scaled with silvery staves that shone 
 on the surface like some light leprous affection 
 of the water. Along the river's edge the boom- 
 logs dipped and wavered, grating their links of 
 chain, while hurrying shapes moved back and 
 forth, casting long, weird shadows up the slopes. 
 Great heaps of drift, loosened from the boom, 
 thatched the central waters in heaving black, 
 and above, on the floating head of the works, 
 men were plying long pike-poles, grappling the 
 timber still, though manifestly unable any 
 longer to store it safely. 
 
 Every moment, despite attempts at reaching 
 it, wood was eluding the workers. Already a 
 noticeable quantity had passed through the 
 chained confines of the boom and out into the 
 stream. Dillon could see it wheeling by. Ho 
 stood on the bank palsied, watching the escap- 
 ing timber and listening to the excited shouts 
 of the workmen, the scream of the wind, and 
 the steady clash of the current. These noises 
 seemed to fill the night with an unintelligi- 
 ble uproar of fear and danger, yet, suddenly 
 enough, through it all a single sharp cry of 
 warning rang in clear syllables, " She's going ! 
 the stuff is passing out !" 
 
 There was a hollow, rushing sound, a tre-
 
 250 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 mendous heave in the cramped timber. Then 
 the river, floored solid with swift logs, swept 
 steadily by, and Dillon knew that the whole 
 of the walnut wood was on its way to the open 
 sea. 
 
 Men gathered about him ; he heard a confu- 
 sion of voices and felt a flask at his lips. The 
 liquor revived him somewhat, and, drenched 
 with the splash of the current, dazed, stricken, 
 he began to stumble up the bank and through 
 the plastic lower roads to the hill. 
 
 All the village lights were out now, for it 
 was away past midnight, and only the lantern 
 which some one had thrust into his hand en- 
 abled him to find his way. In the blinding 
 blur of its rays strange, motionless black 
 things showed their small, thick shapes along 
 in the road, cuddling close to the stones, lurk- 
 ing everywhere in a still, sinister fashion. 
 Dillon had got himself half-way up the hill be- 
 fore he recognized them as nothing more ac- 
 tual than intensified shadows of the stones at 
 his feet, cast into vivid relief by the nearness 
 of the light. 
 
 Across the hotel porch a faint glow fell from 
 the office windows. It seemed like the ra- 
 diance of the fire shed from the stove's open 
 door. Some one appeared to be raking out the 
 ashes, renewing the coals, for Dillon caught
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 251 
 
 the sound of the poker and the hissing of dis- 
 turbed embers even before he set his uncer- 
 tain foot on the steps or laid his wet shoulder 
 against the heavy panels of the door. 
 
 The wind chopped suddenly upon him and 
 thrust him across the threshold. He caught 
 at the door and clapped it to, and stayed him- 
 self for a moment, breathless and bewildered, 
 with slivers of glass from a shattered side of 
 the lantern falling about him on the office 
 floor. It seemed to him that some one gave a 
 little cry, and presently his stunned, stupid 
 eyes saw on her knees before the fire a woman 
 in a loose black gown, with a loose black braid 
 of hair hanging to the floor behind her. She 
 did not speak or rise. The firelight sharpened 
 her features, burnishing the long throat, deep- 
 ening the hollows of the startled eyes, refining 
 the heaviness of the parted lips. 
 
 Dillon stared dully at Alexa. She had not 
 spoken to him at all for weeks and weeks, nor 
 noticed him in any way ; but as he stood gaz- 
 ing towards her he had an intimation that she 
 had heard of his loss, had known he would 
 come in late, half - drowned, half -crazed, and 
 had stolen from her bed to keep the fire up, so 
 that he might at least be warmed. 
 
 The perception gave him neither pleasure 
 nor surprise, nor indeed any sensation. lie
 
 252 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 felt nothing but a growing dimness of vision. 
 The excitement through which he had passed, 
 the exposure, the buffeting of the wind, the 
 drenching rain, and the raw whiskey he had 
 drunk began to tell upon him in the heat of 
 the office. Life seemed to be wheeling away ; 
 an overpowering dread caught at his heart and 
 held his breath, and below his feet the firm 
 earth appeared to melt. 
 
 In another instant there was a firm grasp 
 upon his arm ; some force sustained him, and 
 drew him forward and into one of the knife- 
 nicked office-chairs beside the fire. In his ear 
 Alexa's voice sounded in some stifled, inex- 
 plicable confusion of broken sentences, inter- 
 larded with murmurs of pity or alarm or plead- 
 ing, and with one recurrent word, which finally 
 took hold upon his recovering sense. 
 
 Seeing that Dillon had come to himself and 
 was quietly regarding her, Alexa grew at once 
 silent and shrank away. 
 
 ' ' Forgiveness, Alexa ?" he said, relieved of 
 the deadly weakness which had been with him. 
 " What are you talking about ? Is it possible 
 that I heard you asking me to forgive you ? 
 For what ?" 
 
 Alexa hung back in the shadows beyond the 
 shaft of light. Her face was frightened and 
 moved, and she kept her hands against her
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 263 
 
 bosom, as if the beating of the heart was too 
 fast. 
 
 "I've brought all this on you," she whis- 
 pered; "everything that's gone wrong the 
 flood her everything is my fault. I prayed 
 that yon mightn't be successful 'or happy." 
 Her tones died faintly, and Dillon roused him- 
 self from a contemplation of this statement 
 and began to laugh. 
 
 " You prayed, did you ? you poor child ! 
 and God gave you the same thoughtful con- 
 sideration which he accorded the patriarchs 
 when they asked that their enemies be con- 
 founded. Do you still write letters to Santa 
 Glaus, Alexa ?" 
 
 A sob echoed from the shadowed obscurity 
 where Alexa hid herself, and, catching it, Dil- 
 lon changed his tone, and, speaking gravely, 
 asked, " But why should you call down the 
 wrath of Heaven on me, Alexa ? What have 
 you against me ? What have I done ?" 
 
 There was a silence. Then a low voice stole 
 f alteringly from the farther darkness : " I want- 
 ed you to suffer like you'd made me" 
 
 Dillon leaned from his chair with a little 
 imperative gesture, saying, quietly, " Come 
 here." There was no response to this, and he 
 repeated, " Come, Alexa." 
 
 A movement disturbed the shadow then, and
 
 254 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Alexa, as if forced by some power with which 
 pride had vainly struggled, stole slowly into 
 sight. He reached ont and hastened her ad- 
 vance by drawing her towards him with a gen- 
 tle hand. "You loved me, after all, didn't 
 you ?" he said, smiling a little. "I knew it 
 well enough." 
 
 Alexa looked at him, and fell to weeping 
 sorely. " Of course you know I did," she sobbed. 
 " I don't care who hears me. I did. And when 
 I found you didn't care a thing in the world 
 for me not so much as the wrappings of your 
 finger I my heart broke ; yes, it broke. And 
 I promised to marry him that poor fellow 
 that's gone because I had enough pride left 
 then to want to show you I hadn't been any 
 more in earnest than you. Oh, it's good he's 
 passed where his troubles are done, for I don't 
 think I could of married him when it came to 
 the last ! I used to feel sometimes as if I'd 
 die unless I told him right out that, mean as 
 you'd treated me, I loved you still." 
 
 Dillon held her a little away, and regarded 
 her and drew her back again as he said, " What 
 a poor, spiritless thing you are, Alexa, to care 
 like this for a miserable beggar who hasn't 
 anything in the world except a lot of debts 
 he can't pay and a disgraced name a fellow 
 who has never been, and probably never will
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 256 
 
 be, true to anything or any one, and who has 
 been twice jilted by the girl he preferred to 
 you ! Suppose some one had come and told 
 you, Alexa, that I was guilty of some contemp- 
 tible crime or other, or a number of contempti- 
 ble crimes, would you have thrown me down ?" 
 
 " I couldn't of," wept Alexa. 
 
 " She was afraid her own flawless whiteness 
 of soul might get corrupted or spoiled, or some- 
 thing, if she stood by me. She had a pious 
 notion that a good woman can't continue to 
 love a bad man without suffering contamina- 
 tion. Maybe you can understand this, Alexa, 
 being a woman. Being a man, and therefore 
 only an elemental creature, it seems to me that 
 if the love amounted to anything it wouldn't 
 be able to reason around all these fine points. 
 What do you think, Alexa ? eh ? Aren't you 
 afraid the angels are shedding mournful tears 
 because I have got my corrupt arm around 
 you?" 
 
 Alexa's reply was not of a direct nature ; but 
 it denoted many things, among which was a cer- 
 tain comprehension' of the meaning of Lucy's 
 position, and a sense of her own personal 
 unwillingness to forego, in the interests of a 
 dimly defined and altogether colorless higher 
 life, anything worth having in the lower ranges 
 of existence.
 
 256 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 "I've got only one life to live/' said Alexa. 
 
 " Alexa ! Alexa ! you aren't afraid that heav- 
 en is slipping away ?" 
 
 ' ' It seems nearer than common/' said Alexa. 
 
 He did not laugh. He dropped his head on 
 his breast and rested his cold cheek upon her 
 hand, and bitterly contrasted this unquestion- 
 ing love with Lucy's scruples and doubts and 
 decisions. The human comfort which stole 
 upon him from Alexa's presence and Alexa's 
 simply defined adoration warmed and consoled 
 him ; yet he was perfectly sensible of a strong 
 distaste for the common perfume in which 
 Alexa was accustomed to drench her coarse, 
 long hair. 
 
 " Help me up," he said ; " help me as far as 
 the hall door, Alexa. I am mud from head to 
 foot and unutterably weak. I shouldn't ask 
 it, perhaps, but you won't mind lending me a 
 hand, will you, or wince or flinch if your sleeve 
 gets soiled ?"
 
 XXI 
 
 IT was a raw day in late February, with a 
 thin blanketing of snow throughout the cove, 
 and a heavy whiteness resting stole-like on the 
 massive shoulders of the mountains all around. 
 "Winds were snarling in the slender tanbark 
 oaks and squatting firs. The rumble of slow 
 and heavy wheels sounded in the frozen road 
 branching downward from the ridge, and at 
 the rumor of hoofs a great barking arose in 
 the porch of the log house. 
 
 The door opened, and Janet appeared in the 
 threshold, speeding an inquisitive glance tow- 
 ards the approaching wagon. " Any mail ?" 
 she called to her husband, whose scarf -encircled 
 head inclined comfortably over the reins. 
 
 " Expectin' any ?" he inquired, fetching up. 
 " Seem like you're mo* curious after mail these 
 days 'n ever I knowed you." 
 
 "D' law, man!" said Janet. "You sense 
 right well that I ain't looking for no word. 
 It's Miss Lucy as is always speckelatin' about 
 
 17
 
 258 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 the post and seeing letters in the candles. 
 Makes me right sick when there's nothing for 
 her, she 'pears so disappointed. Huh ! Oh, yon 
 got something, have yon ? Why 'n earth didn't 
 yon say so ? I'll take it right in to her. She's 
 ben mighty downcast this last week." 
 
 She reached np for the packet which her 
 hnsband nnearthed from some interior depth, 
 and as she inspected it she said : " It's from 
 Mis' Morrow !" A pleased smile increased the 
 beaming breadth of her placid face, and she 
 hnrried across the big living-room and stopped 
 at the door of Lucy's chamber and rapped, 
 and, without waiting for any response, pushed 
 into the apartment. 
 
 Lucy was sitting by the window with a book 
 in her lap. Her elbows were fixed upon the 
 crumpled pages and her face was buried in her 
 hands. At Janet's entrance she recovered her- 
 self from what had appeared to be a bitter sort 
 of reverie, and lifted a startled brow and re- 
 garded the woman with paling eyes. 
 
 "I went to work and scared you, didn't I, 
 honey ?" said Janet. " I hardly took sense of 
 what I was doing, being so eager. I got a let- 
 ter for you." 
 
 The book slipped from Lucy's knees in her 
 sudden movement. She stretched a shaking 
 hand, breathing, "A letter ? ah "
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 259 
 
 " From your ma," announced Janet, deliver- 
 ing the heavy enclosure, and marvelling that 
 Lucy's head should sink back in so sudden an 
 aspect of weariness. " She's a faithful writer, 
 your ma is has a mighty trick with the pen. 
 Me, I could no more cover the sheets she 
 sends you every week o' the world than I could 
 fly ! After I'd put down, ' Favor received and 
 contents noted,' I'd be at the end of my string. 
 Well, honey, I'll leave you to cipher it out in 
 peace. Come, Luther !" 
 
 " When are you coming home to us, dearest 
 Lucy ?" wrote Mrs. Morrow. " Always you say 
 'soon,' but the days pass and you do not come. 
 But for your papa's rheumatism, which has 
 greatly worried him of late, I should have 
 come to fetch you away in spite of yourself. 
 Now, however, the weather will soon be mild 
 again and he will improve. Streamlet, too, 
 will put on its spring-time garb ; wild flowers 
 will bloom along the hills, and everything will 
 make your return a bright and happy one. Oh, 
 dear Lucy, how I miss you ! We always went 
 everywhere together, and talked over things, 
 and had our fancy work of evenings, and I am 
 quite lost without you ! I tried to finish the 
 lunch-cloth you began, but I could not. My 
 tears wet the silks through and through. Some 
 of them ran especially the lilacs. They could
 
 260 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 not have been fast colors. Yesterday the 
 preacher's niece called ; she asked particularly 
 for yon. Among other things she was telling 
 me that the engineer is very angry because his 
 wife has taken Lete Haight to help with the 
 housework. It is not only Lete's character 
 that he objects to, but the fact that she cannot 
 cook or do anything properly, and had to be 
 begged to come and has to be coaxed to stay. 
 He is at present taking his meals at the hotel, 
 where, he says, he can at least get something 
 to eat, and shall continue to do so till his wife 
 sends Lete away. This his wife refuses to do. 
 She says that she cannot allow mere voices of 
 nature to call her from life's nobler missions. 
 To rescue the perishing, she tells the engineer, 
 is a higher duty than to see to it that a hus- 
 band's coffee is exactly to his taste. And, in- 
 deed, Lucy, it seems as if she were right, 
 though I fear it is going to take some time to 
 regenerate poor Lete. I see her wheeling the 
 engineer's baby on the bluff as I pen these 
 lines. She has got a great many red feathers 
 in her hat, and is nodding and smiling in her 
 silly way at some workmen who are mending 
 the switch on the tracks below. The baby is 
 crying very loudly indeed. But, of course, the 
 engineer's wife cannot reprimand her, for she 
 would leave at once. This is a baffling world,
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 261 
 
 dearest Lncy. Not much has happened in 
 your absence. The sawyer's daughter and Bud 
 Petty were married last week, and Halifax 
 Burns is down with another attack. I thought 
 Dr. Taliaferro spoke rather harshly of the poor 
 old man when I inquired. He was always just 
 a little hard, the doctor, and never seemed to 
 try to exercise towards human weaknesses that 
 large, tolerant spirit which is incumbent on all 
 of us. He tells me that he is going abroad in 
 May. We shall miss him. The poor will also 
 miss him, for though, as I say, he is not as 
 gentle as he might be with poor creatures who 
 get hurt in fights or who have delirium tremens 
 and such things as a result of that human 
 frailty which we, who are strong, ought to bear 
 with so considerately, still he never sends in 
 bills to those who cannot afford to pay, and I 
 have known him do numbers of kindly little 
 things for people. Now, dear Lucy, there is a 
 subject which I have thought best to avoid in 
 my letters to you. But it seems now as if I 
 had better introduce it, once for all. Mr. 
 Dillon is also going away, and you need not 
 delay your return through any fear of meeting 
 him. His going will not be deeply regret- 
 ted, for he has lost people's confidence very 
 completely. His misfortunes, lately, have been 
 marked. A freshet swept off all the walnut
 
 262 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 timber that dreadful timber which has, 
 indeed, seemed to have a curse upon it. This 
 may sound superstitious, Lucy, but I let it 
 stand. They saved almost nothing. I under- 
 stand that Mr. Burkely made good the remain- 
 ing payment. He was down here for a day or 
 so, but did not seem on very cordial terms with 
 his nephew. Oh, Lucy, you did well to give 
 him up ! His conduct this winter has been 
 but I cannot talk of it ! He looks so different, 
 so dissipated. The mill people have dismissed 
 him. He wasn't attending to his work at all. 
 From what I hear he is going to take charge of 
 a little saw-mill in a scrap of river hamlet be- 
 low Eowena a settlement at which the Daniel 
 Boone stops on its way to Nashville. I heard 
 Mr. Dnnbar tell your father that it was a very 
 rough place. He said that last year they had a 
 blind tiger there, and that the man who kept it 
 shot a revenue officer dead. I should think the 
 villagers would have naturally objected to any 
 one's keeping a tiger among them, though, of 
 course, its being blind would make a difference. 
 Still, where there are children one cannot be 
 too careful. It might have got loose any time. 
 Yes, Lucy, Mr. Dillon leaves on Wednesday 
 on the Daniel Boone's regular trip. There 
 are some other things I feel impelled to write 
 you about him, but refrain, since I am not
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 263 
 
 positive in my information, though I had it 
 pretty straight. Suffice it to say that this 
 matter only points the more deeply his weak- 
 ness of character, his lack of vigor in any di- 
 rection " 
 
 The letter fluttered out of Lucy's hand. 
 Dillon was leaving Streamlet, more than ever 
 in disgrace with fortune and in men's eyes. 
 Despised and forsaken, he was turning his 
 face to a wilderness which Lucy tried vainly to 
 picture as she stared out upon the mountains 
 and saAV nothing anywhere for all her seeking 
 except only Dillon's face. 
 
 In spite of everything, that image had not 
 become revolting to her. There were power 
 and pathos in its hold upon her fancy. She 
 knew that to think of him as she thought of 
 him involved her in a loss of all spiritual dig- 
 nity, yet day by day the thought of him grew 
 stronger and her own strength less. And as 
 she read the letter which assured her still more 
 fully of his worthlessness and completer de- 
 moralization, she realized very clearly at last 
 that the matter had no longer for her any 
 moral aspect whatever. 
 
 Dillon's delinquencies were a part of him, an 
 actual part of that personality to which her af- 
 fections simply and doggedly clung. She was 
 not duped now by any such vista of change in
 
 264 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 him as had widened upon her dazzled eyes in 
 the upland pasture, when he lay weeping on the 
 ground and a transport of devotion lifted her 
 soul to a sense of the sweetness of upholding 
 and saving him. She knew that it was not now 
 a question of saving him. She could not lift 
 him, but she could sink to the levels where his 
 walk must be, and share with him the life 
 which he had chosen, or which he had at least 
 not chosen to avoid. 
 
 No vision oi angels now, no flinging of palms 
 or echo of victorious hosannas, 110 soaring 
 heavenward, no joy of expiation. Nothing but 
 a hand upon her heart which drew her down. 
 That was all. 
 
 Lucy rose suddenly and paced about the 
 room, pushing back her hot, heavy hair. It 
 was Tuesday. To-morroweven so soon as 
 to-morrow he would be leaving Streamlet ! 
 There was scarcely time to reach him scarce- 
 ly time. She flung the door open in a breath- 
 less haste, and cried out, " Oh, Janet ! come 
 and help me get ready. My trunk, you know ! 
 It must be packed. I'm going home early 
 in the morning. Oh, if there were a train to- 
 night \" 
 
 Janet got up, setting an aghast look on 
 Lucy's crimson cheeks and bright wide eyes 
 and tumbling hair. She knew enough of Lucy's
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 265 
 
 story to fear some news of Dillon had brought 
 about this sudden resolution. 
 
 "Honey/' she faltered, "you 'ain't changed 
 your mind respectin' him, have you ?" She 
 caught some confirmation in Lucy's face, and 
 threw her apron over her head and wailed, 
 " Don't you ! don't you, Lucy ! don't you go 
 back to that no 'count, triflin' scamp ! If you 
 do you'll repent it till the " 
 
 "Oh," cried Lucy, laughing lightly, "he 
 isn't much worse than other people ! Or if he 
 is, I don't care anything about it." 
 
 " Lucy !" 
 
 "No, I don't care." 
 
 Taliaferro chanced to be in the station at 
 Streamlet upon the following morning when the 
 North-bound train dashed from the cut below 
 the hotel. He had been writing a message on 
 a yellow pad of telegraph forms, and the pen 
 was still in his hand as he glanced from the 
 barred window and saw Lucy stepping from the 
 foremost car. He stood motionless with his 
 eyes upon her, dazed a little at the unexpected- 
 ness of the sight. 
 
 Lucy did not see him, though she was look- 
 ing about her in a searching, restless sort of 
 way, as if the thronged platform and heaped 
 freight cart and distant hills and red church
 
 266 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 spire and cold gray sky all appealed to her, 
 yet could not arrest her attention. There 
 was a good deal of noise about the station: 
 boys were shouting in the school-house yard ; 
 cocks crew lustily ; the engine issued a whir of 
 steam ; and the Daniel Boone, away down at 
 the landing, in a clear, continuous blast, an- 
 nounced the hour of its departure. Yet for 
 all the affluence of sound Taliaferro seemed 
 to himself to be aware only of Lucy's voice, 
 ringing softly in a greeting here and there to 
 some one of the throng about the tracks. 
 
 She wore a long twist of gray fur around her 
 throat. Her face was radiant with unusual 
 color, her brownish eyes suffused with an eager 
 light. As she spoke many little smiles played 
 upon her lips. Taliaferro had never seen her 
 in so marked a mood of joyousness, and some 
 strange fervor of hope seized him as he wit- 
 nessed it. She had forgotten, then, all the 
 misery of her sad and mistaken troth. She 
 had outlived the thought of Dillon. She had 
 come home lovelier than ever, happy, restored. 
 Surely her heart's depths had not been griev- 
 ously touched when she could so soon look like 
 this ! She seemed even, so he thought, a little 
 excited, a little wild in the pleasure of being 
 home again. He felt that he must go out to her 
 and tell her in some moderate and composed way
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 267 
 
 if he could manage this how her return re- 
 joiced them all. She must not miss a single 
 hand-grasp, a solitary face. 
 
 Lucy herself, standing on the station steps, 
 was sensible that she was talking rapidly to 
 the sawyer and a villager or so hard by. She 
 could see that they were rather surprised at her 
 interest in the health and welfare of their fami- 
 lies. Meanwhile she waited for the train to go 
 and leave the hill road clear, so that she could 
 see if Dillon had already started down. Per- 
 haps he was not yet gone ? She glanced 
 towards the hotel, at the gate of which a 
 sturdy pair of horses harnessed to a buggy 
 was whinnying and champing. And as she 
 did so the wide office door burst open in a 
 sudden and startling kind of fashion, and a 
 gay, noisy group precipitated itself upon the 
 porch. 
 
 A very demonstrative leave-taking seemed 
 to be in progress up under the wintry vines 
 and delicate shadows of the beeches. Some 
 one was crying, too, though the laughter con- 
 tinued, while a choked, burly sort of voice 
 called, loudly, " Here, now, maw, you want 
 to quit this ! Brace up, can't you ! Don't you 
 make her break down right at the last, with the 
 Daniel Boone blowin' to start ! They'll miss 
 the boat if you carry on like that !"
 
 268 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 Lucy turned to the sawyer, asking, "Why, 
 what is all this ?" 
 
 The sawyer gave an amused gurgle as he in- 
 quired, " You mind Alexy Bohun, don't you ? 
 She got married this morning. Yes 'm, Alexy's 
 married ! Lord, I've known her since she was 
 a baby !" 
 
 " Married !" cried Lucy, smiling. " How 
 strange that I never heard a word of it." 
 
 " They hain't made much of a splurge," put 
 in the blacksmith. " Y' see, McBeath's only 
 been dead like about four month. M' wife, she 
 thinks it's scan'lous. But I says like this : 
 ' Beau won't be not a mite deader twenty years 
 hence 'n he is right now.' That's what I told 
 her. They say the Bohuns didn't favor the 
 match none ; but Alexy, she's a hull team, she 
 is, with a little dog under the wagon. She 
 had her way, Alexy did !" 
 
 "And whom has she married ?" asked Lucy, 
 arresting herself to exclaim, "Oh, here she 
 is !" as, surrounded with chattering girls, 
 Alexa appeared at the head of the hotel 
 steps. 
 
 Alexa it was, certainly, smiling through her 
 tears, and blushing and dimpling and bridling 
 under the lofty plumes and lavish bows and 
 buckles of her overtrimmed hat. She carried 
 a bunch of roses, and as she advanced she tossed
 
 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 269 
 
 the loose red flowers into the hands of the 
 laughing horde about her, while a few of the 
 falling petals, blowing outward, flecked as with 
 drops of blood the path before her. Behind 
 her but who was this behind her, taking 
 her hand to lead her gayly down the steps ? 
 Who was the young man waving with so 
 familiar a gesture this half - sportive, half- 
 contemptuous farewell to the throng on the 
 porch ? Lucy, staring over the whinnying 
 horses, noted Dillon's careless, lifted face and 
 slender, moving hand. He looked stouter than 
 she remembered him, with a thickness of the 
 eyelids and a broken color in the full cheeks. 
 He was changed indeed, but it was Dillon. 
 It was he who, a little uncertainly, wheeled 
 about to snatch from one of the chattering 
 girls the bride's rose she had thrust in her 
 hair. 
 
 There was a movement about the buggy, a 
 cry of farewell ; the horses dashed over the 
 tracks, and the light clangor of handfuls of 
 rice tinkled on the buggy-top. Then the brow 
 of the hill suddenly blotted out the vehicle, 
 the hotel gate banged, the girls flew up the 
 path, the office door slammed to. 
 
 Lucy was still standing on the platform step. 
 She had become very white, and Taliaferro as 
 he approached her began to understand from
 
 270 BOUND IN SHALLOWS 
 
 her change of countenance that Dillon's mar- 
 riage had taken her unawares. He hardly 
 dared encroach upon the fixed vacancy of con- 
 templation which held her ; but people were 
 beginning curiously to observe how strange and 
 still she looked, with strands of fair hair blow- 
 ing across her empty eyes, and all the color 
 lapsing even from her lips. 
 
 " Is it really you ?" asked Taliaf erro, there- 
 fore, as he came towards her. "You know 
 how welcome you are !" 
 
 Lucy appeared to take him in without imme- 
 diate recognition. There was a little pause, 
 which the young man found embarrassing. 
 Then she started and gave a quick, gasping 
 breath and a suppressed note of exclamation 
 with the air of one who wakens suddenly from 
 a bad dream and is relieved and reassured to 
 see a kind, familiar face close by. 
 
 She drew a hand from her muff and held it 
 forth ; and as Taliaf erro clasped it he took the 
 little travelling-bag from her arm and asked, 
 " May I carry this burdensome affair up hill 
 for you ?" 
 
 "Will you?" said Lucy. "I dreaded the 
 lonely walk." 
 
 And together they crossed the rutty road 
 and went up the rise, and presently disap- 
 peared under the lacing branches of the high-
 
 BOUND IK SHALLOWS 271 
 
 land trees, beyond which, in the early gray- 
 ness of the overcast sky, a slender rift of 
 warm blue, almost unseen as yet, was begin- 
 ning to break, in promise of sunshine and 
 spring. 
 
 THE END
 
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