7-2- 
 
 1/ 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 I' 
 
 
 \T> 
 
 I 
 
 ifllifimilii 
 
 Presented hi/ 
 I>((te lleceiced 
 Xo. 
 
 '= y/ /y 
 
 t'lKNi nil All Jin iniliiil;/ Itlllra fur the (jnrrniniCIlt n/ IIk- Suite Lihiliilj. 
 jHisHi'tl March S//;, l^'61. 
 
 Ski'iiov II. Till' Liiii:ii-i;iii sliaH cinisc to be kept a register of all 
 l>"ok.s is-iicd iiiiil ivlm-ncd : ami all lJook^< takt'ii liy the incinbiTS of the 
 lA'.y;islatiire. or iff* oflurcr.*. sliiill In' retiiined at the close of the session. If 
 any peri'on injure or fail to return any Ixtok taken from the Library, he 
 shall f irfiit and pay to the Librarian, for the benefit of the Librarj', three 
 limes the value thereof; and bef(U-c the Controller shall issue his warrant 
 in favor of my member or olli.er of the Lv^^islatnre, or of this State, for 
 his per diem allowanee or sal.iry. he shall be satisfied that such ini nibcr or 
 ofli<-er has r.'turned all books taken out <if the Library by him, aiid has 
 si<ttlcd all wcount- fur injuring sneh books or otherwise. 
 
 Sbc. 1'). no(d\S jnay be taken fnin the Library Tiy tlie members of the 
 Legisl.iture and its ofliecrs during the session of the same, and at any time 
 by the (iovernor and the ofiicors of the E.xeeutivc Department of this Stnte. 
 who are reipiired to kce]i their offices at the seat of government ; the Jus- 
 tices of* the Supreiue Court; the Attorney-tJeneral : and the Trustees of 
 the Librarv. 
 
 BKNJ. v. AVF.RV, STATK PUI.VTKH.
 
 DANGEMIELD'S REST; 
 
 OB, 
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 
 
 21 ttoucl 
 
 OF AMERICAN LIFE AND MANNERS. 
 
 The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 
 Make instruments to scourge us. 
 
 Shakspbare. 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 SHELDON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 835 Broadway, cor. Worth Street. 
 
 1864. 

 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
 
 SJIELDON" & COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 
 District of New York.
 
 SRfF 
 URL 
 
 DANGERFIELD'S REST 
 
 OR, 
 
 BEFORE THE STORM:. 
 
 ***■ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WHOEVER had been in the middle of the Atlantic 
 Ocean, on Friday the twenty -fourth of August, 185-, 
 or more strictly, had been at a point equidistant from Mon- 
 tauk Point and Cape Clear — might have seen the R. M. 
 Steamship Assyria bowling westward as fast as her powerful 
 engines and a free breeze on her quarter would allow. It 
 was drawing toward the close of one of those sultry days 
 which at sea bring universal lassitude, and heighten the 
 reaction of spirits and vivacity when the fresh evening air 
 stirs in pursuit of the falling sun. There had been little 
 sea running, but a long velvety swell, the remote effect of 
 distant gales, which, in the absence of wind, so often usurps 
 the place of a more perfect calm, had swept slowly by, un- 
 broken, save where the sharp black bow of the gallant ves- 
 sel dashed through its sullen bulk, throwing high in air 
 her tireless precursor of glittering foam. Now, however, 
 as the sun neared the horizon, the rippling catspaws be- 
 came more and more frequent, the cooling puffs from the 
 south-east became more and more steady, and as his lower 
 limb touched the blue and distant line, the Assyria was
 
 6 dangerfield's rest; or, 
 
 rushing through the water at the rate of sixteen knots an 
 hour. 
 
 Thirty minutes before, the spacious quarter-deck of the 
 steamship was silent enough, and, indeed, all but deserted ; 
 but now it suddenly became the scene of great gaiety and 
 animation. The gentlemen left their wine and the dinner 
 table, the ladies no longer sought shelter from the burning 
 sun. Many were scattered in knots laughing and chatting, 
 some promenading in couples, a few solitary ones reading 
 or gazing wistfully across the traversed waste astern. A 
 motley company indeed ! People of all ages, degrees, and 
 nationalities. A listener could catch half a dozen langua- 
 ges in a breath, and in some of the languages as many dia- 
 lects. Here were cockneys abusing their h's and w's and 
 Yankees ridiculing the vulgarism in fearful nasal drawls ; 
 young Englishmen of breeding with baggy clothes and easy 
 manners; youths from Harvard in closer guise, and that 
 peculiar precision of speech and manner which tells uner- 
 ringly of the Western "modern Athens." Jewish bankers 
 and money changers, with that air, the mixture of obse- 
 quiousness and insolence, which suggests the memory of 
 oppression blended with a conviction of the power of 
 money. Hard American faces with vulgar mouths, tufted 
 chins, and cunning expression; fat British faces with 
 greasy mouths, shaven chins, and no expression at all. 
 Here a Southern planter, there a Manchester manufacturer. 
 One or two New York lawyers, a pair of drink-soaked 
 Californians, a " literary man" from Boston, and the Eev. 
 Dr. Somebody going back to his flock rather the better of his 
 bronchitis. There is Slymer, who always gets his passage 
 for nothing by being a " Bearer of Dispatches." Just at 
 present he is on confidential terms with Sprigg, corres- 
 pondent of the New York Crier^ touching a laudatory 
 notice of him, Slymer, which is to appear the day after the 
 Assyria arrives at New York. That man with the yellow 
 waistcoat, brick-colored face, and moustache dyed jet black, 
 is McSwindle, Common Councilman of the Empire City, 
 returning from a visit to his friends in the green island.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 7 
 
 He used to black boots in Sackville street thirty years ago, 
 but has thriven apace in the land of liberty. The stout 
 but gorgeous lady sitting by the long boat with the two 
 handsome girls, is Mrs. General Von Donk, and they are 
 her daughters ; this is their fifth passage this year across 
 the ocean. Mrs. General Von Donk made her first appear- 
 ance in the business world in the capacity of a laundress. 
 She washed shirts for Corporal Von Donk of the Bowery 
 Fencibles and a rising corner grocery. After all it was 
 owing to her tact and management that he got on in life, 
 so it was not such a bad alliance for Von Donk as people 
 at first declared. Few remember those old times now. 
 They are eclipsed by the glories of the house in Fifth 
 Avenue, the beauties of Zerlina and Violetta, the vanities 
 and extravagance of Mr. Gossamer Von Donk, and the 
 honors, poHtical and military, of the stalwart General. 
 All the fiimily needs now is an infusion of good blood, and 
 maierfamilias knows it as well as we. That indeed is the 
 secret object of all her shuttlecock bounds and rebounds 
 over land and sea. She wants an Englishman with a good 
 name, or a continental with a title. You will find her 
 hunting for him one week at the Hotel Bedford, the next at 
 Morley's. Last week shopping in Regent street, this week 
 on board the Assyria, she will pass a month or so in New 
 York, Newport, and Saratoga, and be off" for Europe again 
 in October. 
 
 Such were some of the many curious personages whose 
 presence lent variety and clatter to the decks of the huge 
 packet. But to find those in whom we have a greater 
 interest, and whose future chiefly concerns us, we must go 
 further off than we have yet ventured and seek them in 
 a group close to the taffrail. 
 
 Conspicuous in a knot of persons several of whom were 
 noticeable enough, sat, bareheaded, a noble-looking man of 
 some sixty years of age. His hair and beard worn full and 
 naturally, were snowy white, suggesting greater age than 
 did the healthful ruddy cheek, and almost unwrinkled 
 brow. His figure too, although spare, was erect and mus-
 
 8 dangekfield's rest; or 
 
 cular, and, when he rose, towered some inches above the 
 middle hciglit. lie wore clothes of a dark color which 
 discovered more attention to symmetry in style and cut 
 than is usual at the age of the wearer, and a spotless cam- 
 bric cravat was loosely, but with gentlemanly neatness, 
 arranged about his throat. His bearing and manners 
 exhibited that mingling of dignity and graciousness which 
 it is common in these brusque times to attril?ute to " gen- 
 tlemen of the old school," and there was a sweetness of ex- 
 pression in the benignant countenance which rarely, — very 
 rarely, gave way to a passing trace of anxiety and pain. 
 Such was Oliver Vernon, who, had he remained in his 
 native country, might by this have been one of the fore- 
 most of England's legislators and sages, but who after his 
 thirty years in America was content with his books, his 
 artistic tastes, his few friends, and the ample fortune which 
 successful speculation had early enabled him to amass. 
 Why he had left home and society which his education 
 and position unquestionably qualified him to enjoy and to 
 adorn, none knew, even of his own family, and few ven- 
 tured to inquire; for, gentle and conciliatory when dis- 
 cussing other subjects, he became haughty and reticent on 
 allusion to this ; so that whoever through chance or 
 curiosity might question him thereon was pretty certain 
 not to repeat the experiment for the future. 
 
 On the right and left of Mr. Vernon were seated two 
 young ladies, respectively his daughter and ward, whose 
 presence supplied his reason for lately taking the step 
 which, in former years, he had resolved always to avoid — 
 he had re-visited Europe. Postponing from time to time 
 the pleasure they were ever soliciting, and which he could 
 scarcely with generosity refuse, he had, some fifteen months 
 before, started from their lovely home on the banks of the 
 Iludson, and, embarking from the great city at its mouth, 
 afforded the happy girls that opportunity for viewing the 
 wonders of the old world to which they had so long looked 
 forward with joyous anticipation. An elderly woman who 
 had nursed his child, — image and sole legacy of the
 
 - BEFORE THE STORM. 9 
 
 wife who had died in giving her birth, — a person more 
 companion than servant, — constituted the only attendant 
 of the little party, which, after its bright holiday of travel 
 and sight-seeing, was now flying over the waters toward 
 home once again. 
 
 Elinor Grazebrook and Grace Vernon were as unlike as 
 two people who had so much in sympathy and in common 
 could well be. The former, who at this time had seen 
 some two and twenty summers, knew, up to her eighteenth, 
 little but sorrow and mortification. She was the daughter 
 of an extremely clever but delicately organized and sen- 
 sitive man, who, disappointed in life, had taken incurably 
 to drink before Elinor was born. His wife, a beautiful but 
 wilful woman, whom a stronger head and firmer heart than 
 Grazebrook's could have moulded into everything lovable 
 and noble, exasperated by the excesses and ill treatment of 
 a dozen years, fled in an evil hour with one Kirkwood, her 
 husband's former partner at the bar. Five years after, she 
 was deserted in turn, her paramour making his way to 
 California. The unhappy woman sought her husband to 
 beseech his forgiveness and to beg to be allowed to look 
 once more on her child, but Grazebrook had died in 
 delirium tremens some days before. In all his madness, he 
 had saved a few thousands by way of portion for poor 
 Elinor, whom he tenderly loved, but whose life his habits 
 had made wretchedly miserable. Shortly before his death, 
 conscious that it would not be long deferred, he had im- 
 plored Oliver Vernon as a friend of earlier and happier 
 years, .to take charge of the girl, and to keep her as far 
 as possible from contact with or knowledge of her lost 
 mother. Vernon willingly undertook the trust, although 
 naturally anxious as regarded the legal aspect of the latter 
 injunction. Five or six years rolled by, however, and 
 no one could be found who had seen or heard of Mary 
 Grazebrook, since the day she learned of her husband's 
 death. Those interested agreed therefore with Vernon's 
 conviction that she must be dead. 
 
 The bitter experience which this brief history so readily 
 
 1*
 
 10 dangerfield's rest; or, 
 
 suggests had left its marks on Elinor's character rather 
 than on her person. Singularly sensitive in reality, she 
 was generally considered cold and impassive. Keenly 
 alive to every impression or incident of either exterior or 
 interior life, she appeared indifferent alike to each and all. 
 She had been so shocked and humiliated by the sad occur- 
 rences and soul-depressing atmosphere of her childhood, 
 that the poor young spirit sought the refuge which natural 
 pride afforded in a reticence and repose which amounted to 
 hauteur. The peculiar character of her beauty served to 
 heighten the impression which was conveyed by her man- 
 ner. Tall and slight, she would have appeared too thin, 
 but for the proportions of a full and exquisitely moulded 
 bust. Her features would have been Grecian but for the 
 smallest disposition to the aquiline in the delicate nose. 
 The lips might have been called a thought too full, but the 
 suggestion was banished by that peculiar stamp of self- 
 control which gives the mouth in intellect what it takes from 
 it in sensuality. The skin was singularly fair, yet the eyes, 
 almost black in fact, appeared quite so from the long dark 
 fringes which surrounded them. The hair of a rich changing 
 brown, had the sunny warmth of tone so much admired by 
 painters, and, being lighter beneath, looked absolutely blonde 
 from the front, because dressed in the manner made 
 fashionable by the Empress Eugenie. Elinor's hands, with- 
 out being diminutive, were of the true patrician mould, 
 and the feet with their slender outline and arching insteps 
 were pretty enough to make one grateful to the friendly 
 breeze which now and again disturbed the young lady's 
 ample draperies. 
 
 Grace Vernon had the air and manner common to human 
 beings as well as animals who have never been hurt and 
 have never been frightened. Accustomed from infancy to 
 be loved and cherished by all who surrounded her, she 
 had no thought of harm from any living thing. Not even 
 that sorrow which even the privileged and opulent cannot 
 escape — the death of those dearest to them — had been hers, 
 for her mother's last hour was the daughter's first, and she
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 11 
 
 had never lost a friend. Her life had passed in sailing 
 over summer seas beneath cloudless skies, and with as 
 little check or obstacle as the noble ship now met which 
 bounded under her feet. Guileless and unsuspecting, often 
 giddy and unthinking, Grace was yet thoroughly unselfish. 
 She had inherited from her father a portion not only of his 
 large humanity, but much of his clear perception of right 
 and justice, which goes so far to ennoble as well as to give 
 symmetry to character. Passionately attached to her father 
 she warmly sympathized in his views and opinions, which, 
 always philanthropic, were sometimes so far in advance of 
 the huckstering utilitarianism of the day as to be called 
 " extreme" and " radical." Deprived of a mother, a share 
 of the love which would have been hers had fallen to the 
 lot of her nurse, Mercy Tredwell, or, more commonly, 
 " Aunt Mercy," a worthy and kind-hearted woman, the 
 widow of a small farmer in Western Massachusetts. Grace 
 had hailed with delight the time which brought Elinor 
 Grazebrook under her father's guardianship, and the time 
 which had elapsed since that memorable epoch had ripened 
 her girlish pleasure into a more than sisterly affection. We 
 have said the two were unlike enough, and indeed the 
 external difference was as marked as that of their charac- 
 ters. Shorter than the stately Elisor, Grace had scarcely a 
 feature which could be called regular, and yet was unde- 
 niably pretty. Her figure was charming, her eyes of a, 
 lovely blue, and a profusion of nut-brown hair surrounded 
 a face which wreathed into a smile of quite bewitching 
 sweetness. Then she had radiantly white teeth, a beauty 
 the laughing lips did not fail to disclose. 
 
 Both ladies wore round hats of the nondescript patterns 
 then coming in vogue, and were dressed in gauzy, sum- 
 mery fabrics of the abundant fulness and matching rib- 
 ands which the season and the fashion prescribed. 
 
 The group formed by the three persons we have described 
 was remarkable enough to justify its apparent attrac- 
 tion, for at the moment a number of gentlemen had 
 gathered around it, partly joining in, and partly listening
 
 12 dangerfield's eest; or, 
 
 to a conversation whose progress was suddenly interrupted 
 by an exclamation which turned all eyes toward the 
 mizen cross-trees, where was perched a young gentleman 
 balancing a spy-glass nearly as long as himself : — 
 
 " What d'ye make of her, Mr. Middleton ?" cried Captain 
 Stanchion, interrupting his quarter-deck walk. 
 
 "Large screw, sir, three points on the weather-bow, and 
 bearing straight down on us," replied the stripling, 
 
 " Ay, ay. Get out your bunting, Mr. Edwards, and the 
 private signal. We may as well be reported. Too near 
 Yankee land for a West-India man. News from New 
 York, gentlemen," continued the Captain, as he joined the 
 party of our friends astern. 
 
 "How much later. Captain Stanchion," inquired Mr. 
 Vernon, " than what we have ?" 
 
 " About fifteen days, sir. We sailed on the eighteenth, 
 our friend yonder has had western winds, and left, perhaps, 
 but a day earlier. Our latest dates from America were up 
 to the second." 
 
 " Couldn't we stop and get some papers ?" asked Sprigg 
 coming up anxiously. 
 
 The Captain shook his head. " We carry her Majesty's 
 mails, sir, which stop for no one." 
 
 " Never mind, SpriggJ' said Slyraer, " there's only a week 
 longer, and if the Ecpublic has gone down, I dare say we 
 shall hear of it through the trumpet." 
 
 " No fear o' that, sir," remarked McSwindle oracularly ; 
 " the Great Eepublic will outlast your time and mine." 
 
 "The Great Ecpublic is a failure," lisped Gossamer 
 Von Donk soito voce: "why, do you know, Mr. Eliot, no 
 gentleman can even vote now in New York ? A man 
 of decent family with a whole coat on his back can't get 
 near the polls for the rowdies and Irish." 
 
 " Is it true, Mr. Vernon," asked Eliot, a young English- 
 man of liberal views, and crossing the Atlantic for the first 
 time, " is it true that your universal suffrage works so 
 badly ?" 
 
 " I fear," said Vernon gravely, " that the system has many
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 13 
 
 drawbacks. If things could have remained as they were 
 during the first thirty years of the republic it would have 
 answered admirably. The young nation had passed through 
 a fearful ordeal, and emerged purified and elevated. Its 
 founders contemplated that universal education should 
 accompany universal suffrage, and that men should thus 
 be made fit for the privilege before they came to enjoy it. 
 But the vast and unforeseen material prosperity which 
 ensued brought also the seeds of corruption and decay. 
 An immigration on a colossal scale was stimulated, which 
 consisted to a great extent of the most ignorant classes of 
 foreign populations. These classes, however well meaning, 
 could not be expected to learn in a day that democracy 
 does not mean licentiousness and disorder. Often ill 
 treated in their native land, they were unused to liberty, 
 and naturally knew not how to employ it." 
 
 "But surely," said Eliot, "the native population must 
 outnumber the foreign and be able always to control 
 it." 
 
 " Outnumber, yes ; control, no ; for in the natural divisions 
 of part}"-, the foreign element would hold the balance of 
 power, and be pretty sure to consult its predilections by 
 going on the wrong side." 
 
 "Yet, after all," reasoned Eliot, "why should they go 
 on the wrong side ? why not in their ignorance stumble on 
 the right one?" 
 
 " Ah," replied Vernon, " their ignorance does not go so 
 far as that. The people who emigrate to America, — and 
 especially those from the British Islands, — either have 
 been, or fancy themselves to have been, oppressed by law 
 and society in their own countries. They cherish, therefore, 
 a hatred for all law which seeks to control them, a dislike 
 of all society beyond their own level. They uniformly 
 mistake political for social equality, or at least they insist 
 on putting that construction on the dogma Vv^hich is only 
 true as expressing the equality of all men in political 
 and judicial rights. Thus they always sympathize with 
 whatever is levelling and whatever is insurrectionary,
 
 14 dangerfield's rest ; OR 
 
 quite regardless whether the rights of others are invaded 
 or destroyed by such processes or not." 
 
 " Yet the United States would never have reached their 
 present position without the influx of foreign labor." 
 
 " Probably not, and foreign labor has been glad of the 
 chance to be very well paid and very well fed. But Europe 
 has also been a gainer — at least in a material sense." 
 
 " How so ?" 
 
 " Because the manufacturing interest is a principal source 
 of strength in Western Europe — emphatically so in Eng- 
 land. The manufacturing interest depends on the cotton 
 supply, which depends on Slavery. Now the foreign 
 population of America — at least, and beyond dispute, the 
 very large fraction of it from the British Islands — has been 
 and is, the staunch supporter of all measures which aim at 
 the perpetuation and extension of human bondage." 
 
 " But is not this very anomalous — the oppressed becom- 
 ing the advocates of oppression?" 
 
 " Anomalous indeed, but so it is. The nature of man, 
 once warped and misdirected, does not recover itself, as a 
 rule, by processes much more rapid than the vitiating ones 
 have been. There are of course noble exceptions, but 
 most Irishmen and most Jews are friendly to the Institution 
 of Slavery. The idea that a race or class may be syste- 
 matically oppressed does not appear disagreeable to them, 
 provided that class is not their own. Such people have not 
 yet grown sufficiently to be fit for liberty in our extended 
 sense : — any more than the negro would be fit for freedom, 
 in a similar sense, were he emancipated to-day. The 
 regeneration should be gradual in both cases." 
 
 The conversation was here interrupted by the interest 
 and bustle occasioned by the approaching steamer — a 
 diversion highly satisfactory to the ladies, who noticed 
 with feminine quickness that McSwindle had overheard 
 portions of Mr. Vernon's remarks, and that the growing 
 truculence of his expression boded some unpleasantness ; 
 and, indeed, his mental question of "An d'ye mean to 
 compare us to nagurs?" was at the very point of finding
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM. 15 
 
 expression when a general movement to the larboard side 
 of the quarterdeck constrained him to change his position 
 and to swallow his indignation. 
 
 The stranger, who was now scarcely half a mile distant, 
 was a large screw steamer, heavily sparred, and as neat 
 about her upper works as a man-of-war. She had been 
 coming on under full sail, although necessarily close- 
 hauled. Now, however, she had swung round her main- 
 topsail, which was backed against the mast, and stopped 
 her screw. Each moment lessened the distance between 
 the vessels, as the stranger lay almost directly in the course 
 of the Assyria. The noble standard of England was flying 
 from the peak of both, and the deck of each was crowded 
 with people scanning the other with interest and curiosity. 
 It could now be seen that men were at work at the 
 port-quarter-davits of the screw, and that they were in the 
 act of lowering a boat. 
 
 Mr. Edwards came up to Captain Stanchion and 
 touched his cap. " They are going to try and board us, 
 sir." 
 
 " I know," said the Captain discontentedly, " we can't 
 stop, but you may slow the engines, Mr. Edwards ; there's 
 no sea, and they can easily get a line aboard." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir." 
 
 And in a few moments the huge mass was moving at a 
 quarter of her previous rate. By this time the stranger's 
 boat was in the water, and four stout fellows were pulling 
 the few strokes needed to place her in t|?e track of the 
 Assyria. Meanwhile a process of mutual cross-examina- 
 tion was in progress from the two quarter-decks, and 
 the people of the latter craft were acquainted that the 
 screw was the steamship Stromloli from New York on the 
 17th ultimo and bound for Liverpool. Also that a gen- 
 tleman who was desirous to retrace his journey was in the 
 approaching boat. A little shouting and clattering of 
 ropes, an exchange of newspapers and messages, and the 
 passengers of the Assyria saw the frail craft dancing in 
 iheir wake. At the same moment a couple of black bags
 
 16 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 came up over the side, and immediately afterward leaped 
 lightly over the bulwark— Mr. Stephen Dangerfield. 
 
 A young man of thirty, very much sunburnt, with dark 
 flashing eyes and snow-white teeth. A flice and figure fit 
 to be the model for an Apollo in every respect of shape and 
 proportion, except perhaps a trifle too much weight about 
 the shoulders. He was dressed in a loose suit of white 
 flannel, and wore a straw hat which he removed as his foot 
 touched the deck. There was in his whole manner that 
 union of careless ease with perfectly good breeding, which 
 is so difficult to simulate, and which springs so frequently 
 from good blood which has become familiarized with 
 danger. 
 
 " G-ood evening. Captain Stanchion," cried the new comer 
 gaily ; " I hope you will give me a welcome and a berth, 
 though I do come so unexpectedly." 
 
 " As I live, Mr. Dangerfield," exclaimed the sailor, "you 
 are the last man I would have thought to see this day ! 
 Welcome ? Yes, and a hearty one ! though it is a little 
 unusual." 
 
 " Oh, I'll make it all right with Mr. C ," laughed the 
 
 young man. " I fear," he added, turning with graceful cour- 
 tesy toward the groups of passengers, " I fear I am but a 
 stranger here." 
 
 " Not quite so to me, Mr. Stephen Dangerfield," said 
 Oliver Vernon, coming forward with his highly bred air, 
 " at least your father was not, though you were but a curly- 
 headed boy when I saw you last." 
 
 The other blushed sliglitly. " You mean before I ran 
 away and went to sea. I remember you, sir, although, if 
 you are Mr. Vernon, you too are changed in these fifteen 
 years." 
 
 "And for the better, I hope," said the old gentleman 
 cheerfully. " But come, I must claim a neighbor's privi- 
 lege." So saying, he led the young man, nothing loth, 
 to the charmed circle whose central attractions were the 
 two beautiful girls in his charge. 
 
 And so meet these people who but for a trivial accident
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 17 
 
 had never met, and whose influence on each other's future 
 was to be so momentous. The evening's conversation was 
 no doubt pleasant enough to all engaged, and it was 
 remarkably so to Mr. Stephen Dangerfield. But it did 
 not affect him to that degree as to make him forget, on 
 retiring to his state-room for the night, to carefully peruse 
 two papers, one written, one printed, — and which he had 
 only read some fifty times during the past four days. After 
 this final perusal he carefully folded and placed them in a 
 pocket-book, which again he placed under his pillow. The 
 first was a telegraphic dispatch and ran thus : 
 
 "Philadelphia, August 17. 
 " Mr. Stephen Dangerfield, Clarendon Hotel, N. Y. 
 Something wrong. Do not sail. 
 
 " Hawk." 
 
 The other was a slip from a New York paper containing 
 an advertisement under the head of " Personal," and which 
 was to this effect : 
 
 " K. did not sail in the A. — Has gone north to The Rest." 
 
 • CHAPTER n. 
 
 ^^ T HOPE you will like America," said Grace Yernon to 
 X Robert Eliot, who was standing by her side and gazing 
 dreamily over the sparkling waters before them. " That 
 is, I don't mean Niagara, the Great Lakes, the beautiful 
 scenery, and all that ; of course everybody must like or 
 admire them; but I hope you won't find the people so 
 disagreeable as most of your countrymen who write books 
 do. They always appear to me to select the very worst 
 types they may happen to meet, and then serve them up as 
 fair average specimens of their class." 
 
 It was just after sunrise on the third morning succeed- 
 ing the events described in the last chapter. A soft 
 air from the south distended the sails, being just free
 
 18 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 enough to allow the steamship to show canvas and hold 
 her course. A balmy moisture pervaded the atmosphere, 
 and the sun was shimmering through fleecy, broken cloud- 
 banks, which it suffused with gorgeous coloring. A cool 
 grey yet lingered on the western horizon, where the 
 twinkle of the last star was expiring for the day. The 
 newly washed decks were redolent of freshness and clean- 
 liness. Every rope was coiled neatly in its place, the 
 running gear all taut and ship-shape as in a man-of-war, 
 and each bit of metal brightly polished. The sea was 
 covered with crisp and lively little waves, which, breaking 
 each other at right angles, betrayed a recent change of 
 wind. The surface was too much ruffled to see the bril- 
 liant dolphins which were running their fantastic races 
 alongside ; but the porpoises were gambolling about in 
 mj^riads, and, by their ceaseless leaping and popping their 
 black snouts above the water, lent life and variety to the 
 scene. 
 
 The young people had left their berths betimes to enjoy 
 a period of the day especially grateful in warm weather 
 at sea, and when, as they learned by experience, the attrac- 
 tions ofHhe quarter-deck were enhanced by its comparative 
 desertion. There were indeed only three other persons 
 visible on deck at the present time, save one of those ru|[ged 
 quarter-masters who lose all individuality in their perpetual 
 presence. Elinor Grrazebrook in her snowy morning dress, 
 was seated in,statuesque contemplation of the view ; Aunt 
 Mercy was illustrating her New England thrift by knitting 
 vigorously at some unknown utility ; and Mr. Stephen 
 Dangerfield was pacing slowly up and down, peeling an 
 orange and debating within himself, whether, on finishing 
 the operation, he should ofier the fruit to Grace or Elinor. 
 
 " Most travellers who make books find it to their account 
 to be censorious," replied Eliot. " They are beset by the 
 necessity to amuse, and it is more piquant to ridicule than 
 to extol. Scribbling Frenchmen abuse England, scribbling 
 Englishmen abuse France ; both have the same temptation 
 and both fall into it ; nothing which is really worthy or
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 19 
 
 excellent , North or Soutli of the Channel, is affected by 
 either." 
 
 "Ah," cried the young lady, "because your channel 
 is so narrow. Misrepresentation is sooner corrected when 
 people are near. But it is different across this wide 
 Atlantic !" 
 
 " I grant the difference ; but is it not balanced by our 
 speaking the same language on either side ?" 
 " That increases the facility for recrimination." 
 "But also that for explanation, which sooner or later 
 must always be heard." 
 
 " Well," reasoned Grace, " the newspapers are, I sup- 
 pose, the principal vehicles for 'explanation' between 
 England and America ; you surely don't think ihey tend to 
 produce good feeling between the two countries, do you ?" 
 " Perhaps not, for the time being," answered Eliot, " and 
 for the same reason that the book-makers do not. They 
 must have ' smart' and ' spicy' articles. The temptation 
 is strong to tickle the worst prejudices of the worst class of 
 their audience, and they do so. But this must come to an 
 end. The animus and the profligacy are alike detected at 
 least, and the influence of the offender must wane in pro- 
 portion. All the brilliant flummery of the Saturday Re- 
 vieiu^ for example, will not save its credit when the know- 
 ledge is notorious of its contempt for common honesty, 
 and that it habitually makes the truth subservient to an 
 epigram." 
 
 " Nothing can be worse than our Press," said Stephen 
 Dangerfield, pausing in his walk and solving his doubts 
 about the orange by dividing it neatly into halves ; "yours 
 is for the most part conducted by gentlemen who can, 
 at least when they like, show culture and refinement. 
 "With us these are the exceptions, the general rule all 
 the other way. If, as Mr. Vernon says, our foreign popula- 
 tion is brutal enough when it comes to us, the J^ew York 
 Crier and the New York Yahoo do all they can to keep it so.'' 
 "I suppose," remarked Eliot, "that the demand, as usual, 
 induces the supply. Tour newspapers are cheap and
 
 20 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 address themselves to a highly miscellaneous body of 
 readers ; and, like the poor players, they ' who live to 
 please must please to live.' " 
 
 " Ay, but the whole body of our people are libelled by 
 these prints in so far as European opinion accepts them as 
 exponents of American culture, American temper, and 
 American common-sense. The fact is, no sea-port town 
 filled with mere money-getters and constantly reinforced 
 with unruly foreigners, supplies the best specimens of 
 either. Boston is the best of the bunch, with all its pre- 
 judices and provincialisms, and is only so because the 
 deteriorating elements are less potent or better checked 
 there than elsewhere." 
 
 " But, granting the truth of your hypothesis, it must be 
 well known to the more intelligent classes of your popula- 
 tion, and the presses you name boast large circulations 
 in every rank of the community." 
 
 "To be sure it is well known; and in private it is 
 universally admitted and deprecated ; yet no one seeks to 
 correct the evil. It is everybody's business and therefore 
 nobody's. People are all too busy or too indifferent. Of 
 course they have large circulations ; every one wants to 
 see the news, and the New York Press exhibits more 
 energy and enterprise than any in the world in this respect." 
 
 " If they have circulation, they should have influence." 
 
 " Just the other way with us, — at least so far as the 
 country at large is concerned. The New York pg-pers 
 which have the largest diy circulation in proportion to 
 their total issue, carry the least weight with intelligent 
 people." 
 
 " A singular state of things truly." 
 
 " You will find it to exist. It is one of the indirect 
 consequences of permitting immigrants to linger on the sea- 
 board, instead of taking them West and giving them plenty 
 of land. We keep them and their children in the filthy 
 tenement streets of Eastern cities instead of sendinsr them 
 to the fresh and teeming Western prairies. We keep them 
 where tiiev are morally certain to become the worst possible
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 21 
 
 citizens, instead of placing them where they would be 
 equally sure to grow into very good ones." 
 
 " And this is susceptible of demonstration?" 
 
 "Unquestionably. It can be tested by, among other 
 things, the evidence of more than one of the senses. An 
 average comparison of the condition of the people from 
 the two nationalities which have supplied our principal 
 accessions these twenty years past, furnishes a tolerable 
 illustration." 
 
 " Don't you think, Mr. Eliot," cried Grace Vernon 
 laughingly, " that if all these guests of ours, to whom we 
 open our doors so hospitably, are given the right to vote, — 
 don't you think that American women — or at all events 
 educated women — ought to have the same privilege?" 
 
 " You have me at advantage. Miss Vernon," returned 
 Eliot, with an admiring gaze, which included both the 
 lovely girls before him ; " who could see such specimens of 
 your countrywomen as I have, and not reply in the 
 affirmative?" 
 
 " No, no," exclaimed Grace, while a bright blush rose to 
 her cheeks, "you mustn't take refuge in comphments ; I 
 demand a serious reply." 
 
 "The question is a very delicate one, my dear Miss 
 Vernon, — so delicate, that I rejoice my good angels relieve 
 me, and send one so much more competent in the person 
 of your papa to decide it." 
 
 Oliver Vernon came on deck and advanced toward the 
 party. His noble face was beaming with a sweet and 
 benignant smile. Those who knew him best prized that 
 smile and loved him better each time they saw it; but 
 they would perchance have prized it more had they known 
 it precisely for what it was — the outward sign and expres- 
 sion of a spiritual growth, which a generous heart and a 
 large comprehensive nature had fostered and nurtured in 
 the teeth of circumstances which would have made most 
 men misanthropes and some men criminals. 
 
 Oliver Vernon quitted his native land under the stigma, 
 and to escape the consequences, of a disgraceful crime
 
 22 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 committed thirty years before. The younger son of an 
 ancient fomily, lie had early tasted the bitterness and 
 humiliation which is often a consequence of the law of 
 entail. Ilis case was, indeed, one of unusual aggravation, 
 for his mother, a weak and frivolous woman, lavished 
 all her affection on her eldest son William, treating the 
 younger with neglect and almost with contempt. The 
 father, a man in active political life, paid little attention to 
 the family affairs which his powerful intellect should have 
 regulated and controlled, lie was, however, anxious to 
 bring forward his son and heir, William, into Parliament, 
 and resented the lavish and indolent habits which, in spite 
 of his brilliant qualities, the latter had from early youth 
 exhibited. William Yernon was known to have gambled 
 heavily upon the turf ; yet no one knew but himself and 
 the Jews to what extent he had been "dipped" until many 
 years after the events we are about to relate. Oliver, 
 having found life in his father's house insupportable, had 
 left it, having for his sole resource a slender annuity 
 derived from a grandmother, and after buffeting with for- 
 tune for several years in search of a favorable opening in 
 life, had accepted a position as Secretary to a nobleman of 
 high rank, a distant connexion of his family. It was to this 
 association that his subsequent misfortune was due. The 
 elder Yernon relied to a great extent upon the promised 
 
 interest of Lord C to push the political fortunes of 
 
 William. The latter was assiduous in paying court to his 
 lordship, and was a frequent visitor both at his town and 
 country house. At a time when the nobleman was absent 
 in a distant part of the kingdom, a check purporting to be 
 drawn by him for the sum of five thousand pounds was 
 presented at his London Banker's. The sum was large, but 
 not uncommonl}'- so; and, as it was demanded at the same 
 time with several smaller checks known to have passed 
 through the hands of Oliver Yernon, whose connexion 
 
 with Lord C was known at the Banker's, it was paid 
 
 unsuspectingly. The signature proved a forgery ; and, as a 
 discovery of the fact was coupled with overwhelming
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 23 
 
 criminatory evidence, and was immediately followed by 
 Oliver Yernon's flight from England, the guilt of the latter 
 was universally accepted and believed. 
 
 This conviction grew into certainty in the minds of 
 
 those interested, when, two years afterward. Lord C 
 
 received a draft from America for the sum of one thousand 
 pounds ; a remittance which was repeated yearly until the 
 whole amount of which he had originally been defrauded had 
 been repaid. There had been no prosecution, and publicity 
 was confined to the immediate circle wherein the forger had 
 moved, but the Yernons never held up their heads again. 
 The old man sickened and died the third year after Oliver's 
 flight, and people said it was the shameful disgrace his 
 younger son had brought upon his house which had dealt 
 the death-blow. Then William Yernon became more and 
 more profligate and dissipated, and it was found that, 
 although he could not alienate the family property, he had 
 so far mortgaged his life interest therein that but a 
 bare pittance' remained for his support. His mother had 
 some little means, and it was said that bitter quarrels now 
 occurred between the j^arent and child. In the fifth year 
 she, too, was on her death-bed, and there were terrible 
 stories creeping about that Mrs. Yernon died cursing 
 William, and calling on Oliver Yernon to forgive her. A 
 year more and the ruined spendthrift left the country, and 
 Yernon Hall was put in charge of trustees for the benefit 
 of his creditors. He found refuge in America and in 
 the house of his brother, who had, by combined industry 
 and good fortune, laid the foundations for a handsome com- 
 petency. Oliver endeavored to incline his brother to 
 some settled plan for life, offering to assist him to the 
 extent of his ability, but his fatal habits were too deeply 
 seated to admit of steadfast attention to anything. The 
 effects of his early education and surroundings, as shaped 
 by his unfortunate mother, were fatally apparent at last. 
 He went from bad to worse, gambling when he could 
 obtain the means, and rarely going to bed sober. Oliver 
 Yernon purchased, in the tenth year after his leaving Eng-
 
 24 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 land, the beautiful property which had since been his 
 home. It was the year of his marriage, and he feared the 
 consequence of having his dissolute brother living under 
 the roof with the delicate and shrinking girl he had made 
 his wife. However, he could not find it in his heart 
 to turn William from his door, for with all the misery 
 he had caused, Oliver still tenderly loved him. Within 
 a year he lost both wife and brother. The former left 
 the world in giving birth to Grace. William Vernon left 
 the house one stormy day in November, and never returned. 
 Some thought he had returned to England ; some that he 
 had met his death in a drunken brawl. The skipper of a 
 North River sloop had seen two men in a boat with some- 
 thing which looked like a body, paddle out from the little 
 Stone-Quarry pier which was under the Palisades half way 
 between Mr. Vernon's place and Dangerfield's Rest. But 
 the night was pitchy dark, and no dependence could be 
 placed on this. The detectives whom Oliver Vernon 
 employed telegraphed him from New York', in triumph, 
 that they had discovered the remains of his brother; 
 but the corpse they had found proved to be that of a 
 drunken sailor who had fallen overboard in the night from 
 a ship in the harbor. Time wore on, and no traces could 
 be found of the missing man. Oliver himself rather settled 
 into the belief that, while intoxicated, and in the darkness 
 of the night, William had fallen from some point on the 
 crest of the Palisades, which rose, frowning, to a great 
 height, and extended entirely along the eastern boundary 
 of his estate. Thus precipitated into the rapid river the body 
 might have sunk or have been carried far away to the sea. 
 In either case, it need be looked for no more. Five, ten, 
 fifteen years passed away, and the Insurance Companies had 
 finally consented to pay the policies which secured the 
 creditors of William Vernon in case he died before the reve- 
 nues of Vernon Hall should liquidate their claims. The 
 property itself thus fell in due course into the possession 
 of Oliver Vernon, who had re-visited it for the first and 
 only time just before the opening of our narrative.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 25 
 
 "We return from this digression to our friends on the 
 quarter-deck of the Assyria. 
 
 "I fear Mr. Yernon will criticize the postulate," said 
 Stephen Dangerfield gaily, " because one set of people vote 
 who shouldn't, we are to modify the evil by enfranchising 
 another class of ineligibles !" 
 
 "I'll recollect that gallant speech, Mr. Dangerfield — 
 and your evasive one, Mr. Eliot — but papa will see me 
 righted." 
 
 " I doubt Mr. Yernon's supporting you this time," said 
 Eliot, "for — and I have been surprised by it — he appears 
 rather to favor the curtailment than the extension of 
 the suffrage." 
 
 " Politics and the suffrage again !" exclaimed Oliver 
 Yernon, as he fondly embraced Elinor with an affection 
 undistinguishable from that with which he had greeted his 
 daughter. " Why, Mr. Eliot, you will be perfectly satu- 
 rated with democracy and heresy before you see the Nar- 
 rows. You must not let Grace turn you into a Radical ; 
 we want your opinions of us from a normal point of view, 
 unprejudiced and unbiassed." 
 
 The salutations which preceded and accompanied these 
 remarks appeared, to speak truth, rather more interesting 
 and suggestive to both the young men than the obser- 
 vations themselves. Eliot recovered himself, however, and 
 replied with his accustomed gravity : — 
 
 "I was expressing my surprise that you, sir, who are 
 apparently the advocate of what are called progressive 
 opinions, should be, in a measure, opposed to universal 
 suffrage." 
 
 " From which assumption," added Grace, " Mr. Stephen 
 Dangerfield deduces that you must surely oppose its exten- 
 sion to women." 
 
 "I am the sincere advocate of Universal Suffrage,'' said 
 Yernon steadily, "but I would adopt it only after the 
 dissemination of that which can alone render it truly useful 
 to mankind — that is to say, of Universal Education. For 
 the interest of true progress names are nothing, things are 
 
 2
 
 26 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 everything. As things are, to say that Universal Suffrage 
 exists in a country is by no means to imply that the great- 
 est possible happiness exists in that country, but the impli- 
 cation would be inevitable if we knew that education was 
 universal there as well. If it could be demonstrated that 
 children of fifteen possessed the judgment and culture 
 requisite to the intelligent appreciation and use of the 
 suffrage, I would extend it to them. Until it can be 
 demonstrated that hundreds of thousands of ignorant 
 peasantry coming from countries where there are no free 
 schools, possess or acquire such judgment and culture, I 
 would defer intrusting them with the privilege. I would 
 have a Qualification, not of Property but of Knowledge. 
 The extension of the franchise, if it means anything, means 
 the extension of happiness; yet in practice, and in the 
 absence of education, it infiillibly produces the precise 
 opposite. Take an illustration : — The most ignorant class 
 in our Southern States is that of the poor whites — ' trash,' 
 as the negroes call them ; the most ignorant class in the 
 North is the incoming foreign population. These two 
 classes have for years voted together and in one direction, 
 namely, the direction which is most diametrically opposed 
 to the happiness and prosperity of both. They have voted 
 in the interest of the perpetuation and extension of Human 
 Slavery, which by making labor disgraceful keeps the poor 
 white at once indigent and ignorant in the South, and 
 closes the richest territory on the continent to the industry 
 and enterprise of the poor white from the North. And 
 yet, mark the sequel, in connexion with the use they have 
 made of their Universal Suffrage — when, in the Providence 
 of God, the inevitable conflict shall arrive between the two 
 principles of Freedom and Slavery, these are the very men 
 who from the necessities of their position must bear the 
 brunt of the Battle ; — a Battle which, without their aid, 
 Slavery had never been strong enough to fight at all." 
 
 " As to women," continued the speaker after a pause, 
 "there can be no doubt but that there are thousands 
 in America more capable of voting wisely than the mass
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 27 
 
 of foreign immigrants can be. Admitting this, the ques- 
 tion becomes one of policy and expediency. That women 
 may be admitted ultimately to the suffrage is by no means 
 improbable, but at present I question if society is ripe for 
 such an innovation. There are very few women as yet 
 who really desire to exercise the privilege, but supposing 
 there were one in ten who did so desire, the remaining 
 nine would be made unhappy and uncomfortable by the 
 aspiration or ambition of the one." 
 
 " But why so, papa," said Grace Yernon, " could not 
 the voting be made optional as with the men ?" 
 
 " I fear not," replied her father, " at least with our 
 existing social organization. Husbands, fathers, and bro- 
 thers would be apt to think that the votes of wives, 
 daughters, and sisters should be cast as they wished or not 
 cast at all, so that average results might be unchanged." 
 
 '"Tis certain," said Eliot, "that the participation by 
 females in the details of political action, more especially in 
 that of elections, would modify many objectionable features 
 which exist at present. There would be less asperity, less 
 brutality, and certainly less corruption." 
 
 " But," said Dangerfield, " would there not be in the 
 feminine character less delicacy, less modesty, and less 
 refinement?" 
 
 " I don't think so," said Grace Vernon gravely. " The 
 Turks and other Oriental nations consider that many 
 privileges accorded by Western nations to their women 
 should produce such effects, and we know how fallacious 
 is their estimate. In France women serve in shops, and 
 have other paths open to their industry, to which in America 
 they are inadmissible, and it cannot be said the sex 
 deteriorates in consequence." 
 
 " The question of female employment is in its infancy 
 with us as yet," said Mr. Yernon, " but a truce to such 
 grave subjects ; we're , setting Nelly here fast asleep. 
 Why !" turning and looking at the young lady, " why, 
 what ails the child ?" 
 
 Elinor Grazebrook had been seated a few paces from the
 
 28 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 others during this discussion, and on the lee side of the 
 deck. She had not spoken, save now and then a kind 
 word in an undertone to Aunt Mercy close by ; but at this 
 moment an exclamation burst from her lips, and a look of 
 intense interest sprang to the face before so placid. One 
 arm was stretched toward the West, and a taper finger 
 indicated some object far down the horizon which had 
 caught the girl's piercing eyes. 
 
 " As I live," cried Grace Vernon, springing to Elinor's 
 side, and glancing toward the direction in which she 
 pointed, " 'tis a boat — a boat with a broken mast, and 
 lying on her side." 
 
 " A boat !" laughed Stephen Dangerfield, " 'tis a large 
 schooner and water-logged!" 
 
 " The look-out must have been asleep," grumbled Mr. 
 Edwards, bustling aft. " Let her go off a point, Markwell !" 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir." 
 
 " Large schooner — both sticks out of her — on her beam- 
 ends — " continued Mr. Edwards, with his eye to the glass. 
 "Jacobs, call Captain Stanchion !" 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir." 
 
 " Any signs of poor people aboard, Mr. Edwards '/" 
 inquired Vernon anxiously. "No crew, no passengers?" 
 
 " None, sir, that I can make out. Abandoned, I fancy. 
 She may have been in this plight for a month." 
 
 Captain Stanchion now hurried on deck, white trowser'd, 
 collarless, and catching hastily the buttons of his coat. He 
 glanced at the wreck and at the compass. "Let her fall off, 
 let her fall off, Markwell !" 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir." 
 
 " A couple of points will do. We must see if there are 
 any poor souls about. Get ready the Quarter-cutter if you 
 please, Mr. Edwards. So, that'll do, Markwell I Steady 1" 
 
 " Steady, sir." 
 
 Tiie steamship was now fast approaching the wreck, 
 which, on its first discovery nearly five points on the 
 lee-bow, was now nearly ahead. She was a vessel of 
 perhaps a hundred and fifty tons, of the long, fast sailing
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 29 
 
 build, and had evidently been very handsomely fitted up. 
 Her masts were both missing, the main having apparently 
 gone by the board, leaving a stump of perhaps ten feet, 
 the mizen cut away close by the deck. The bulwarks 
 were stove fore and aft, and whatever may have been on 
 deck in the shape of cook's galleys or other houses, had 
 entirely disappeared. The bowsprit remained, and there 
 hung from it fragments of lines, being jib or stay-sail gear, 
 which trailed in the sea. The decks were on a very heavy 
 angle to the surface of the water, seeming to show that the 
 cargo or ballast had shifted when the vessel was knocked 
 on her beam-ends, and that even the lightening caused by 
 the loss of the masts had failed to right her. A lot of sea- 
 weed and drift of various sorts surrounded the ill-fated 
 craft, which had the appearance of having been some time 
 in the course of collection. 
 
 The experienced eye of Captain Stanchion ranged over 
 all these details, and drew the inferences which they sug- 
 gested. " Not a living soul nor a sign of one," he exclaimed. 
 " I fear we shall lose our time for our pains. No need to 
 lower the boat, I fancy." 
 
 "Not for life's sake, certainly," said Mr. Edwards, 
 " there's not a trace of hide or hair visible, and surely 
 no one would go below in a thing like that without leaving 
 as much as a rag flying." 
 
 " No use, no use," said the Captain decidedly, and shut- 
 ting his glass with a bang after another long scrutiny. 
 " Can't lose time." 
 
 " Shall we put the ship on her course again, sir?" 
 
 "Ay, ay. But give them a gun. Make ready a gun 
 there forwa.rd ! We'll give them a last chance if there be 
 any one about." Both orders were executed simultaneously. 
 The bow of the great steamship swung around to the wind, 
 and the flash and heavy boom of the cannon followed in 
 quick succession, just as the movement of the ship had 
 brought the schooner abeam. The smoke drftve down to 
 leeward, hiding the wreck for a time from the gaze of the 
 spectators on the quarter-deck. A dead silence followed,
 
 30 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 while the two girls looked at each other with a glance of 
 sympathetic disappointment. Another instant and a sharp 
 cry again burst from Elinor : — 
 
 " Oh, no, sir ! Captain Stanchion ! look, sir, look !" 
 
 The smoke had risen, curling away in fiintastic eddies, 
 and again discovered the wreck scarcely a third of a mile 
 under their lee. From the after hatchway there appeared, 
 thrust upward with a feeble and tremulous motion, a staff 
 with the fragment of a torn and tattered American ensign. 
 A human hand must bo below it, for it rose higher and 
 hio-her until the whole fraojment blew out into the breeze. 
 Then as if the strength which upheld it were utterly 
 exhausted, the pole and the flag fell prone to the deck. 
 
 Every one on the deck of the Assyria saw and understood 
 this mute appeal. Almost without orders the ship's head 
 fell off from the wind, the men sprang to the davits at the 
 starboard quarter, a few revolutions of the paddles and the 
 boat was lowered into the sea. Impulsively the two young 
 men leaped into it, with the crew, and pulling as if indeed 
 for life, six sturdy oarsmen drove it through the water. 
 Those who remained behind gazed with straining eyes 
 watching the result. Nor had they long to wait, although 
 to Elinor Grazebrook the time seemed incalculable. 
 
 Presently they see a confusion as the men gain and 
 clamber up the sloping decks of the schooner. A few 
 moments more and they are on their return — have returned. 
 The steamship's deck is now alive with curious and expec- 
 tant faces, which crowd to the bulwarks as the living freight 
 of the boat ascends the side. There are ten now instead of 
 eight. Three or four men tumble up over the rail, then 
 Eliot and another supporting a middle-aged negress with 
 face haggard and ghastly with its emaciation and pinched 
 blue lips. Then Oliver Vernon presses forward to the 
 gangway, and Stephen Dangcrfield comes up quickly and 
 places in the old man's outstretched and protecting arms 
 — a little child.
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MR. GOSSAMER Von Donk was a very fair type of 
 the scions of that large and — especially in New York 
 — rapidly increasing class, the nouveaux riches. Personally, 
 he was a thin young man with narrow shoulders, bony 
 extremities, and an imbecile expression about the legs. 
 He had rather agreeable features, whose natural disposition 
 would have suggested good-natured vacuitj'-, but which he 
 habitually forced into a look intended to convey a mixture 
 of misanthropy and ferocity. His eyes were of a maroon 
 color bound in pink cord, and his huge moustache {a la 
 Calmuck Tartar) was of a rich tan, injudiciously dyed to 
 a sooty black. He wore his hair extremely short for the 
 purpose of producing a half-fledged appearance which 
 he supposed to be becoming to his style of head. He had 
 always a profusion of clothes very extravagantly cut, and 
 a vast supply of studs, chains, rings, and such like trinkets. 
 Of these his favorite selection consisted of a set of huge 
 diamonds, worn on the breast and wrists, and which he 
 generally put on before breakfast. When these gorgeous 
 appendages had been added to black clothes, including 
 what he termed " pants" and " vest," Mr. Von Donk formerly 
 conceived his costume to embody the very acme of taste 
 and elegance as exhibited in a gentleman's morning toilet. 
 Since visiting England, however, his views had undergone 
 some modifications, and he was now provided with vast 
 store of loose " rough" clothes of various carpet-like tex- 
 tures, and worn in suits which he carefully changed some 
 five or six times a day. By this means he produced a 
 pleasing and variegated effect, whilst furnishing himself 
 with an agreeable occupation. Thus he would appear at 
 breakfast in very pronounced checks of opposed and uncom- 
 promising colors, which before luncheon would ameliorate 
 a.nd soften into gentle stripes of conciliatory and harmoniz- 
 ing hues. Before dinner, however, these placid lines would 
 fall into violent confusion and merge into thunder and
 
 82 dan(;^erfield's rest; or 
 
 lightning of the loudest and most appalling character, which 
 again having had full sway for a time, the storm would 
 clear, and give place to warm and rainbow tints quite 
 in keeping with the approaching sunset. As a result of 
 this ingenious procedure the impression was first produced 
 on the stranger that there were several Mr, Gossamer Von 
 Donks, or that, being only one, he had some mysterious 
 power of multiplying himself indefinitely ; and it was only 
 on further and closer inspection that the truth became 
 apparent, and that both these distressing hypotheses could 
 be safely dismissed. 
 
 Mr. Von Donk was remarkably well known in Kew 
 York, and had his circle of acquaintance been as choice as 
 it was extensive, there would only have been room for 
 congratulation in such a circumstance. Unhappily this 
 was by no means the fact. Not a tallow-faced blackleg 
 crawled out of his hole of a morning, bub gave a leer 
 of approving recognition as Gossamer's fast trotters swung 
 him through Broadway. Not an equivocal bit of brocade 
 or crinoline sailed through the afternoon's crowd but had a 
 simper and a sideling glance of meaning reminiscence as 
 Gossamer took his ante-dining saunter. The greasy Orien- 
 tal-looking gentry who may be of Wall or of Chatham 
 street, but who haunt alike the lobby of the Opera-house, 
 knew all about our young friend, and some of them had 
 his measure in their breeches' pocket. Most of the small 
 actors who haunt English pot-houses about the back doors 
 of the theatres knew him and admired his critical judg- 
 ment. Not a few gentlemen with broad shoulders, bird's- 
 eye neckerchiefs, and malign expression, who go on mys- 
 terious belligerent excursions into New Jersey and Staten 
 Island, knew him, and said he was a " whole-souled sup- 
 porter of our noble art, by G — d, sir!" Staunch adher- 
 ents also had he among the small scribblers and hangers-on 
 of the press — such as had seen the color of his money, at the 
 epochs of his numerous fleeting passions for skinny come- 
 diennes or galvanic danseiises, Mr. Toadeater Sumph is an 
 immense admirer of his ; he calls the young man " his
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 33 
 
 dearest Gossy," and writes love-songs for him. Toadeater 
 also invites himself to General Von Donk's country house, 
 and subsequently, to the houses, town or country, of 
 everybody he meets there, and ultimately puts all their 
 names down as subscribers to his forthcoming work, " The 
 Adventures of an Idiot." Stickum the Manager, and 
 Libel the Editor of the Sunday Muckrake, are also very 
 fond of Gossamer; they also "have had occasion," they 
 aver, " to appreciate his many high-toned and manly quali- 
 ties." 
 
 Yet with all this extensive and elevating circle of 
 acquaintance — which included, indeed, many more we 
 need not designate, and embraced innumerable gentle- 
 manly expressmen, bar-keepers, billiard-markers, and dog- 
 fanciers — with all his multiplication of fine clothes and 
 jewellery, fast horses and expectancies, Mr. Gossamer Yon 
 Donk was not happy. At Newport, during the last sum- 
 mer, he had permitted himself to be drawn into a net, 
 which, as he now bitterly declared, bade fair to poison all 
 his future hopes. In a word, he had engaged himself to 
 Miss Joanna Heydensucker. This was a procedure par- 
 tially attributable to the adroit engineering of Mrs. General 
 Yon Donk, and partly to that of the Honorable Job Hey- 
 densucker, the father of the lady in question. The Hey- 
 densuckers were of an old and distinguished Knicker- 
 bocker family, whose ancestor, three generations ago, kept a 
 Dutch beer-shop on the Battery. The Honorable Job's 
 father, who was a man of some culture and prodigious 
 cunning, had managed to achieve a high political position, 
 a circumstance very fortunate for his family, and especially 
 so for the Honorable Job, who had traded upon it ever 
 since. The latter was ostensibly of the legal profession, 
 but being a very bad lawyer as well as a singularly 
 indolent one, he failed in attaining distinction at the bar. 
 He therefore devoted much of his attention to political 
 chicanery, wherein he was more successful, and would have 
 been signally so, but for the peculiarly slippery and 
 
 unfaithful quality which was his chief characteristic, and 
 
 2*
 
 34 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 which he imported alike into politics and law. He ratted 
 continually, going always to the side which could recom- 
 pense him by the most immediate profit. In the meantime 
 he had rather expensive habits, and counting the inroads 
 made by a passion for gambling and a habit of heavy drink- 
 ing, the Honorable Job was always in need of repairs both 
 in purse and constitution. It was with a view to the former 
 necessity that he had years before contracted his marriage 
 with a lady of a wealthy and respectable family, which had 
 never been known to make a mistake until it committed 
 'the glaring one of accepting the political and social status 
 of the Honorable Job at his own valuation. The lady 
 became the mother of Miss Joanna aforesaid, whose charms 
 were now superadded to the weight and prestige of the 
 Heydensucker name, in virtue of which the Honorable 
 Job considered her an over match for the Yon Donk 
 strong box. Thus it stood then ; Mrs. General Von Donk 
 wanted social position for Gossamer, the Honorable Job 
 Heydensucker wanted hard dollars for Joanna. The lady 
 thought to gain her point by the suggested alliance, the 
 gentleman was determined to gain his point by it. There 
 remained only one difficulty — the consent of the parties 
 most directly interested, to achieve which it was diploma- 
 tically arranged that Mrs. General should fascinate the 
 young lady, and that the Honorable Job should in like 
 manner charm the young gentleman. Mrs. General's pro- 
 cess was of the directest order, and included the presen- 
 tation of rich laces, handsome shawls, and articles of 
 bijouterie^ with an artistic working in of dashing equipages 
 and opera boxes in perspective. The Honorable Job's 
 tactics were more machiavellian, and included among their 
 material features the singular device of keeping Mr. 
 Gossamer Von Donk in that astute politician's rooms at the 
 
 Hotel until daylight on several occasions, when the 
 
 former gentleman would emerge with a paler face and 
 redder eyes than ever. So it fell out that when a per- 
 suasive melange of threats and cajolery had brought the 
 young people, neither of whom fancied the other, to the
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 35 
 
 engagement point, the Honorable Job clinched the amatory 
 understanding by suggesting privately to the unhappy 
 Gossamer that sundry bits of paper representing an alarm- 
 ing number of thousands and bearing his, Gossamer's, 
 autograph, might serve as a portion for the fascinating 
 Joanna, instead of being submitted to the paternal con- 
 sideration of the irascible and penurious General Von Donk. 
 
 The year which was to elapse before the union thus 
 auspiciously conceived was now nearly at an end. It was 
 arranged in fact to take place during the ensuing Septem- 
 ber. This was the incubus hanging over the spirits of our 
 young friend Von Donk. There were now two insurmounta- 
 ble objections in his mind to carrying out his engagement. 
 One was his growing aversion to the lady, her father, and 
 all the circumstances connected with his acquaintance and 
 entanglement with them ; the other consisted in his having 
 fallen head over ears in love with Miss Grace Vernon, 
 
 Such was the piteous narration which he poured into 
 the sympathizing ear of Mr. Elias P. Staggers, on the 
 morning after the rescue from the wreck. Mr. Staggers, 
 or, as he was more familiarly styled among his acquaint- 
 ance, " Elias P.," was in the Banking and Stock Brokerage 
 business in Wall Street. He was rather stout, very fussy, 
 and, like many of our countrymen who are in trade, very 
 uneasy about his social position. He was rich, or rather 
 his wife was, long experience in his mutable calling having 
 taught him the value of prudence, as exemplified more 
 particularly by keeping the bulk of his property " out of 
 his own hands." Elias P. always wore black clothes made 
 from the most expensive fabrics, dressing, as he repeated 
 with inward complacency, "plain but rich." He had a 
 bald head, no eyebrows, and that indescribably fascinating 
 expression which is obtained by wearing the full beard 
 everywhere else, and shaving to scarification the upper lip. 
 
 He affected to be very fond of art and artists, and set up 
 for both critic and patron, more especially of the Italian 
 Opera ; but in reality his soul was completely bound up in 
 money-getting, and his aesthetical pretensions were stock
 
 S6 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 investments worth just what they would bring in in popu- 
 larity and social consideration. He had transacted business 
 for many years for old General Von Donk, and a degree 
 of intimacy existed between their respective families. 
 Moreover most nights of the present passage of the Assyria 
 had been enlivened by what the participants called " poker 
 parties," in Mr. Staggers's Stateroom, which, with the aid of 
 much punch and champagne, had contributed to the esta- 
 blishment of those confidential, relations which now led Mr. 
 Gossamer Von Donk to seek the worthy broker's advice 
 and sympathy. Independent of the other embarrassments 
 of his situation, the young man was becoming very jealous 
 of the attentions paid Grace Vernon by Eobert Eliot and 
 Stephen Dangerfield, albeit his nicest scrutiny had failed 
 as yet to satisfy him as to which of the two he had most 
 reason to dread. 
 
 "I don't like neither of 'em," said Mr. Staggers consol- 
 ingly. " As for Stephen Dangerfield, he ain't near so well 
 off as he thinks he is, and that / know. He's kinder high 
 and mighty because they live on their own land and hain't 
 been in business : but that sort o' thing don't do, and 
 oughtn't to do in a free country." 
 
 " No, 5iV," said Mr. Von Donk. 
 
 " The other fellow's bad enough," continued Mr. Staggers, 
 " but folks is airy where he comes from, and p'raps he 
 don't know no better. I wonder how much he's wuth." 
 
 Gossamer was ignorant as to Mr. Eliot's estate, but sug- 
 gested that he didn't appear to have many clothes. 
 
 " Oh ! you can't tell nuthin by that," said Staggers 
 authoritatively ; " these Englishmen, if they arc real swells, 
 everybody knows it, and they don't have to keep dressin' 
 and undressin' themselves to show what they are. It's dif- 
 ferent with our folks. We hain't got no standards, so we 
 have to kinder show off more. Now, nobody would know 
 that 7/ou was anything, unless you dressed showy and ex- 
 pensive." 
 
 Poor Gossamer looked rather blankly at his uncom- 
 promising checks, but plucked up courage to question,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM 37 
 
 " What odds does it make whether Eliot is a swell or 
 not ?" 
 
 " Just this. Old Yernon, for all his liberal ideas, has a 
 good deal of the old country feeling 'bout blood and breed- 
 ing and such stuff, and he's been too careful to get his 
 money not to value that pooty high too. Now, if Eliot 
 don't come up to the mark on both points, he won't do, 
 certain." 
 
 " I don't think the old gentleman cares a bit about tin, 
 and. I'm sure Miss Grace doesn't. Then, if it should be 
 Steve Dangerfield " 
 
 "I'll fix that," said the broker, "he'll have no chance at 
 all. There'd be a crash, any how, when the ol^ man 
 goes, and they say he won't last much longer. He's pooty 
 well gone in on the property question, tho' I guess Steve 
 don't know it. I can let Vernon know just enough to 
 answer the purpose. Then we'll get Sprigg to write to 
 their London correspondent, and find out 'bout Eliot. 
 P'rxips he's done somethin' or another and had to leave ; 
 and p'raps, after all, he mayn't have no idea of the girl." 
 
 "But even if all this turns out as I wish, there's Job 
 Hey densucker ' ' 
 
 " Don't you be alarmed 'bout ^zm," chuckled Elias P. 
 " I'll attend to him, /will. If he's got them notes o' yourn, 
 he's just got to make 'em over to me, or I'll know the rea- 
 son why. You and I can settle at some future time. I'm 
 willin' to wait." 
 
 " I'm sure it's very kind of you — very. Ma'll make a 
 fuss, but I guess I can get over her. I don't mind saying 
 to you, Mr. Staggers, you being such an old friend, that 
 I've been very unhappy about all this business. I never 
 cared a bit about any girl before, and if these obstacles are 
 removed, I have nothing to fear." 
 
 " Don't be too sure o' that," replied Staggers, sagely, " a 
 handsome girl with a large fortune is the most uncer- 
 tain thing in the world. Now, there's Cuthbert Boynton 
 — / should keep an eye on Cuthbert Boynton. See he's 
 leanin' over there now, pattin' the little girl's head !"
 
 38 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Gossamer smiled. He had no fears from that quarter. 
 He had a contempt both for the cut and the trimmings of 
 Cuthbert Boynton's clothes, which he could scarcely 
 express in words. The idea of being supplanted by a 
 man in such peg-tops as those was absurd. Besides, Gos- 
 samer fell into an error common to his class. He thought 
 the careless ease which was characteristic of the Southern- 
 ! er's manner was indicative of a want of style. He con- 
 trasted this to Boynton's disadvantage with his own stiff and 
 priggish ways. Altogether he felt quite safe as regards 
 Cuthbert Boynton, and he said as much, rather flippantly, 
 as, with his Mentor, he approached the group before them. 
 
 " Hush !" breathed the Broker, in a reverential whisper; 
 "hush, he's got more'n three hundred niggers." 
 
 Seated on Oliver Vernon's knee, with its little head 
 leaning trustingly against his shoulder, was the child res- 
 cued from the wreck of the schooner the day before — a 
 little girl scarcely five years of age, but who, from the 
 steadfast solemnity of her expression, and a certain pecu- 
 liar intelligence of the eyes, appeared somewhat older. 
 The eyes themselves were exceedingly beautiful, large, 
 dark, and liquid, with sweeping, glossy fringes, and sur- 
 mounted by brows of exquisitely delicate pencilling. The 
 hair fell in dark-brown waves about a face pale from fatigue 
 and anxiety, but the complexion had the soft olive tint 
 which was in harmony with the coloring of the eyes and 
 hair. The child's dress had been such as showed her to 
 belong to people of refinement, but was sadly frayed and 
 stained with sea-water, so that the resources of Grace and 
 Elinor had been taxed to find substitutes for the ruined 
 articles. She had complained of being chilled, and was 
 wrapped at the moment in a large India shawl, whose 
 bright hues threw out in picturesque relief the beauty of 
 her eyes and complexion. Nothing had been taken from 
 the wreck, as all that was movable had been swept away, 
 and the little after cabin was half filled with water. The 
 table, which had nearly occupied its whole length, had evi- 
 dently been wrenched from its fastenings when the vessel
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 39 
 
 ■went on her beam ends, and was jammed against the doors 
 of the small state-rooms on the lee-side. On the opposite, 
 or weather side, the doors had apparently been torn from 
 their hinges, and the rooms contained nothing but the bed 
 gear in the berths. The child knew nothing of the fate of 
 the crew. There had been a dreadful storm, she said, and 
 Gerty held her in her arms. When the tempest subsided, 
 there was no one on board but Gerty and herself The 
 negress had contrived to make a flag-pole of a small spar 
 which had been lashed on deck, and she fastened to this a 
 flag found in ti locker by the transom. She had found 
 some ship's biscuit, and a little water, but both were 
 exhausted when they were rescued. It was quite evident 
 that the negress had denied herself to prolong the life of 
 the child, for the latter was but little emaciated, while 
 her nurse was in the last stage of exhaustion ; indeed, she 
 was now very low, and had been quite delirious ever since 
 she was brought on board. As to their origin and destina- 
 tion the child said but little. It was gathered that they 
 had sailed from a port in Georgia, and were on their way 
 to New York — " to see papa," the child said. She added 
 that her name was "Ally," but seemed embarrassed 
 when questioned as to her surname, and the point was not 
 pressed. 
 
 The advent of the little stranger, as might have been 
 expected, had produced no small commotion on board. 
 Sprigg had already prepared a " sensation " article on the 
 subject, to appear immediately in the New York Crier. 
 Slyraer was deliberating as to the best method of getting 
 his own name published in conspicuous connexion with 
 the romantic incident of the rescue. Mrs. General Von 
 Donk and her daughters were in despair at their own ill 
 luck, or late hours, which had prevented them from esta- 
 blishing a pre-emptive claim on so interesting a protegee. 
 McSwindle was chiefly exercised about the " nagur," whom 
 he set down as a runaway, and as being sent by a special 
 and providential grace to afford him the opportunity of 
 making " political capital," by causing her arrest in New
 
 40 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 York, and subsequent "rendition" to her Southern master. 
 Elinor and Grace were delighted with the happy accident 
 which had brought them so lovely a plaything, while the 
 deeper feelings of womanly instinct, rich in both their 
 hearts, found ample scope in the care and pity they lavish- 
 ed on it. Stephen Dangerfield with his sturdy manliness 
 was charmed in watching the beautiful girls caressing the 
 poor little unprotected waif he had brought them. Eobert 
 Eliot was engrossed in profound consideration over the 
 singular physiognomical resemblance he had discovered to 
 exist between the child and Elinor Grazebrfeok. To Oliver 
 Vernon alone did the new arrival appear to bring a trace 
 of sadness. Overflowing as he was with humanity — a fact 
 which the little one's quick instinct straightway detected 
 and appreciated — ever happiest in conferring happiness on 
 others, and not least so when the recipients were at once 
 innocent and friendless, it might have been supposed that 
 such an incident as this was well adapted to exhibit in 
 lovable relief the most attractive qualities of his nature. 
 And so indeed it was. But the shadow on his brow sprang 
 from naught which had to do with the present. It was 
 the foreboding of evil, or the recollection of misfortune. 
 From the breast of the colored woman had been taken a 
 letter, which was confided to Oliver Vernon ; he had not 
 disturbed the seal, but had merely glanced at the super- 
 scription. The young ladies had shared their state-room 
 with the child the night before, when they made two small 
 discoveries insignificant enough in themselves, but which 
 Grace had communicated to her father — on the corner of a 
 pocket-handkerchief a " H»" in Old English lettering ; and 
 on the child's tiny chemise, in the same characters, worked 
 in crimson silk, the word '"i^labrtma."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 41 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHEN the Assyria was gliding up the Narrows, her 
 passenger's were contemplating the end of their 
 voyage with various and opposite emotions. Elinor and 
 Grace anticipated with delight their return to the happy 
 home they last year quitted ; but discussed with an inter- 
 est, not unmixed with anxiety, the chances of being able 
 to retain the beautiful child as a permanent acquisition. 
 To Elinor, the subject assumed an importance which she 
 could not explain even to herself. Nothing was more 
 natural than that an attachment should spring up, even in 
 so short a time, for a charge so lovely and so interesting : 
 but, with this feehng, there mingled in Elinor's breast a 
 certain sense of personal responsibility, coupled with an 
 oppressive conviction of impending danger. Perhaps the 
 latter emotion was strengthened by her careful study of 
 Oliver Vernon's countenance. The girl was so essentially 
 sympathetic — so largely gifted with mysterious feminine 
 perception — that she speedily learned to know almost the 
 thoughts of those who came in contact with her under ordi- 
 nary circumstances ; but in the case of Mr. Vernon, the 
 knowledge was all but literal ; and, in matters approaching 
 gravity, could hardly be mistaken. She had read in his 
 mild and dignified face as he gazed on the unconscious 
 child, — tempered with the love which was always there, — 
 pity and apprehension : and her quick spirit hastened to 
 share in both sentiments. 
 
 Grace, more volatile, and therefore less penetrating, had 
 other claims on her attention, which, albeit sometimes 
 annoying, supplied her with never failing sources of amuse- 
 ment. Gossamer Von Donk was persistent in his atten- 
 tions, which were growing too pointed to be misunderstood. 
 His jealousy veered from Eliot to Cuthbert Boynton, and 
 from the Southerner to Stephen Dangerfield ; and he strove 
 assiduously to out-dress and out-talk all three. As often 
 happens, he disposed most of his suspicions in the quarter
 
 42 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 where they were least justified ; and, aided by the machina- 
 tions of his ally, the artful Staggers, and the experienced 
 tactics of his mother, Gossamer succeeded in fastening on 
 Eliot much of the society of the Misses Zerlina and Vio- 
 letta ; and, in an evil hour, a pledge to pass some time at 
 the Von Donk cottage, at Newport, during the coming 
 September. Stephen Dangcrfield watched the little comedy 
 with great interest, but with scarcely a suspicion in his 
 honest heart, that the bewitching Grace had commenced 
 to encroach therein. True, he had taken huge delight in 
 frustrating various small schemes of Gossamer's, having 
 for their aim walking the deck with that lady, getting next 
 her at table, and the like ; but this he accounted for on 
 the score of his aversion for the young man, whom, in 
 his double capacity of dandy and parvenu^ Stephen by 
 no means admired. 
 
 Robert Eliot looked forward with zest and curiosity to 
 his coming tour through America. His family came of a 
 long line of Whigs, and his father was now in Parliament. 
 Some of the Eliots had held office, but they were not of 
 the modern stamp of their party, with whom it appears to 
 be accepted that, once they gain place, they are to turn 
 Tories. They were consistent, progressive liberals, who 
 believed in making concessions to the people, just as ra- 
 pidly as, in a wise discretion, the people were intelligent 
 and educated enough to make good use of them : who 
 hated tyranny of all forms and shapes, and did not believe 
 that any Government could be either good or permanent, 
 which included in its policy the oppression of any race, 
 class, or sect : who, had no sympathy with the detestable 
 politicians, who, in their horror of the example of success- 
 ful freedom, are ever anxious to ignore or to crush all the 
 happiness successful freedom surely brings where it exists. 
 Imbued with these and kindred opinions, Robert Eliot was 
 well qualified to survey with no unfriendly prejudice the 
 institutions of a country, nominally, at least, freer than 
 his own. Firmly convinced that her present form of Gov- 
 ernment was, under existing circumstances, the best possi-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 43 
 
 ble for England and Englishmen, he did not assume as a 
 necessary corollary, that a Republican was the worst form 
 possible for America and Americans. He was disposed 
 to accept the establishment of Republican Freedom in the 
 New World as a providential dispensation for the good of 
 the Old ; not necessarily for that literal imitation whose 
 expediency there are so many reasons for questioning, 
 but for the promotion of that gradual modification in 
 the privileges, education, and spiritual growth of the peoples 
 which such an example induces; to acquiesce in which 
 is to advance in light and happiness — to repel which is to 
 retrograde to the darkness and misery of feudalism. 
 
 With his tastes and education, it seemed somewhat 
 anomalous that Robert Eliot should fancy a Slaveholder — 
 and yet true it was, that, with the exceptions of Vernon 
 and Dangerfield, in each of whom he found much to esteem 
 — the man he liked best of all he saw on board the Assyria^ 
 was the Southern planter, Cuthbert Boynton. This arose 
 from a social and not from a moral sympathy. Eliot was 
 the son of an English country gentleman. He had been 
 accustomed to live among people whose position was 
 assured, and who were not therefore impelled, as were 
 too many of the Northerners around him, to be con- 
 tinually and in a hundred ludicrous ways, vindicating and 
 asserting themselves. Secretly, he thought Mrs. General 
 Von Donk very like an overdressed cook, and Mr. Gos- 
 samer Von Donk uncommonly like a linen-draper's shop- 
 *man. Most of the professional men and students were 
 terribly priggish, and Mr. McSwindle, who filled such a 
 high civic position, was simply a drunken navvy. Sprigg 
 and Slymer were vulgar enough, and the copies of the 
 New York Crier and New York Yahoo he had seen would 
 not stand editorial comparison with a third rate country 
 newspaper, except in slang and self-eulogy in which they 
 were unrivalled. Moreover, most of the men were objec- 
 tionable in a physiognomical point of view. They had 
 hard, cruel mouths, eager, cunning eyes, and cut their 
 beards after methods fearful to behold. They called each
 
 44 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 other " Sir" at every third word, and that with a highly 
 objectionable emphasis. They talked over-much through 
 the nose. They called their trousers, "pants," and many 
 of them chewed tobacco. 
 
 Such were some of the distasteful attributes which 
 might have shocked a less fastidious observer than Eliot, 
 but of which "none happened to be illustrated in Cuthbert 
 Boynton. The latter had most of the attractive, and few 
 of the repulsive qualities which are incident to the social 
 conditions among.which he was born. He had been much 
 abroad, having spent some years at German Universities. 
 lie had also mixed with polite circles in several European 
 capitals. His father had been a man of letters, and was 
 one of singular gentleness and humanity. Although Cuth- 
 bert had passed much of his life where he was born — on a 
 cotton plantation worked by between two and three hun- 
 dred slaves — it will be readily perceived that circumstances 
 had tended to modify the peculiar moral development 
 which it is usual to suppose is fostered by living among 
 black chattels. He had polish, reading, and unqualified 
 ease and grace of manners. He was gentle as a woman, 
 and brave as a lion. He had withal the air of independence 
 and assured position which men acquire who live — directly 
 or indirectly — from the profits of agriculture, and not from 
 those of trade. Here was the chief point of sympathy 
 for Robert Eliot, and one which led the two young men, 
 difi'ering materially in many respects, to fraternize not a 
 little in this. So it fell out that the Englishman had 
 accepted the other's hearty invitation to visit him at mid- 
 winter on his plantation in Northern Alabama. 
 
 Oliver Vernon saw and understood the current of Eliot's 
 reflections, as men do who recal a precisely identical 
 experience. 
 
 " Society at the North," he said, " is in an imperfect, 
 transitional, but growing state; that at the South is as 
 complete and perfect, as, with the institution of Slavery, it 
 can ever be. The South has organization, such as it is, 
 the North has none. The highest ideal society must sub-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 45 
 
 sist in an agricultural, and not in a trading community. 
 Whether Slavery be right or wrong, the section wherein 
 it exists has had an advantage in this respect," 
 
 " This then," mused Eliot, " is at least one argument in 
 favor of the system." 
 
 "By no means," replied Yernon, "the system is purely 
 adventitious and irrelevant ; high breeding and elaborate 
 culture are no more produced by Slavery than the rich soil 
 of the Mississippi valley is produced by Democracy. Each 
 would still exist in the total absence of the other. The 
 staples of the South are cultivated in large plantations ; 
 were they tilled by free laborers their owners would still 
 have the same wealth and the same leisure, which induce 
 mental culture and social amelioration, as they have at 
 present." 
 
 " But surely," said Eliot, " the North is also an agricul- 
 tural country." 
 
 " Not in so exclusive a degree," answered Yernon, " and 
 the subdivisions are vastly more numerous. The commer- 
 cial interest is, relatively, far more potential than in the 
 South. But there are other causes more depressing to our 
 social standards. The most striking is the dogma of uni- 
 versal social equality as received by a huge, ignorant, for- 
 eign immigration. Suffrage is generously extended to all 
 these people, and they wield it with remorseless activity. 
 By sheer stress of numbers, they force into places of power 
 and trust those of their own kidney, until ofiice is degraded 
 to a point where education and respectability refuse to 
 descend to it. Look at McSwindle and judge. There are 
 thousands like him, who, notwithstanding the debasing 
 tendency of the policy which elects them, still demand and 
 receive a certain recognition which every year is plunging 
 lower and lower the standards of qualification for office." 
 
 " I can understand that," remarked Eliot, "but I cannot 
 understand that, in a country containing so much intelli- 
 gence as yours, such an evil should not be perceived and 
 remedied." 
 
 " It is being perceived more and more every day," said
 
 46 dangergield's rest ; or 
 
 Yernon, " but there are various reasons which militate 
 against the application of a remedy. For example, so long 
 as the foreign vote is thrown for the most part in the inte- 
 rest of Slavery, any legislative restriction would be diffi- 
 cult, if not impossible. Many, again, who are entirely con- 
 vinced that universal suffrage is premature, hesitate to say 
 so for popularity's sake. Others, dissatisfied with results, 
 are yet convinced that their favorite theory of ' the great- 
 est happiness of the greatest number ' is inseparable from 
 universal suffrage. They see not the other side of the 
 shield, and fail to apprehend the possibility that the great- 
 est misery of the greatest number may ultimately inure 
 from endowing them with privileges they know not how 
 to use." 
 
 " And how is the question to be decided ; if the disease 
 cannot be restrained, will it not destroy the patient ?" 
 
 "I fear it must run its length," answered Vernon, "and 
 then it will become a question of kill or cure. There have 
 been for many years the increasing signs of stupendous 
 political convulsion. The unnatural alliance between negro 
 slavery and the miscalled democracy of the North, rotten 
 to the core, will soon fall to pieces from its own corruption. 
 Then will ensue a terrible storm, which will annihilate 
 those who raise it, but what it may leave behind no one 
 can with confidence predict." 
 
 " The usual historical legacy, perchance," suggested 
 Eliot — " military despotism." 
 
 " God forbid," replied the old man solemnly ; " I have 
 great hopes in the intelligence of the Americans them- 
 selves. Common schools are stronger than the sword, and 
 they have wrought more in the United States than in any 
 nation whose records have come down to us. Military 
 despotism seeks success in the ignorance, not the education 
 of the masses. Its ingredients may exist among the poor 
 whites of the slave country — scarcely in New England or 
 on the banks of the Ohio." 
 
 On the quarter-deck sat Elinor Grazebrook and Cuthbert.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 47 
 
 Boynton, talking of the beautiful panorama now swiftly 
 passing before them, and thinking of many other things 
 beside. Little Ally stood between them, and the young 
 man's hand was playing with her glossy curls. Grace and 
 Stephen, near by, were chatting unmolested, for Gossamer, 
 with little eye for the picturesque and romantic, was set- 
 tling accounts with the steward, and arraying himself in an 
 entirely new assortment of gorgeous habiliments, wherein 
 to astonish the officials of the Custom House. 
 
 The long spit of Sandy Hook, with its spreading pro- 
 jections of curtain and bastion, soon to grow up into 
 frowning battlements ; the lovely blue hills of Navesink, 
 at once the ornament and the guide of the noble bay which 
 reflects them ; the brimming Shrewsbury, jutting myste- 
 riously away into the Jersey shore ; the labyrinth of islets 
 and inlets clustering so inextricably about Fire Island and 
 Jamaica ; nay, even the classic precincts of Coney Island 
 had been scanned and admired, and the spectators were 
 now fixing their eyes upon the charming spot which 
 incoming English folk so generally style " the Isle of 
 Wight of America." 
 
 " People who live there," remarked Elinor, " are very 
 proud of Staten Island. The views from it are singularly 
 fine in all directions, and the interior itself is beautiful. 
 There is, too, a refinement and taste in the residences and 
 grounds — an air of solidity and completion not common as 
 yet to rural places in America." 
 
 " To my mind those houses are too close together," said 
 Cuthbert, pointing to the mansions which crowned the 
 heights opposite, " certainly too near for the advantage of 
 either. A degree of isolation is quite essential to the dig- 
 nity of a dwelling." 
 
 " A dignity not easy to achieve," answered the young 
 lady, "in the environs of a crowded city. But your evil, 
 if it is one, will, I fear, be increased. Every one says 
 New York is growing so fast that every bit of land skirt- 
 ing the waters which surround her must soon be densely 
 populated."
 
 48 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 '"Tis a pity," said the Southerner; "nothing spoils the 
 beauty of suburbs so effectually as this rapid growth of 
 population arising from immigration. See ! even these 
 prett}"^ villages on the shore have signs of the squalor and 
 dirt which once we thought the peculiar characteristics of 
 the Old- World towns, and not to be thought of in free and 
 happy America." 
 
 " Surely you should not complain on that score," argued 
 Elinor, "for Uncle Noll says the chief incentive for keep- 
 ing this class of population in the great cities, — that is, for 
 encouraging it to remain in them, — is that its votes may 
 always be massed in the interest of the South, and over- 
 come the balance against her, which accumulates in our 
 agricultural districts." 
 
 The young man smiled. 
 
 " We are not," he replied, " to say sooth, over proud of 
 our allies, but they serve as useful a purpose as if they 
 were far more ornamental. We don't need their labor, and 
 we do need their votes. They're good enough to give the 
 North the former, and the South the latter. Each section 
 gets what it stands most in need of, and it seems to me a 
 very fair sort of arrangement." 
 
 " But," exclaimed Elinor, " is it either quite just or, in 
 the long run, politic, to avail of suffrages given through 
 ignorance? Can a true Eepublic long exist based upon 
 such a principle ?" 
 
 " We think," answered Cuthbert, " that if the votes fall 
 on the right side it makes little difference whether or 
 no they are cast in the dark. The Republic is only pos- 
 sible pending the equipoise created by the South obtaining 
 the foreign vote. When immigration materially slackens, 
 or the abolition faction materially strengthens, so as to 
 overbalance her, she will abandon the Union. Southern 
 men will never consent to be governed by the lawyers and 
 traders of the North." 
 
 " Have they then no affection for the Union — no love 
 of country?" 
 
 "They regard the Union as having been simply a
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 49 
 
 bond of mutual interest and convenience, to be dissolved 
 whenever those sentiments have lost their original cementing 
 force. Their patriotism expresses itself for the most part in 
 attachment to their individual States^ not to any Union of 
 them. The former they regard as concrete and permanent 
 realities — the latter as an abstract and temporary expedient." 
 
 "Ah, but we of the North have no such idea. I was 
 taught, even as a schoolgirl, that, from the Lakes to the 
 Gulf, all was equally my country ; that the Mississippi was the 
 same to us as the Hudson ; that Maine and Alabama were 
 alike the same ; that Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, 
 each and all, whether, the United States acquired them by 
 purchase, by warfare, or by cession, became part and parcel 
 of our country just as if they had been among the original 
 thirteen colonies. I was taught that the blood and treasure 
 of the succeeding generations had been added to those 
 of the first, for the purpose of creating one great, whole, 
 and glorious country for the future, and homogeneous like 
 France or England, only far more extensive and powerful. 
 I believed that such a purpose was implied by our Constitu- 
 tion, expounded by our Statesmen, accepted and ratified by 
 our whole people ; and that whatever changes or modifica- 
 tions might occur, induced by new exigencies, denser popu- 
 lations, higher progress, we were still to remain, now and 
 for ever, one nation." 
 
 "Truly, a grand Ideal," said Cuthbert, rather sadly, 
 " but suppose, my dear Miss Grazebrook, that such a per- 
 petuation is greatly to the interest of one principal section 
 and greatly to the detriment of the other ?" 
 
 "The discrepancies could be reconciled," said Elinor; 
 "surely, in enlightened days like ours, such differences 
 could be amicably settled. If men in power are really 
 and truly anxious to do right, that is ; but if some of them 
 are determined to perpetuate and spread a monstrous wrong, 
 and are bent on believing, or assuming to believe, that 
 their moral and intellectual, as well as material prosperity 
 depends on such a policy, why then, I suppose that — that — " 
 
 She hesitated with a scrupulous delicacy to complete the 
 
 3
 
 50 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 sentence, conscious of having become a shade more earnest 
 than was usual with her, and averse, with her high-minded 
 instinct, to inflict even a trace of pain where it was impos- 
 sible that it should be resented. Cuthbert saw her embar- 
 rassment, and instantly sought to relieve it. 
 
 " Pray conclude. Miss Grazebrook," said he, with perfect 
 good-nature, " pray conclude. If I can't agree with the 
 Oracle, its Priestess assures it a respectful attention. In the 
 event of an ultimate clashing of interests, you suppose — " 
 
 "I suppose and believe," said Elinor steadily, "that, 
 in such a case, the side where Eight is, will assuredly 
 triumph," 
 
 " I shan't quarrel with that prophecy," cried the young 
 man, laughing ; " if our people were confident of its fulfil 
 ment, they would be perfectly content." 
 
 Elinor saw his meaning, but she did not resume the sub- 
 ject, and Cuthbert Boynton himself lapsed into silence. 
 For, indeed, he had commenced to feel an interest in the 
 pale and thoughtful girl before him, which the indolent 
 beauties of his native South had hitherto failed to excite. 
 In a worldly sense he was well aware that he was an 
 excellent parti for greater wealth and more unquestioned 
 social position than Elinor Grazebrook could lay claim to ; 
 but he had quite enough penetration to perceive that such 
 considerations would have as little weight with the lady 
 herself as with Oliver Vernon, who stood to her in the 
 relation of a parent. The strength of her convictions on a 
 particular subject had been evident in various conversa- 
 tions like the foregoing, but he did not apprehend therein 
 an ob^acle of a formidable character to the hopes he had 
 begun to cherish. A woman who felt and spoke as she 
 did was certainly unfit to become the mistress of a South- 
 ern plantation. On the other hand, he knew of many 
 highly cultivated young women of the North, who had 
 quitted atmospheres as full of prejudice and misconception 
 as Elinor's, to see their error, and become warmly attached 
 to the " institution," when surrounded by its genial and 
 enlarging influences. Possibly she might be induced to
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 51 
 
 add to their number. Altogether, he was in a state of no 
 little doubt and anxiety. 
 
 Mrs, Von Donk, in her detective capacity of managing 
 mamma, watched Cuthbert's manner to Miss Grazebrook 
 with disgust and indignation. It was her unfailing habit 
 and accomplishment instantly to catch the scent whenever 
 there was anything matrimonial in the wind. Men who 
 might otherwise have remained quite unmolested, she 
 straightway pursued and worried if she saw, or fancied she 
 saw, a trace of such a purpose in their bearing towards any 
 of the opposite sex. " A pretty pass indeed," she flustered 
 into the ear of Staggers, "for a minx like Nelly Graze- 
 brook, whose father drank himself to death, and whose 
 mother was — well, no better than she should be — to be set- 
 ting her cap at young Boynton, whose people had been in 
 Congress, and a family almost as good as the Von Donks 
 themselves. Nelly Grazebrook, indeed !" 
 
 " How much d'ye spose she's wuth ?" asked Staggers, 
 reflectively. 
 
 Mrs. Von Donk didn't know. A paltry ten thousand or 
 so, she had heard. She had warned Gossamer not to be too 
 intimate with her. Grace Vernon, of course, was a differ- 
 ent thing. She would have all old Noll's money, and 
 they were very nice people — just the thing for Gossy. 
 Cuthbert Boynton wasn't going south until winter, and Mr. 
 Staggers must manage to bring him to the house in Fifth 
 Avenue, and, if possible, to Newport. Then there was 
 that Steve Dangerfield, — there was something queer about 
 him. See how he was playing with Grace Vernon's hand- 
 kerchief — Grace Vernon, whom she regarded as almost her 
 daughter-in-law already ! Mrs. Von Donk was glad for 
 one that the passage was so nearly over. 
 
 Stephen Dangerfield was, in truth, as Mr. Staggers con- 
 ceded, "going it rather strong" with pretty Grace. Pie 
 had that on his mind which made him nervously solicitous 
 to reach his home ; but he had most- certainly begun to 
 find consolation, as the passage drew towards its close, in 
 the reflection that she would be very near indeed to that
 
 52 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 home ; so near, in fact, that his black mare, Vixen, would 
 take him from The Rest to Uplands in thirty minutes. 
 This was a consideration happily unknown to Mrs. Von 
 Donk, but of which Grace herself was very clearly advised. 
 Oliver Vernon yearned to be once more at his quiet man 
 sion. He had numerous poor friends and pensioners in the 
 country round, and, although he had left in his old servant, 
 David Greenwood, a faithful steward, he had a good man's 
 earnest wish to see for himself that the happiness and com- 
 fort he was wont to spread about him had met neither 
 check nor hindrance, or, if they had, to set about the 
 remedy. There was, too, another suspense hanging about 
 his heart — a doubt which, even if it brought pain, he 
 sought to have resolved. But we will not anticipate. 
 
 In another hour the doubts and fears of the busy little 
 world of the Assyria were at an end, so far as their life in 
 her was concerned ; for the stately vessel lay safely by her 
 wharf at Jersey City, and her passengers were scattered far 
 and wide in the seething vortex of the great neighboring 
 capital. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IT w£ls a dark afternoon in early September, and the air 
 was dull and heavy, as if waiting in sullen expectation 
 for the rain, which had been threatening for some hours, 
 but had not yet commenced to fall. Masses of lowering 
 cloud obscured the sky, and ever and anon a fitful gleam 
 from the sinking sun straggled through chance rifts in 
 the dusky canopy, and served to increase the gloom it 
 interrupted. Such a transient ray was just gilding the 
 chimneys and roof-points of an irregular and picturesque 
 building which crowned the summit of one of the most 
 romantic portions of those lofty cliffs which the early 
 explorers of the Hudson called The Pahsades. The noble
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 53 
 
 river flowed far below, making a course almost due south, 
 until it mingled in plain view with the waters of that 
 majestic bay which is the glory and the strength of the 
 great city of the West. The mansion was old and weather- 
 worn, part of it having been built not long after the hopes 
 of the Stuarts, elated by the fall of Mons and of Namur, 
 had been so cruelly crushed by the disaster of La Hogue. 
 The Dangerfield family had been among those which 
 adhered to the standard of the exiled house, and had been 
 rewarded for its long-suffering constancy on the restoration 
 of Charles, by a considerable grant of land in the distant 
 colony named after his unfortunate brother. Their sub- 
 sequent attachment to the cause of the latter exposed them 
 to suspicion and inconvenience, and, although no actual 
 step had been taken to his prejudice, the ancestor of the 
 present family found it prudent to put the ocean between 
 the ministers of William and Mary and himself, soon 
 after the fall of Limerick. After a few years of doubt and 
 wandering, he had settled on the banks of the Hudson, 
 and built a dwelling on the lovely spot which was to prove 
 the future homestead of his race. His life had been one 
 of trouble and excitement, and he soon grew to cling with 
 a warm attachment to the tranquil shades and beautiful 
 scenery which surrounded his new abode. He improved, 
 set out trees, reared cattle, and passed his days in a peace- 
 ful calm which strongly contrasted with the struggle and 
 turmoil of his early life. Thus it was that he called his 
 home " The Eest," and instilled into his growing children 
 that affection for it which he had learned to cherish, and 
 which they in turn transmitted to those who came after. In 
 this manner it happened that the estate had remained to the 
 old name for many generations, and had escaped by a rare 
 fortune much of the subdivision and mutilation which are so 
 common in the absence of a law of entail. As time rolled 
 on, people got to think the family tenure as firmly esta- 
 blished as the giant cliffs themselves ; and that the latter 
 were quite as likely to be overturned as that one not of the 
 name should ever hold or occupy " Dangerfield's Rest."
 
 54 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 And, indeed, the family attachment was justified, for 
 there are few situations as lovely even in a region where 
 nature has been so bountiful. The view which stretches 
 on one side to the Atlantic, extends on the other to the 
 stately Catskills. Intermediate, and on either hand, courses 
 the broad stream, the beauty of whose banks has been 
 so greatly extolled, and which can hardly be exaggerated. 
 Villages and spires innumerable impart life and variety to 
 the landscape, and the vast city in the distance, with its 
 suggestion of ceaseless activity, gives zest to the enjoyment 
 of the seclusion from which it is surveyed. Countless 
 vessels glide in every direction, from the tiny sloop with 
 its soaring spread of canvas, to the gigantic steamer which 
 seems yearly to be growing in size. Far away over Man- 
 hattan, the winding East Eiver, connecting New York 
 Harbor vvith the opening Sound, adds to the panorama 
 and enhances its living interest. Looking westward, the 
 spectacle, if less diversified, has its own peculiar attractions. 
 There can be seen pictures of rural beauty in sunny fields 
 and deep-green woods, reaching in placid alternation clear 
 beyond Hackensack until they melt into the hazy horizon. 
 
 We have said that the mansion was old and rambling, 
 but it was substantial enough, notwithstanding. The origi- 
 nal building had been of rough stone, and was built in the 
 form of a parallelogram, with a low tower at one end. 
 Three generations back, a wing had been added at the end 
 opposite the tower, and which, as the main edifice faced 
 toward the South, ran parallel with the river, and looked 
 out upon it. The father of the present occupant had con- 
 structed a similar wing at the tower end, which, for some 
 reason of his own, he had built of brick. There was, how- 
 ever, much shade in that immediate vicinity, caused not 
 only by deciduous trees of artificial growth, but by some 
 noble evergreejis which were indigenous : and, thus protect- 
 ed, masses of English ivy had been in course of time in- 
 duced to spread over a great portion of the exterior faQade, 
 and were even commencing to encroach upon the tower. 
 The central part of the pile was two stories in height, but
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. ' 55 
 
 the stone wing had been built rather higher, and the brick 
 one slightly lower than the original structure. The whole 
 presented an incongruous but picturesque appearance, 
 which was increased by the odd jumble of styles, there 
 beiDg features which might have been claimed by the 
 Elizabethan and Tudor architects respectively. Thus, the 
 old building had deeply embayed windows at either end, 
 and long galleries reaching through its length, — but the 
 walls were surmounted by low battlements, as was also the 
 tower, and the principal entrances were formed by flattened 
 arches. A piazza which ran around the outer sides, thus 
 forming three sides of a quadrangle, heightened the com- 
 posite character of the mansion, and augmented the ano- 
 malous features which shocked the disciples of harmonious 
 and exacting taste. 
 
 The house stood in a comparatively open space of, per- 
 haps, four acres, at one extremity of which were the stables. 
 The cliff formed one boundary of this space, its crest being 
 about two hundred yards from, and much lower than, the 
 foundations of the building. A strong fence constituted a 
 protection from the dangers of the precipice, being placed 
 at some distance from the extreme brink, and backed by a 
 dense hedge of buckthorn. The remaining boundaries of 
 the lawn consisted of groves of oak and hickory mingled 
 with many fine specimens of the natural evergreen common 
 to the high land of the region. A carriage road ran in 
 easy curves from the stables to the main entrance, and 
 thence passed through the grove to the southward, striking 
 the highway at a distance of a third of a mile. Around 
 the house were many flower-beds of tasteful form and 
 arrangement, separated by winding paths, and protected 
 by well trimmed box, but most of the space between the 
 building and the cliff consisted of smooth rolled lawn 
 which sloped downwards to the fence. 
 
 In the stone wing facing the east was the library, the 
 windows of which opened on the piazza, from which again, 
 at a point close by, a low flight of steps descended to the 
 garden. The library had been a favorite apartment with
 
 66 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 the Dangerfields ever since its construction. It was a large 
 and old-fashioned, but handsome apartment, with bay win- 
 dows, and finished within of sturdy unpolished oak. The 
 book-cases, chairs, and tables were all of this material, and 
 as most of the many volumes on the shelves wore antique 
 and sombre bindings, the room might have looked gloomy 
 but for the relief of the green morocco covering the seats 
 and writing desks. There was a trace of warmth too 
 in the lengthy draperies which fell from the embrasures 
 of the windows and looped up at the sides. The windows 
 were so deeply embayed, that there was ample room at the 
 sides for sofas, without impeding passage to the sashes 
 which opened on the piazza. 
 
 In this room, Martin Dangerfield had passed most of his 
 waking hours for the past fifteen years. He had been 
 rather wild in earlier life, — had gambled and drank hard, 
 and his name had been associated with many questionable 
 freaks and adventures, — yet these dissipations had never 
 partaken of a character which the conventional world calls 
 dishonorable. He had always paid his debts, although 
 they had been of the heaviest, and had often subscribed 
 liberally to charities. He had always kept a pew in the 
 village chuch, and occasionally occupied it. If he was 
 supposed to have lost heavily at the gaming table, he was 
 known to have ample resources, and none could say he 
 was niggardly in drawing on them. He was rigid on the 
 point of honor, and regarded his family name and estate as 
 trusts to be upheld and retained as spotless and unimpaired 
 for his descendants as he had received them from his ances- 
 tors. Up to the age of forty-five he had been what is 
 called a free liver in the largest sense of the term ; but at 
 that time he had suddenly changed his mode of life, and 
 it was common to say that Mr. Dangerfield had " reform- 
 ed." Whatever he did in secret, no one of course could 
 tell : but certain it was, there were no more card parties, no 
 more drinking bouts, no more riotous company at The Rest. 
 
 It was generally credited that the change was brought 
 about by the conduct of his only son, Stephen. The latter,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 57 
 
 a volatile, passionate, and very handsome lad, had certainly 
 been treated capriciously and sometimes unjustly by his 
 father. His mother, unhappily for him, had died when 
 Stephen was not yet ten years of age, and Martin Danger- 
 field was choleric, domineering, and often very tipsy. Such 
 a father, however well meaning or affectionate, will seldom 
 fail to damp the happiness and warp the character of a sen- 
 sitive and high-spirited child, and the present case was no 
 exception. Some bitter words and an exhibition of bruta- 
 lity one night, were followed the next morning by the dis- 
 appearance of young Stephen, when he was just turned 
 of fifteen. In the heat of his resentment, the boy made 
 bis way to New York, and being large and strong for his 
 age, he had no difiiculty in shipping for a voyage to China. 
 The vessel sailed before the father had succeeded in tracing 
 the runaway, who, however, left a letter explaining what 
 he had done. When Stephen returned, he found his father 
 a changed man. Their meeting was affectionate, and their 
 relations had been no less so ever since. From a royster- 
 ing, arrogant profligate, Martin Dangerfield had become a 
 quiet, timid recluse. The son never knew him to raise his 
 voice in anger since the night before he absconded from the 
 parental roof. He deferred to the young man in a fashion 
 that was almost womanish, and seemed bent on making 
 him forget former asperities in the excess of his present 
 gentleness. 
 
 Martin Dangerfield was now about sixty years of age, 
 but he looked much older. His frame was bowed, his hair 
 was white, and there were deep furrows on his brow. 
 Naturally of a powerful constitution, he had been some- 
 what shaken by habits which had extended too far on in 
 life for the effect to be altogether eradicated by subsequent 
 abstinence. His face wore an habitual expression which 
 was not really natural to it — for it indicated both depreca- 
 tion and timidity. It was singular to see almost the self- 
 same features — making allowance for difference of years— - 
 expressing frank confidence and unshrinking courage in 
 the countenance of the son. 
 
 3*
 
 58 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Stephen had spent much of his time from home, for in 
 sooth there was little of society or amusement there, and 
 he was fond of both. He had read law, but seemed disin- 
 clined to settle down to practice. The love of travel and 
 adventure was still strong upon him, and as his father was 
 sufficiently liberal in money matters, and his future was 
 assured, he felt justified in following his inclinations. Yet, 
 although there had never been a difference between the 
 two as to money, and although Martin Dangerfield was not 
 chary of his confidence in other things, the old man had 
 never admitted his son into the secrets of his affairs, or 
 acquainted him with the extent of his resources. Stephen 
 knew of course that there were certain farms and dwellings 
 and stores, which brought in fixed rentals. But he knew 
 nothing definite of the aggregate, or as to whether there 
 existed incumbrances. It was only within a few weeks' 
 time from that of the opening of this history that he veri- 
 fied a suspicion that his father had for years been in the 
 habit of making large disbursements for unknown pur- 
 poses, but which had no reference to the keeping up of his 
 establishment, and which brought no apparent return. 
 
 Martin Dangerfield was sitting in his library, and — an 
 unusual thing for him in these days — he was receiving a 
 visitor. This personage, a tall, dark, handsome man, might 
 have been forty-five years of age. lie wore the dress of a 
 gentleman, but there was a certain insolence in his man- 
 ner, and a restless expression in his sarcastic and striking 
 countenance, that a physiognomist would have regarded 
 ■with suspicion. He had risen, too, during a conversation 
 which had grown somewhat heated, and was leaning over 
 the back of a chair with extended hand, and one foot 
 planted on the seat itself 
 
 " You must cull off' your dog, Martin Dangerfield," said 
 the man coarsely. " I'm not so good-natured as I used to 
 be, and I might do him a mischief. He's safe enough now 
 — thanks to his own blundering folly — but he'll soon be 
 back again, and on the scent. It's your business to tie him 
 up — I'm going to stay here now — here, do you understand?
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 59 
 
 and I haven't been through what I have to be badgered 
 and hunted by a whelp like that." 
 
 A crimson spot burned in the old man's withered cheek 
 as he retorted : 
 
 " What he did, he did of his own accord. In God's 
 name, why should / wish him to be mixed up in the busi- 
 ness ! He found, without my connivance, that some one was 
 injuring me — making my life miserable — impairing the for- 
 tune which is his as well as mine. He begged for explana- 
 tions — I refused them. Then he thought — you can say 
 how justly — that a designing adventurer was practising on 
 the fears or credulity of a weak old man. Son-like he 
 tried to probe the mystery to apply a remedy." 
 
 " He'll find it sorry work if he probes any further. I 
 don't want to be annoyed, and I don't mean to be. I came 
 back to be comfortable and easy — in a word, to enjoy my- 
 self — and you must see to it that, at all events, none of 
 your breed crosses my path." 
 
 " But why come back at all, — surely the world is wide 
 enough for both of us. I did my best to assure your 
 future ; you promised to remain." 
 
 " Ah!" said the other, with a malignant smile, "that was 
 some years ago. I had very good reasons for not staying 
 here, and very good reasons to go out there. Noio I have 
 very good reasons to come back here, and very good rea- 
 sons not to stay out there." 
 
 " I thought you had made a great deal of money, and 
 that — that the society there was to your taste." 
 
 " Oh ! there was gold enough — that is, at first — but it 
 was with me as with most — making isn't keeping. A man 
 who banks a game has to take the chances; and when 
 there is no limit and heavy betting, the bank sometimes 
 breaks." 
 
 " They told me you were settled at Sonora ; that you 
 had a ranche there, and a Spanish wife. I never dreamed 
 of your coming here again," complained Martin Danger- 
 field. 
 
 " You underrated my personal attachment for yourself.
 
 60 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 I always meant to come back, and spend the evening of 
 my days with yoii," returned his guest more cheerfully, as 
 he marked the tone of weary distress with which the old 
 man spoke. " I got sick of San Francisco — too many of 
 the same trade. Sonora was capital for a time. We 
 might have brought away a couple of hundred thousand. 
 But my partner, Grayson, was imprudent — irregular, you 
 know. One night there was a stupid mistake — something 
 heavy on case-cards ; he was dealing, and undermarked 
 the people betting; thought they were mere roughs just in 
 from the diggings ; so there was a card or two slipped. 
 The heaviest loser saw the little game, and happened to be 
 plucky and resolute. He laid hold of a box full of gold 
 coin and checks, and swore he'd have back his money. 
 There was a scuffle and a rush, and the touters and pick- 
 ers-up-of-sleepers jumped in, and bang! went half-a-dozen 
 shots. Jack Grayson shot two of the men, and got all his 
 money back, but it cost him dear. People were getting 
 disagreeable about such things. The friends of the chaps 
 who were shot went about the neighborhood, and kicked 
 up a tremendous row. At about three o'clock they went 
 and pulled poor Jack out of bed at the Chrysolite Hotel, 
 and the first thing I saw in the morning, as I rode in from 
 my ranche, was him hanging from a flume which crosses 
 the Columbia road. Then I suddenly remembered that I 
 had very important business at Stockton, which had been 
 left over a long time ; and I turned my horse's head, and 
 gallopped westward." 
 
 " But why should they harm you — you were not respon- 
 sible for the m — misfortune of Grayson." 
 
 " Why, you see Judge Lynch isn't always so technical 
 in his expoundings and constructions as Judge Kent or 
 Judge Story. Here a man must be proved to be parliceps 
 criminis — there they occasionally take it for granted — a 
 vast difference, Martin Dangerfield." 
 
 "I understand you," said the old man gloomily, "but 
 did this involve the loss of your accumulations?" 
 
 " Only in part. There was trouble about dividing and
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 61 
 
 settling Grayson's estate — two or three wives among other 
 things. I didn't fancy going back to Sonora, so I got a 
 trusty man to go there to attend to my interests in the 
 matter — which he did very effectually by bagging all 
 the money he could find, and taking the Overland Route 
 home. However I had other resources — ^some land and 
 buildings I contrived to sell and get the money for, and 
 then returned to San Francisco." 
 
 " I sent you two drafts for $5000, each, and promised 
 you others if you remained there." 
 
 " I couldn't. Had I wished it ever so much 1 couldn't. 
 You see I was rather in the dumps about my troubles and 
 losses, and I had no heart to turn to anything except ' fight- 
 ing the tiger.' Then things grew worse and I was drawn into 
 one or two little scrapes — quiet enough, but some people 
 knew of them. I had a very promising little concern in 
 Sansome street, and seemed to be picking up again, when the 
 scoundrels of city officials opened up all my tracks and 
 cleaned me of every dollar to escape publicity and prose- 
 cution." 
 
 " But they did not molest you further — and as you 
 received funds from me you were not compelled to leave." 
 
 "That's exactly it; I was compelled to leave. You see 
 there arose a sort of mutual admiration society there which 
 took a very philanthropic interest in my welfare. They 
 called themselves the 'Vigilance Committee.' Two of 
 them waited on me one day, and, after expressing in a 
 general way their admiration for my character, and their 
 interest in my future prospects, they favored me with 
 a courteous invitation to embark in the Brig Sarah Jane 
 which was to sail that evening for Mazatlan." 
 
 " And you then made up your mind to return hither — 
 hither where your presence has already produced so much 
 misery." 
 
 "I then made up my mind that I had been a great 
 jackass ever to go away at all. Setting inclination aside, 
 it was clearly my duty to stay here and be a comfort to 
 you. But although I could not recall the past, I might,
 
 62 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 in a measure, atone it, by devoting to you the remainder 
 of my future. Such is my intention. I made my way in 
 a coasting vessel to Eealejo, crossed to Grey town, steamed 
 to New Orleans, came up the river, and here I am." 
 
 " I can do no more for you here, than in either of the 
 places you name." 
 
 " No, but you are more certain to do it, and you are 
 also much more prompt. It suits me to have you prompt. 
 In the transaction your son unfortunately got wind of, 
 he would not have done so had you not been so dilatory ; 
 if you are dilatory in the future he will be likely to learn 
 more — that would be unpleasant." 
 
 The old man made an impatient gesture. " In a word, 
 James Kirkwood," he cried querulously, " in a word, what 
 do you want ?" 
 
 " In a word," replied the other firmly, " money, and 
 plenty of it. None of your pitiful hundreds, but thou- 
 sands when I want them. Then I want social considera- 
 tion, or at least as much of it as your countenance can give 
 me. I think of settling for life, and there are many old 
 and wealthy families in this vicinity with eligible and desir- 
 able daughters. I must have a suite of apartments here, 
 in this house, to which I may come when so disposed. 
 This place suits me. I need rest, and I propose to come 
 here to take it." 
 
 " As to money," responded Martin Dangerfield, " no 
 fortune would long stand your extortion. Have you the 
 remotest idea of what you have had ? Near a hundred 
 thousand. Shall I leave my boy a beggar for your sake ? 
 You are determined to drive me to extremities. Do so, 
 and you will have nothing. I cannot supply your extra- 
 vagance at the rate you demand. I have not the means." 
 
 " You can get them. Here is the place " 
 
 '' Never 1" exclaimed the old man angrily, " I'll not 
 mortgage a rood ! You may strip me of every dollar of 
 money, but I will not imperil one inch of my son's inheri- 
 tance." 
 
 "Let me see," said Kirkwood in a reflective tone, and
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 63 
 
 taking out a set of tablets, " he sailed on the seventeenth. 
 He will return as soon after he arrives as possible. Conse- 
 quently we may expect him at furthest by the twenty-fifth. 
 Say three weeks hence." 
 
 " I know what you mean," cried Dangerfield sharply. 
 " I can put it out of his power to interfere. I can make 
 over the property to trustees, and set you at defiance." 
 
 " You have talked in this manner before, but you have 
 never carried out your threats. Your son will wish to 
 marry some day. 'Tis high time to think of it now. 
 Have you considered this side of the question ? You are 
 proud of this spot, the home and heritage of your family ; 
 who is to inherit it after your son ? where is the heir who 
 is to perpetuate this unsullied race ?" 
 
 The old man shuddered slightly, and there was a tremor 
 in his voice, but his words were resolute : 
 
 " Sneer as you will, Kirkwood, and mingle sneers with 
 threats. There are limits to my docility, bounds to my 
 weakness, and this is one of them. Come what may the 
 place shall never be mortgaged or sold." 
 
 " That remains to be seen. Possibly I may not require 
 that sacrifice on the altar of friendship. But heed me 
 well, Martin Dangerfield," he continued, abandoning the 
 tone of badinage he had for some time employed, " hence- 
 forth there is no need of wrangling words. I come not 
 here to argue and entreat, but to command and to enforce. 
 Remember," and his face assumed a deadly and menacing 
 aspect, "what a word may do, and how long that word has 
 been withheld. Remember that others are involved be- 
 sides yourself — those who came before, those who are to 
 come after. Remember that so long as you have known 
 me I have shown no want of resolution, and believe what 
 I now tell you, that so long as we have to do with each 
 other I must, and b}'- Gr — d will be obeyed !" 
 
 " Bold words !" cried a voice without, and repeated as 
 the speaker appeared at the window. " Bold words to be 
 spoken to a Dangerfield, and that in Dangerfield's Rest 1" 
 and Stephen Dangerfield advanced into the room.
 
 64 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ¥E need not employ the trite illustration of a bomb- 
 shell to depict the astonishment of both Martin 
 Dangerfield and his strange visitor, on the sudden appear- 
 ance of Stephen. The latter gentleman, with the noncha- 
 lance w.hich was so marked a feature of his character, had, 
 after saluting his father, dropped into a chair, from whence 
 he coolly scanned from head to foot the person of Kirk- 
 wood. It is as common as it is true to remark that there 
 are moments in which we live hours, perhaps sometimes 
 years, as Kotzebue makes Mrs. Haller say. However that 
 may be, it is certain not more than thirty seconds of silence 
 ensued after Stephen Dangerfield entered the room, and 
 that in so brief a space the latter believed that in the man 
 before him he was destined to deal with an unscrupulous 
 and formidable enemy. It is also true that Kirkwood with 
 equal celerity perceived in the bold-looking young eyes, 
 which were so steadily taking his measure, there shone a 
 spirit and alertness which presaged trouble and impedi- 
 ment to his own plans in the future. The elder gentle- 
 man, it would appear, foresaw more danger than the others, 
 for he was shaking with anxiety and apprehension. 
 
 " Stephen, Stephen !" he cried in a shrill and tremulous 
 voice, " speak, what did you hear?" 
 
 "Nothing, father, nothing," replied the son soothingly. 
 " I knew you were in the library, and came directly across 
 the lawn to find you." 
 
 " Not a word ?" pursued the old man sharply. 
 
 " Have you trained me to play the eaves-dropper ? I 
 have only this moment arrived from New York. I heard 
 nothing except the slightly forcible expression this gentle- 
 man was employing to you as I came on the piazza." 
 
 " An expression," said Kirkwood instantly, " in very 
 bad taste, to say the least, and for which I beg to apologize 
 most heartily. Mr. Stephen Dangerfield, I believe. Per- 
 mit me to introduce myself; my name is Kirkwood, a
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 65 
 
 very old friend of your father's ; and one, I am sure, he 
 and you will forgive a hasty expression, based on the mis- 
 understanding of a matter long since dead and buried." 
 
 The man's bearing was utterly changed — a metamorpho- 
 sis from a bully to a courtier. There was a half paternal 
 air in his manner toward Stephen, and one of respectful 
 esteem when he turned to his father. The breeding was 
 quite unexceptionable. It had the absolute stamp of even 
 polished society. Stephen's first inclination was to laugh 
 in his face, but Martin hurriedly added his explanations : 
 — " Yes, yes, we are very old friends — very old friends — T 
 — I dare say I was in the wrong — you must know, Ste- 
 phen, I rather provoked Mr. Kirkwood, so you must forget 
 what you heard — especially as he has made the amende so 
 handsomely." 
 
 " I remember you as a boy," resumed Kirkwood affec- 
 tionately, "you had a spirit of your own then, whatever 
 your rubs with the world may have made you since : — so 
 that I trust you'll think no worse of me for a childish 
 outbreak of which I'm so heartily ashamed." 
 
 Stephen was in doubt. His first impulse — his first in- 
 stinct — had been to regard the man before him as the 
 incarnation of sinister malevolence. He remembered him 
 in his youth well enough, — and remembered him with a 
 certain aversion, albeit his perceptions were not then sharp- 
 ened up to their present edge. From various circumstan- 
 ces he had been led to regard Kirkwood as, in a manner, 
 his father's evil genius. Of late years he had been absent 
 from the country, but a short time before had returned. 
 Stephen had been advised of his movements from a source 
 which will hereafter appear. He made no doubt that this 
 visitation was designed to commence afresh the old game 
 of extortion and rascality which he had reason to suspect 
 had been played years before. The young man had for 
 some time past entertained grave apprehensions that his 
 father was sinking into an imbecile condition. Should this 
 be the case, he would be more than ever at the mercy of 
 his persecutor. Stephen had determined to seek out
 
 66 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 Kirkwood, — who had cautiously abstained from visiting 
 The Rest during his presence there, — and to bring matters 
 to a crisis which should lead to explanation and ultimate 
 settlement. Having determined on this course, he pursued 
 it with characteristic energy. The conviction of serious 
 danger which was suggested by the manner in which he 
 received his information — the nature of the source alluded 
 to — led him to stop at no obstacles in carrjang out his pur- 
 pose. When he discovered, therefore, that Kirkwood had 
 
 sailed for England in the A , he determined to follow 
 
 instantly by the next steamer, which happened to depart 
 within forty-eight hours after. Stephen had been advised 
 of the trick whereby he had been deceived, but through 
 accident and carelessness the advice did not reach- his eye 
 until he was far to the eastward of Sandy Hook. Of his 
 subsequent procedures we have already taken cogni- 
 zance. 
 
 Thus Stephen had, or fancied he had, ample reason to 
 regard James Kirkwood with distrust, — and yet the 
 extreme candor and affability of that gentleman almost 
 made him, for a moment, ashamed of his suspicions. 
 Meantime, his father continued the conversation : 
 
 " But by what magical process do you find your way 
 to The Rest, my son ? Your letter stated you had taken 
 passage in the /Siromboli, and your name was certainly in 
 the list of passengers. We thought you were by this time 
 in England." 
 
 " I was about to put your question to this gentleman, 
 sir. I had expected that he as well as myself would, by 
 this time, have been in England. He took passage in the 
 
 A , and his name was, to my knowledge, in the list of 
 
 passengers !" 
 
 " You surprise me," said Kirkwood blandly. " My name 
 is not so very common ; — but your mistake obviously 
 arises from there being another who may, or may not, have 
 the right to bear it." 
 
 " Do you mean," cried Stephen, " that you did not 
 engage passage by the A ?"
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 67 
 
 " How could I have done so," answered the other with 
 perfect simplicity, "since you perceive I am here ?" 
 
 " It is tolerably clear," quoth Stephen, " that you did not 
 sail by that vessel, but the retaining passage, of course, is 
 a different thing." 
 
 " My dear young friend, I assure you, I did neither the 
 one nor the other." 
 
 " And would you have me believe," pressed Stephen, 
 " that you were ignorant that I was in earnest quest of 
 you ?" 
 
 " On the contrary," replied Kirkwood frankly, " it was 
 my knowledge of that very fact which brings me here at 
 this moment in order that you might be gratified." 
 
 Stephen looked inquiringly at his father. 
 
 "Mr. Kirkwood mentioned," said Martin Dangerfield, 
 with some hesitation, " that he had been given to under- 
 stand you were desirous of meeting him, and expressed 
 surprise and — and regret — that you were not at The Rest 
 on his arrivak" 
 
 " For myself," said Stephen with a puzzled air, "I owe 
 my return to the fortunate accident of crossing a westward 
 bound ship at sea ; — but such a thing isn't likely to be 
 duplicated in the same month." 
 
 " Hardly," said his father drily ; " but you need seek for 
 no such explanation, since that which you already have is 
 sufficiently explicit." 
 
 "I dislike to appear tenacious, sir. But, with my present 
 sources of information, I must admit that, had I remained 
 at The Rest, this gentleman is the last person I should have 
 expected to see here." 
 
 " Your ' sources of information' have misled you. Such 
 things occur in the experience of all of us. In any case, 
 since I am here, and since I am both ready and willing 
 cheerfully to give 3'ou any more trustworthy information 
 which may lie in my power to impart, there is surely 
 no need for any misunderstanding between us." Kirkwood 
 had risen while speaking, and as he concluded he held out 
 his hand to Stephen with a cordial and winning smile.
 
 68 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 The young man took the hand with some reluctance, 
 which he found it impossible altogether to refuse, and said 
 steadily : — 
 
 " I trust there may be less misunderstanding on my part, 
 sir, when I have enjoyed the privilege of an hour's 
 conversation with you." 
 
 " Not to-night — not to-night, Stephen," said his father 
 nervously, " you must be fatigued with your journey — 
 we dine at six — almost directly — "glancing at a clock 
 on the oaken mantelpiece — " and this evening, Mr. Kirk- 
 wood and I had already devoted to the transaction of some 
 important business." 
 
 "As you please, sir. Only, the sooner Mr. Kirkwood 
 can vouchsafe me the explanations he tenders, the more 
 gratified I shall be." 
 
 " My young friend and I will take a stroll together after 
 breakfast to-morrow," said Kirkwood, " when it will give 
 me great pleasure to satisfy him in every respect." 
 
 "Be it so, sir," and Stephen, saying something about, 
 changing his dress before dinner, and casting a look of 
 blended doubt and affection upon his father, left the room. 
 As the door closed behind him, the old man gave vent to a 
 long and painful sigh — one of those heavy expirations 
 which tell at once of suffering and relief, and which always 
 come with a temporary respite from some dreaded calamity. 
 
 " Decidedly," said Kirkwood, " decidedly your son is a 
 clever young man. I didn't think there was so much in 
 him." 
 
 "You have seen too little to judge, I should say," 
 demurred the other, not without a glimmer of fatherly 
 pride. 
 
 " Pshaw ! I judge, not by what he says, but by what 
 he expresses, and does. An3^how, he's not a man to be 
 humbugged by cock-and-bul] stories. We must tell him 
 the truth, Martin Dangerfield !" 
 
 " The Truth ?" 
 
 " The Truth. What are you startled at ? It will be I, 
 not you who will have to do it. I tell you he knows too
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM. 69 
 
 mucli of what has passed between us to be satisfied with 
 prevarication. He must know all." 
 
 " You are mad !" 
 
 " Always obtuse. Reflect and realize if you can that 
 our interests are identical. Unless his suspicions are laid 
 at rest, once and for all, he will be taking steps which may 
 breed fresh mischief. Leave all to rae." 
 
 "I must, I suppose. But never will I live to witness 
 the expo — " 
 
 " Hush ! you may have no great confidence in my 
 generosity ; but your ruin would do me no good — would 
 certainly cause me great loss and inconvenience. You can 
 trust me for this, if for no other reason," 
 
 That night, from his chamber in the second story of the 
 western wing of the mansion, Stephen Dangerfield saw 
 lights in the library until a very late hour. He tossed to 
 and fro upon his bed in uneasy slumbers, and, starting up 
 for the tenth time to look forth on the cool grey of the 
 coming dawn — he still saw the pale glimmering of candles 
 — still saw the dusky shadows of forms moving up and 
 down between their dim light and the gloomy windows of 
 the library. 
 
 . CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FRESH and radiant was the mornmg after Stephen's 
 arrival at Dangerfield's Rest, The breakfast hour 
 wore heavily enough, however, each of the three who 
 passed it together showing signs of that restraint which 
 accompanies demanded and yet ungiven explanations. 
 Martin Dangerfield avoided his son's eye, and his face, 
 usually troubled and care-worn, exhibited traces of the 
 vigil of the night before. Stephen himself was thoughtful 
 and expectant. He was determined to watch narrowly the
 
 70 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 speech and conduct of their unwelcome guest, anticipating 
 in eacli, subterfuge and disvsimulation. That Kirkwood bad 
 taken especial pains to avoid him, there could be no doubt. 
 That his father had been anxious to conceal the nature of 
 his relations with this man was equally certain. Both had 
 been taken by surprise, as they could by no possibility 
 have foreseen a return so sudden, based as it was on an 
 accident so uncommon. They had, however, had time for 
 fresh collusion, if their wishes pointed in that direction. 
 Whatever reasons had existed for the previous mystery, 
 probably existed still. Stephen felt, therefore, that he had 
 a right to expect renewed attempts to mislead him ; and, 
 while Kirkwood was the recipient of his father's hospital- 
 ity, it seemed difficult to approach him with that peremp- 
 tory tone he had fully resolved upon adopting before their 
 present meeting. He was thus reduced, in a manner, to 
 the weapons of vigilance and observation. 
 
 As for Kirkwood himself, he understood precisely what 
 was passing in the young man's mind, and governed him- 
 self accordingly. He had led rather a rough life of late, 
 and it put him in high good-humor to be surrounded by 
 the comfort and luxury he was accustomed to consider as 
 his natural and legitimate surroundings. The soft beds, 
 the solid, old-fashioned furniture, the bountiful table, the 
 plate, the wine, the ready attendance, all soothed and grati- 
 fied him ; and, as he had made up his mind to enjoy them 
 for some time, the future appeared altogether couleur-de-rose. 
 Then the man's digestion was perfect, and he really took 
 more than usual satisfaction in the mere animal fact of liv- 
 ing. He could be thoroughly good-natured when no one 
 thwarted him too much. On such occasions as the latter, 
 the inner nature might exhibit itself unpleasantly. The 
 close observer would then perceive how much early asso- 
 ciation and training has to do with the development of 
 inner natures of this peculiar character. For Kirkwood 
 was born and bred on a large plantation in Alabama. Up 
 to his twenty-fifth year he had lived in an atmosphere of 
 human slavery, and, to his misfortune, slavery of the most
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 71 
 
 cruel and repulsive type. He was th© natural son of a 
 wealthy and dissolute planter, by a very beautiful quadroon 
 girl. The father, a man of gross tastes and appetites, and 
 barbarously cruel to his negroes, had still enough of 
 human feeling not to enslave his offspring — an abstinence 
 uncommon enough in that section, and which might have 
 attracted more notice but for the fact that there was not the 
 slightest trace in the child of negro blood or coloring. The 
 complexion darkened, to be sure, as he grew to manhood, 
 but even then was fairer than that of many a Castilian ; 
 so that, as the mother died early, and there had been, for 
 various reasons, some pains taken to conceal his origin, 
 James Kirkwood passed through life as an unsuspected 
 Caucasian. He received an irregular and smattering edu- 
 cation — including the reading of some law at the ofl&ce of 
 a county judge in a neighboring town — and on the death 
 of his father, who left him a small provision, he came 
 north, and settled at New York. Of his subsequent career 
 we have already had some inklings. 
 
 On his appearance at the breakfast table, Kirkwood 
 exhibited no little gaiety and animation ; and it was not 
 until his efforts were repeatedly dampened by the silence 
 of his companions that the exuberance of his spirits sub- 
 sided, and his energies were confined to the edibles before 
 him. He was desirous to establish with Stephen Danger- 
 field a familiar and ofS-hand sort of relation, which that 
 gentleman was in no wise disposed to encourage. Each 
 rebuff, however, increased Kirkwood's respect for the 
 other's talent, and confirmed him in his previous convic- 
 tion, that it would be expedient to be quite unreserved and 
 frank in the communications he had promised to afford 
 him. Stephen might or might not have been conscious of 
 producing this effect, but his behavior was dictated as a 
 matter of fact, by his determination to treat Kirkwood 
 with measured formality until those communications should 
 satisfy his mind that the latter deserved at his hands the 
 treatment of a man of honor — a contingency which at pre- 
 sent he was very much disposed to doubt As for his
 
 72 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 father's endorsement, Stephen was persuaded that it was 
 extorted by some sinister process, which it was his duty to 
 detect and to foil. 
 
 The meal concluded, Martin Dangerfield betook himself 
 to his library, and Kirkwood at once proposed to fulfil the 
 last night's agreement. 
 
 "Now, my dear young friend," he said cheerfully, and 
 lighting a cigar, " now, I am altogether at your service. 
 Where shall it be ? Shall we stroll along the edge of the 
 cliff, or shall we avail ourselves of the shady retreat afford- 
 ed by yonder tasteful summer-house ?" 
 
 " Suit yourself, sir," quoth Stephen, curtly ; " wherever 
 you can make it most convenient to be brief and to the 
 purpose." 
 
 Kirkwood looked at him with a compassionate eye. 
 
 " 'Tis the essence of youth to be hasty," said he, philo- 
 sophically, " even when the apples we seek turn to ashes 
 in the mouth. When you have lived as long as I — who 
 have seen, I dare say, half as many years again as your 
 own — you may find there is more wisdom than you think 
 for now in the sage old maxim — -festina lentey 
 
 "We can scarcely make too much haste," returned Ste- 
 phen, " when the fruit we seek is in plain view, and the 
 road is clear to the tree. I haven't often wasted time when 
 such were the conditions." 
 
 " One instance at least must be fresh in your memory," 
 answered the other significantly, " as your late journey may 
 suggest." 
 
 Stephen flushed. 
 
 " Any one may blunder," he retorted quickly, " when 
 people find it to their interest to set up false guide-posts. 
 I shall try to profit even by that experience." 
 
 The two walked on silently, Kirkwood thinking the 
 young man was piqued by the recollection of his mistake, 
 and that it were better not to pursue an irritating subject, 
 — Stephen almost forgiving his enemy, if indeed he owed 
 to his machinations the late trip over blue-water, for the 
 sake of the sweet face the recollection brought up so vivid-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 73 
 
 ly before him. Presently they came to the summer-house, 
 and Kirkwood seated himself, inviting his companion, with 
 a gracious wave of the hand, to do the same. 
 
 " You have a lovely place here, Mr. Dangerfield," he 
 remarked, gazing over the beautiful prospect with a not 
 unappreciative eye. " Pity if it were ever to pass out of 
 the family." 
 
 Stephen came back to earth with a rough shock. " And 
 do you know of any reason, sir," he demanded, almost 
 angrily, " why it should do so ?" 
 
 " None whatever," replied Kirkwood, gently emitting a 
 smoky spiral. " That is — with reasonable prudence. I was 
 only thinking," he went on rapidly, and checking an 
 obvious intention to interrupt him, " that you have arrived 
 at a period when most young men of your position have 
 more than thought of marriage." 
 
 "You forget the maxim you favored me with just 
 now. This may be one of the instances wherein I am 
 wise enough to apply it. But 'tis hardly a subject which 
 can be of any particular interest to yourself. With your 
 leave we will proceed to the one which brought us here." 
 
 " Willingly. Pray believe, however, that anything inter- 
 ests me which concerns the Dangerfield family. My long 
 friendship for your father prevents such an interest from 
 savoring of assumption. At all events you will find it 
 to be genuine enough as we get on." 
 
 " I understood you to express a readiness to enlighten 
 me on certain matters which have, to say the least, an 
 equivocal appearance, and into which, I suppose you are 
 willing to concede, I have some right to inquire." 
 
 "Quite right — to both propositions. For my part I 
 regret such an explanation has been deferred so long, and I 
 beg you to understand that it has been so deferred, strictly 
 in accordance with the wishes and injunctions of your 
 father. I am prepared to reply fully and freely to any 
 inquiries you may think proper to make, since I have now 
 his permission to do so." 
 
 " Granted last night ?"
 
 74 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Granted last night." 
 
 " Very good — then I have no difficulty in proceeding. 
 I infer, of course, that my father will verify any statements 
 you are kind enough to make." 
 
 " It is in your power, of course, to put them to that test." 
 
 *' The reply to a single question will involve, I should 
 judge, all the information for which I seek. It has come 
 to my knowledge — it is immaterial how, as the fact is 
 sufficient — that my father has been for many years in the 
 habit of making very heavy disbursements for purposes 
 unconnected with the improvement of his property, having 
 no reference to investment, or in any sense relating to per- 
 sonal expenditures. I have also become cognizant — a,nd 
 again the process is unimportant — that these moneys have 
 invariably found their way into the hands of a single per- 
 son." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " My father is growing old — old in mind and energy, 
 perhaps, rather than in years. I have preferred not to 
 harass him on a subject obviously distasteful to him. 
 Strictly speaking, I might not, possibly, have the right to 
 interfere. But the disquietude which this business has 
 occasioned him — a disquietude which has deepened into 
 absolute distress — indicates that my duty as a son is, 
 clearly, to relieve him if I can. Such has been my motive 
 in tracing out the person to whom I refer. For many years 
 he has been beyond my reach. Of late he has thought 
 proper to place himself within it. From him I resolved to 
 demand explanations." 
 
 " Quite right." 
 
 " You agree with me ?" 
 
 " Perfectly, in all respects." 
 
 " That simplifies matters, since, as I need scarcely add, 
 the person in question is — yourself. '''' 
 
 " Quite right again. What do you wish me to do ?" 
 
 " What do I wish you to do !" echoed Stephen in some 
 astonishment. " You admit the accuracy of the statement 
 I have made ?"
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 75 
 
 " Entirely, in each and every particular ; and, that being 
 the case, I repeat, what do you wish me to do ?" 
 
 "Do !" reiterated the young man, annoyed by the cool- 
 ness of his interlocutor. " Do ! why to tell me, since you 
 are so obliging, why you have received all this money, and 
 what you have done with it ?" 
 
 " As to your first question," said Kirkwood, deliberately 
 knocking the ashes oflf his cigar, " I reply, nothing more 
 easy. The second is more difficult. With every wish to 
 gratify your curiosity, I fear that that will involve a great 
 deal of profound investigation." 
 
 " Well, then," said Stephen impatiently, " suppose you 
 answer the first to go on with." 
 
 " With much pleasure. You will allow me to remark, 
 en passant, that I cautioned you in advance as to the apples 
 and the ashes. Properly to answer your question obliges 
 me to go back a few years. It also involves touching 
 upon a subject rather painful for a son to discuss, or a 
 friend to advert to. Yet as the business is opened at all, 
 candor is distinctly the only policy. You are, perhaps, not 
 aware, that in his younger days your father played rather 
 deeply ?" 
 
 Stephen bowed in acquiescence 
 
 " He was unfortunate enough, as others have been 
 before and since, to carry this weakness rather too far. He 
 became very heavily involved : so much so as almost to 
 compass his ruin. Some of his largest obligations might 
 have been repudiated, and the law would have borne him 
 out in such a course. His pride, and the jealous and scru- 
 pulous regard wherein he ever held the old Dangerfield 
 name, would not suffer him to adopt it. I was at that time 
 a practising attorney in New York — a warm friend of your 
 father's, though previously a stranger to his habits and 
 embarrassments. He came to me in his distress, and I un- 
 dertook to save him and this property from the sheriffs 
 hammer. To do so involved great sacrifices on my part. 
 I disposed of all my own property and strained every 
 nerve to raise the required sum. It amounted to about a
 
 76 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 hundred thousand dollars. The loan was secured by a bond 
 and a mortgage on Dangerfield's Rest, — then, by no means, 
 worth so large an amount, though it may be now. The in- 
 terest on this debt has been regularly paid, and about a fifth 
 of the principal. I hold the mortgage which secures the 
 ultimate payment of the remainder." 
 
 Stephen Dangerfield sat through this momentous recital 
 in a state of perfect stupefaction. He wished to stop his 
 ears, to rush headlong from the spot which had witnessed 
 a disclosure so ruinous to his hopes and prospects in life, 
 but a species of fascination seemed to chain him to his 
 seat, and to compel him to listen to what further Kirkwood 
 might have to say. The latter paused a moment, and ex- 
 pelled a column or two of blue and fragrant smoke as if 
 waiting for any response Stephen might wish to make ; and 
 proceeded : 
 
 " I would gladly have spared this narration for your sake, 
 and as gladly have avoided the unpleasant office of repeat- 
 ing it for my own. Your father may live many years, and 
 will do all he can, no doubt, to disencumber the estate. 
 The farms are very profitable, and much may be done in 
 a short time. I have given you a general outline of the 
 facts. "When you desire it I will furnish particulars. You 
 will bear me witness that I have avoided you, knowing 
 well the explanation you sought, — and that you have in a 
 manner extorted it from me." 
 
 The speaker rose as he concluded, and guessing from the 
 young man's abrupt gesture that he wished the interview 
 to end, he lighted another cigar, and strolled along the 
 cliff. 
 
 Stephen remained for a space as if paralysed. He tried 
 to believe what he heard was a dream, but he found him- 
 self too truly in possession of his senses. He tried to be- 
 lieve that it was a lie, — a base, malicious fabrication, con- 
 cocted for some as yet inscrutable purpose : but he found 
 his soul pervaded with an awful conviction of its truth. 
 He glanced back through all the incidents of the past fif- 
 teen years, and remembered at every turn circumstances
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 77 
 
 wbich corroborated the tale and stamped it as genuine. 
 He even thought matters far worse than Kirkwood repre- 
 sented them, for he now recalled many facts and evidences 
 which proved that his flither's pecuniary position was be- 
 coming yearly more embarrassed. 
 
 Determined to be satisfied, he sprang to the piazza where 
 he had entered the night before, to seek endorsement or 
 denial from that father himself A glance into the open 
 window of the library was sufficient. Martin Dangerfield 
 was sitting, his face buried in his hands, the thin white 
 hairs straggling over his trembling fingers. Stephen turned 
 away sick at heart. Where were now his hopes, his rose- 
 colored dreams of Grace Yernon ? The young man was 
 not yet either a hero or a saint, and he spent the rest of 
 the day locked in his room, and having for his sole compa- 
 nions — the gloomy and foreboding reflections of despair. 
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 IT was the day after the arrival of the Assyria. Eliot 
 and Cuthbert Boynton had gone to the same hotel, 
 promising themselves a day or two of sight-seeing together, 
 before their proposed trip to the sea-shore. Oliver Vernon 
 with his family had gone up the river to their home, after 
 extending a cordial invitation to both the young men to 
 become his guests at Uplands on their return. Stephen 
 Dangerfield, as we have seen, had gone in the same direc- 
 tion ; nor did all his intense desire to be with Grace pre- 
 vent his taking the train at Chambers street, within the 
 hour that he reached the Battery. 
 
 The female Von Donks were rummaging and fussing 
 about the house in Fifth Avenue, and awaiting impatiently 
 the arrival of their boxes of latest Parisian finery, that 
 they might select the most appropriate ammunition for their 
 approaching campaign at Newport. Gossamer himself
 
 78 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 •was in high spirits. The dreaded Heydensucker was rusti- 
 cating at a distant establishment of a hygienic character, 
 ostensibly under treatment for a febrile disorder, but in 
 reality, as Gossamer was assured at his club, to tide over a 
 composite crisis of pecuniary embarrassment and delirium 
 tremens. Thus relieved, even without the aid of Mr, Elias 
 P. Staggers's proposed operations, the young man regarded 
 the future with great complacency. He even prepared an 
 elaborate note of proposal to Miss Vernon, which he only 
 awaited the acquiescence of his ally to despatch. 
 
 Mr. Staggers had hastened on 'Change to receive the 
 welcomes and congratulations of his friends, among whom 
 he was regarded as a sort of financial Crichton, and not a 
 little esteemed, in spite of the rather slippery character of 
 his dealings. McSwindle had thought it wise to abandon 
 his design on the "nagur," for fear of making powerful 
 enemies among her protectors, and because Cuthbert Boyn- 
 ton, on whose aid and countenance he somewhat relied, had 
 treated his advances with a contempt which was perfectly 
 undisguised. The worthy Milesian, therefore, having 
 shown himself in the congenial atmosphere of the City 
 Hall, had repaired to his favorite haunt at " Hook and 
 Cuff's," where he was uproariously received by an anoma- 
 lous band of his compatriots, most of whom presented that 
 ingenious and striking ensemble which is effected when a 
 person with the face of a " cut- wood robber " wears the 
 dress of a mute at a funeral. 
 
 Sprigg was the lion of the hour at the Crier office, where 
 he was writing and telling incredible stories of his ex- 
 ploits and adventures, and where he had an invitation to 
 dine with the editor-in-chief the next day, Slymer hav- 
 ing invited himself, as was his custom, for the same occa- 
 sion. 
 
 Eobert Eliot made the usual observations which English- 
 men are prone to make on entering New York. Every- 
 thing was bright and gay in coloring; too much so, in fact, 
 for eyes accustomed to the humid atmosphere of his native 
 island. Broadway was a very fine street — finer probably,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 79 
 
 and longer certainly, than Piccadilly or Oxford street — 
 but rather more mixed and promiscuous in shops and asso- 
 ciations. Those huge hotels were too square and prosaic ; 
 surely if they could devote so much space to them, they 
 might afford a little to embellish with a trace of poetry 
 such vast blocks of use. Very fine shops certainly ; but 
 they look as if they had their whole stock in trade thrust 
 in the windows. And such lots of great hulking fellows 
 behind the counters ! Why, they ought to be in the army 
 or behind the plough. People look dreadfully anxious 
 and skinny — in a hurry ? of course, but then people are 
 always in a hurry in a commercial city. Stand at Temple 
 Bar, or opposite the Bank — precisely the same thing as 
 Broadway or Wall street. Yery pretty women, very ; but 
 rather too thin for our taste. They say your women fade 
 early. Climate ? no ; want of exercise, I fancy. The 
 physiognomy does not strike me agreeably ; the mouths 
 are too hard, and the eyes too eager. These people want a 
 leaven of artistic culture — more leisure — more generous 
 and elevating pursuits and studies. The women dress too 
 much ; a morning dress for promenade should not be the 
 dress for a carriage or a ball-room ; what do you think I 
 saw at the breakfast table ? a woman in a full set of dia- 
 monds ! In England they would think her mad, and I 
 dare say she is. The men, too, even the gentlemanly ones, 
 don't seem to know the difference between a morning and 
 dinner costume. What can you do without cabs ? Omni- 
 buses ? Yes, but how slow and uncomfortable ! and I 
 see you have no conductors ; and, setting the rate of speed 
 aside, how much time must be wasted in taking up and 
 setting down each passenger. Why don't you have Han- 
 soms ? " Opposition of omnibus and street railway men ?" 
 But I thought this was a free country ; and you Americans 
 think so much of doing things quickly. Policemen, splen- 
 did fellows, certainly. We should make them Life-Guards- 
 men or Grenadiers. What do ypu allow vans and bag- 
 gage-wagons in Broadway for ? The road is blocked half 
 the time by vehicles which might as well run in parallel
 
 80 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 streets — shocking waste of time and very unsightly — sin- 
 gular evils for Americans to submit to, etc., etc. 
 
 Staggers presented himself in the afternoon, and man- 
 aged to inveigle the young men into a call at the chateau 
 Von Donk. 
 
 " You ought to know the General," he reasoned to Boyn- 
 ton ; " capital representative man of the Empire City. 
 Hates the Abolitionists wuss than a pestilence, and goes in 
 for the true interests of the country. You want to see all 
 sorts of folks," he continued, turning to Eliot. " Von 
 Donk's one of our Merchant Princes. He's one of nature's 
 noblemen, he is." 
 
 " I thought he was in the army,"" remarked Eliot. 
 
 "So he is," responded Stiggins ; "militia service, the 
 true bulwark of our Republican Institootions. Our reg'lar 
 army aint much, that's a fact — only a nooclus, as we say. 
 We are a practical people, Mr. Eliot, and we don't want a 
 great crowd of chaps lazing about doing nothin' in peace 
 times. If we get into a scrimmage, we just call our bone 
 and muscle into the field, and do things up in good shape, 
 slick and quick ; when the war's over they go back to their 
 avocations, addin' to the wealth and strength of the coun- 
 
 try." 
 
 Arrived at their destination, Eliot was rather surprised 
 and amused on finding the door opened by a well trained 
 English servant in livery. 
 
 " Rather anti-democratic that, isn't it, Mr. Staggers ?" 
 queried he. 
 
 " Well, our folks do kinder rile over it," explained the 
 broker, "but it's the fashion now, and you have to do it 
 if you're in our best society. They can't get no free-born 
 American citizen to put on such things, but them from the 
 old country, bein' used to be down-trodden and oppressed, 
 of course it comes easy to 'em. Even they kick over the 
 traces after they've breathed the air of liberty for a year or 
 two, and find out they're as good as anybody, and can git 
 to be President if they're smart." 
 
 " But surely some must perform domestic offices," said
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 81 
 
 Eliot, "if all refuse to act as servants, how can you 
 get on ?" 
 
 " Oh, there's English, and Scotch, and Irish, and Germans, 
 coming over all the time, and they fill up the vacant places 
 till they get sick of it, and then others come along," 
 
 " I should have thought that in a free country, and one 
 in which there are so few idlers, no honest labor would be 
 considered disgraceful." 
 
 " Well, you see, it ain't in accordance witb the spirit of 
 our institootions to set one man up over another, and folks 
 go agen it. You know they all have votes. That chap 
 with the buttons has just as much power as the General 
 himself. He haint been here long, and he gets good wages, 
 but bime-by he'll see things as they are, and they'll have to 
 get some one else." 
 
 " The fact is, Eliot," said Cuthbert Boynton, " people 
 who emigrate to this country are composed, as a mass, 
 of the lowest and least educated classes of European 
 nations, and they either won't or can't see the distinction 
 between a political and legal equality, which is possible, 
 and a social equality, which is impossible." 
 
 " Then why bestow upon them every privilege which 
 the State can confer, until they are educated to appre- 
 ciate it ?" 
 
 " There ain't no distinctions," said Staggers stoutly ; " we 
 hold all men to be born free and equal, exceptin' niggers." 
 
 Eliot did not reply to this conclusive declaration, as 
 the party found themselves in a drawing-room, and in 
 momentary expectation of the ladies. The apartment 
 was gorgeously ornamented with pink and gold, and, in 
 expense, if not in taste, might have been the reception 
 room of a duchess. The furniture peeped out here and 
 there from under its coverings of brown holland, in 
 dazzling accord with the ceiling and walls, and a huge 
 chandelier gave promise of overwhelming refulgence when 
 put to its use. Gilding and white marble were in pro- 
 fusion, and the feet of the visitors sank deep in a carpet of 
 sumptuous cost and thickness. 
 
 4*
 
 82 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 "Mrs. General knows how to do it, she does," said 
 Staggers, admiringly, as he stooped down and commenced 
 a minute inspection of the expensive fabric. " This must 
 be wuth as much's ten dollars a yard." 
 
 The eyes of the two young men met, and both turned 
 away to conceal a smile, when the door opened with a 
 bang, and Mrs. General and her daughters made their 
 appearance. 
 
 " Dear me. Gentlemen, I'm really very happy. So kind 
 of you, Mr. Staggers. I hope I see you quite well, Mr. 
 Boynton. You were very good to come before leaving 
 town, Mr. Eliot, and town so dull just now." 
 
 "Oh, dreadful!" piped Zerlina Yon Donk, in a high 
 monotone, without the slightest trace of modulation, " 'taint 
 gay a bit now !" 
 
 "And all our set out of town," chorused Yioletta, in 
 precisely the same voice, and with startling rapidity, 
 " you'll see no life at all, Mr. Eliot, till you get to New- 
 port !" 
 
 " I'm sure I find New York very interesting," said 
 Eliot, through the confusion of salutations and finding of 
 seats. 
 
 " Pretty pattern, ain't it, Mr. Staggers ?" continued Mrs. 
 General, who, to the amusement of Eliot, exhibited no 
 more surprise than that gentleman did embarrassment 
 at being caught in the act of examining and appraising her 
 carpet. " I do take great pride in my house," proceeded 
 she, gracefully receiving the broker's enthusiastic acquies- 
 cence. " If it wasn't for servants, I should have nothing to 
 ask for. They are so troublesome, and do you know they 
 get worse and worse every year." 
 
 " Mr. Boynton doesn't know such troubles," cried Zerlina, 
 gazing at the young planter with a mixture of envy and 
 awe, "he has the same servants always, and they have 
 to be respectful and obedient." 
 
 "But they need so much care and watching. Miss Yon 
 Donk," said Boynton, " I doubt you would save trouble, 
 could you make the exchange."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 83 
 
 "But you have foreign servants, I hear," remarked Eliot 
 to the elder ladj. 
 
 " Oh certainly, some of them. We have a French cook, 
 and the girls have a French maid, and we've a Scotch 
 coachman, and an English footman, but for housemaids 
 (who give the most trouble always), we must have these 
 low Irish ; — and they're such a dreadful nuisance. Such 
 silks and feathers and gold watches as they wear ; — and 
 getting more impudent and neglectful and independent 
 every year." 
 
 " I'm glad you like NewYork," squealed Yioletta ; " of 
 course it aint o.nteek like London, nor commy-fo like Paris, 
 but it has beauties of its own. You must see the Fifth 
 Avenue Hotel, and the Academy, and the Central Park, 
 and the High Bridge, and — " 
 
 " La, Yioletta," interrupted her sister, " Mr. Eliot doesn't 
 want to see such things. He comes to see Niagara, and the 
 Mississippi, and the Natural Bridge, and most of all, our 
 best society." 
 
 " And where's General Yon Donk, ma'am," inquired 
 Mr. Staggers, with affectionate interest, " haint he come up 
 yet from down town ?" 
 
 " Oh dear, yes. He'll be here in a minute. He's got 
 somebody in the library. Some political business." 
 
 Mr. Staggers looked intensely sly, and proceeded, 
 " Guess he'll run, won't he ?" 
 
 "Really I don't know," replied Mrs. General. " It cost 
 him twenty thousand, year before last; expenses, you 
 know, for Pythagoras Hall. You know Pythagoras Hall, 
 of course, Mr. Eliot?" 
 
 Mr. Eliot hadn't the honor — had never heard of him, in 
 fact. 
 
 Mr. Staggers explained that this was the popular but 
 accidental designation of a certain political organization. 
 
 "Well." continued Mrs. General, "he don't like to 
 spend money pretty well, but they're trying hard to get 
 him into it again, I reckon. Mr. Kole says he's the man of 
 the people, and made a speech last week in which he referred
 
 84 daxgerfield's rest; or 
 
 to * a high office in the gift of a grateful people, awaiting 
 the acceptance of that incorruptible patriot and high-toned 
 gentleman, P. Von Donk.' But the General says they are 
 rather heavy on him, whatever that may mean." 
 
 " P. Von Donk's the man for my money," cried the 
 Broker, with great enthusiasm, " You know, ma'am," 
 added he in a confidential manner, " that office's wuth 
 more'n two to one what it was year before last, and that 
 makes a heap of difference." 
 
 "I presume," ventured Eliot, "that you manage elec- 
 tions very much as we do in England ?" 
 
 " Pooty much, sir, pooty much — exceptin' always, we 
 don't exclude the hand of honest toil from its share in 
 governin' ! All vote alike unless it's niggers, which 
 is different, I take it, from all them ere rotten old aris- 
 tocracies of Europe — no offence to you., Mr. Eliot." 
 
 " Oh, none in the least," said Eliot, highly delighted and 
 edified. " I think all such experiments have their value, 
 and if yours is successful after a fair trial, I've no doubt 
 we shall ultimately copy it." 
 
 " Dear me, I hope not," ejaculated Zerlina. " Your Queen, 
 and Lords, and Commons, and all are so nice — everything 
 so settled, and orderly, and genteel. Gossamer says our 
 system is fearfully low, and that all political power is 
 falling into the hands of the very dregs of society." 
 
 " For shame, Zerlina," interposed Mrs. General. " Your 
 brother knows nothing about it. He only says that be- 
 cause De Talbot Jones says so all the time at the Club, 
 and Gossy thinks it's fine and distongayT 
 
 " Well, I don't know, ma," persisted Zerlina, " I don't 
 see what great honor there is in being an office-holder, 
 when such people get in as there are now. There's our 
 butcher running for Alderman of this Ward, and there's 
 McSqueeze who cheated his nieces out of their property, 
 and set his shop on fire to get the Insurance, he's in 
 the Common Council, and there's that Mayhem who bit 
 a man's nose oflf, and only came out of the Penitentiary 
 last year, he's nominated for Supervisor — "
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 85 
 
 " Spots on tlie sun, Miss Zerlina," interrupted Staggers, 
 " spots on the sun, which only shows off more bright and 
 refulgent the glory of our democratic institootions." 
 
 This novel illustration, delivered with a glibness which 
 suggested frequent use. served as a cue for the entrance of 
 General Von Donk, who now presented himself, and came 
 forward to greet his visitors. The General was a short 
 thick man, with a red face, and an exaggerated cerebellum. 
 He spoke slowly, with no little pomp, and seemed to have 
 some trifle in his mouth which impeded his utterance. 
 
 " How are you, Mr. Staggers ? How are you, Elias P. ? 
 Mr. who ? Oh, Mr. Eliot — sir — your most obedient — very 
 glad I'm sure — company of all distinguished foreigners — 
 Mr. who? oh, Mr. Boynton — delighted — sunny South — 
 happy combination, eh ? Effete old despotism and land of 
 the Free and the home of the — " 
 
 "La, pa," said Mrs. General, coming to the rescue, " what 
 are you talking about ?" 
 
 The General wasn't quite sure. He was very glad to 
 see all the gentlemen. He fidgeted a little, bit his nails, 
 blew his nose, and finally subsided into a huge arm-chair 
 in a corner. Mrs. General glared at him with a severity 
 elicited by her conviction that, as was sometimes the case, 
 the General had been indulging rather too freely in cock- 
 tails. 
 
 " We're going to beat 'em hollow, sir," he declared ora- 
 cularly to Elias P. "We've got all the Irish vote — Lysan- 
 dy's got that in his pocket ; then we've got all the liquor- 
 dealers and policy-shops ; all the sporting men we have, of 
 course ; then the Crier and the Yahoo are comin' out 
 heavy on the cussed Abolitionists ; you'll like that, won't 
 you, Mr. Boynton ? then there's a lot of emigrant ships 
 due before the election — five or six thousand more, sure ; 
 altogether things have a very good look." 
 
 " That's the talk, General," said Elias P. ; " nothin' like 
 making your calculations well in advance." And the two 
 launched into a mysterious labyrinth of political slang 
 and mutual confidences, wherein the names of " Pythago-
 
 86 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 ras Hall," and " Lysander Kole," and the feasibility of 
 *' crushing the Niggerheads," and " conciliating Ilominy," 
 were unintelligibly mingled. 
 
 Eliot and Boynton, having exhausted their small talk 
 with the ladies, took their departure, after reiterating their 
 promise to present themselves at Newport during the 
 ensuing season, 
 
 " These men are of your political party, are they not ?" 
 asked Eliot, as they descended the steps. 
 
 "Yes; they are our allies," said the Southerner, with 
 something like a sigh. And the young men walked arm- 
 in-arm down the street. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IT is a law from whose operation we can no more escape 
 than can the people of less favored nations, that politi- 
 cal and social standards rise or fall in a community in 
 direct sympathy with the virtue and culture of its public 
 men. The proposition may of course be stated conversely 
 and be equally true. Measured by this standard, the peo- 
 ple of the United States have been steadily deteriorating 
 for the past quarter of a century. This is not a very agree- 
 able statement, but it is a true one, and the conclusion is 
 well found. Educated Americans may plead that the pub- 
 lic men of their country do not justly represent its better 
 classes, but in so doing they concede the truth of the argu- 
 ment ; for what is it but decline in virtue that can give 
 birth to the criminal supineness which furnishes the reason 
 why those classes are not represented, as is alleged ? Surely 
 the Fathers never intended the existing order of things. 
 Universal suffrage is philosophically reasonable only when 
 ALL classes of the community actively exercise the right 
 to vote, each class thus exerting a check ou the possible 
 excesses or vagaries of the others. But if, when a theore-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 87 
 
 tical universal suffrage exists, the great mass of the poor 
 and ignorant exert not their privilege, the pvitative demo- 
 cracy approaches an oligarchy, as is seen in the Southern 
 States. And if, in such a case, the great mass of the 
 wealthy and educated exert not their privilege, the puta- 
 tive democracy approaches a mobocracy, as is seen in the 
 Northern States, In point of fact, the abstinence in the 
 first hypothesis is compulsory, and therefore innocent ; but 
 in the second it is voluntary, and therefore criminal. Re- 
 sults have verified that the tendency in the former case is 
 to thrust into power despots ; in the latter, demagogues. 
 They have also shown that such apparently antagonistic 
 elements can assimilate for interested purposes — the dema- 
 gogues agreeing to perpetuate despotism so long as they 
 can share in its profits ; the despots agreeing to perpetuate 
 mobocracy, so long as they can purchase its suffrage. Both 
 have been going further and further away from a true Demo- 
 cracy, but in opposite directions. By and by, with in- 
 creasing and overwhelming pressure, the venal links which 
 have united them will fly asunder with a mighty crash — 
 and then will come the storm. 
 
 Those who have power, however obtained, will use it to 
 put in high places men like themselves. The low and 
 ignorant hate polish and cultivation ; the wicked and 
 unscrupulous detest the virtuous and conscientious. Re- 
 membering this, how can Americans expect to be well 
 served or honored by their public men, when the power of 
 the low and ignorant, the wicked and unscrupulous, has 
 been yearly on the increase 'I How can they look to be 
 respected abroad when governed at home by those who 
 have neither the virtue to do right, nor the education to 
 know how, even if so disposed ? There are, to be sure, 
 noble exceptions. There have been many men of the 
 South with culture and no virtue ; there have been many 
 men of the North of virtue and no culture. Each have 
 sown abundant mischief for their country to reap in the 
 future. There have also been men, both North and South, 
 who have been so unfortunate as to exhibit in an eminent
 
 88 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 degree both these great qualities of character and educa- 
 tion ; and as soon as the exhibition has produced convic- 
 tion, their grateful countrymen have quickly taken the 
 alarm and swept them into political oblivion. 
 
 To such a height has this proscription of merit attained, 
 that clever men, ambitious of office, have been known to 
 go about pretending to be numskulls, that they might 
 establish a fraternal claim on the constituency they sought 
 to propitiate. The mob will only forgive ability on condi- 
 tion that a leaven of unquestionable turpitude be associated 
 with it. They can only excuse probity when the intellec- 
 tual dulness of its possessor has been satisfactorily esta- 
 blished. The fate of the candidate who, not to be para- 
 doxical, is so injudicious as to be both good and wise, can 
 safely be predicted in advance. 
 
 The offices in the gift of a great and free people ought 
 surely to be the highest objects of ambition to its most 
 intellectual and upright citizens, but with us what is the 
 fact ? Is it not notorious that the standards of qualifica- 
 tion for every political position, from President to Excise- 
 man, are becoming constantly lower and more contempti- 
 ble? Is it not true that ignorant, brutalized, nay, often 
 undeniably wicked men, clamber to high places now, whom 
 public opinion twenty years ago would not for a moment 
 have tolerated in low ones ? Can it be denied that this 
 political degeneracy has steadily induced social degeneracy, 
 so that merit, virtue, character, count for nothing in the 
 balance against mere unworthy success? Can it not be 
 demonstrated that the vilest, the most slavish form of dol- 
 lar-worship, the most vulgar and contemptible ostracism of 
 education and intellect, never so nearly approached the 
 lowest depths of which they are capable as they do among 
 us to-day ? 
 
 And yet all these gross evils of Sans culottes rulers, 
 money-idolatry, hate and contempt for brain, perversion 
 of the noble theory of democracy to a tyranny of the few 
 in the South, and a tyranny of the many in the North,— 
 all this bragging and inflation and telling of fantastical
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, 89 
 
 lies, — all this shallow, shopkeeping, conceited manner of 
 viewing life and its obligations, — all this pander-like truck- 
 ling and compounding with a huge national crime by men 
 chronically hoarse with shouting as their first maxim, " all 
 men are born free and equal," — all these and more nauseat- 
 ing excrescences have sprung from roots as pure as snow, 
 — from motives as catholic and generous as ever actuated 
 human intelligence. " All things the worst are corrup- 
 tions from things originally designed as best." 
 
 America, with noble and lofty liberality, opened her pro- 
 tecting arms to the oppressed, the downtrodden, the misera- 
 ble of all the nations of the earth. She went further, and 
 offered them freely all the privileges, all the birthrights of 
 her own sons, born and nursed in her bosom. This was 
 magnanimous, but it was not therefore wise. She should 
 have educated before she enfranchised, and the exile re- 
 quired more^ not less, enlightenment, than the child who had 
 breathed the life-long atmosphere of freedom. The moral 
 and political Caspar Hausers should not have been ex- 
 pected to do credit to themselves or their hosts by entering 
 the arena with athletes before the cramps and prejudices 
 and superstitions of their previous lives had been corrected 
 by the graduated invigoration of the gymnasium. The 
 process is baneful to themselves as well as to those with 
 whom they commingle. The clearness of their perceptions 
 is blunted, among other evils, by the enjoyment of a bless- 
 ing they have done nothing to earn. Question them on 
 that point to-day, and they will arrogantly claim as a right 
 incontestable, that which is only theirs by generous, if 
 injudicious, concession. America has made the mistake 
 of a too indulgent parent. She has bestowed the reward 
 which properly waits on toil and discipline without exact- 
 ing those preliminaries. She has enfranchised before she 
 has educated, and the tardy remedy is education, large and 
 universal, but given in the inverse order. The suffrage 
 should be contracted, and, simultaneously, the schools 
 should be expanded ; the first need only last for a space, 
 but the second should last for all time.
 
 90 dangerfield's rest; or, 
 
 Even the toleration of that darker Wrong which has so 
 impeded Progress can trace its being back to motives com- 
 mendable and " designed as best." One who hates it with 
 a bitter and loyal hatred has said, — and his saying deserves 
 respect as that of a man who has breasted all but singly 
 a perfect hurricane of obloquy in his adherence to a just 
 cause, — " To oppose England it was necessary to be Uni- 
 ted ; and to be United it was necessary to tolerate Slavery." 
 This was indubitably true, and may now be more readily 
 accepted in view of the fact that, happily, to be United it 
 is not necessary to tolerate Slavery any more than to oppose 
 England — so far as the great sections are concerned — it 
 w^ould be necessary to be United. But the Wrong should 
 vanish with the necessity which palliated it. 
 
 The panaceas for our evils, social and political, are Edu- 
 cation and Liberty — and they should be administered in 
 their natural consecution. We are on the right path, 
 but we might almost as well be on the wrong one if we 
 either go too fast or walk backwards. Either is opposed 
 to true Progress, and it is high time to take special pains 
 to avoid both if we would not stumble into anarchy. We 
 walk backwards when we legislate for the extension of 
 Slavery, we go too fast when we confide the Suffrage to 
 the ignorant and undeserving. Nor will this noble country 
 achieve its destiny in greatness or in culture until the be- 
 littling scheme for innumerable petty sovereignties each 
 sufficient in and to itself, and each independent of all others, 
 be practically abandoned ; a scheme which tends to the 
 establishment of the civilization and manners, as it copies 
 the political system of the aboriginal savages who preceded 
 us in possession of the soil. The pillars are necessary to 
 support the roof and crown of the edifice, but without it 
 neither of them could stand alone. To isolate any of 
 their number is to overthrow the whole. Let Americans 
 take heed that they jealously guard and preserve their 
 beautiful and symmetrical Temple — the precious legacy 
 erected by their ancestors at such bitter cost of blood and 
 travail. Let them take heed that the mad phrensy of am-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 91 
 
 bitious oligarchs and the combined efforts of wily and 
 ignorant foreigners shall be crushed alike by inflexible 
 patriotism. So shall the home of Liberty be preserved for 
 the generations to come, and posterity be spared the sad 
 spectacle of our children's children wandering disconsolate 
 among its broken arches and its fallen columns. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 UNDER a spreading elm with a fine old house a hundred 
 yards to their right, and the broad Hudson silvering 
 away seaward far below on their left, sat a party whom 
 either the eye or the ear of an observer would have told 
 him were supremely happy. Three lovely girls — who, but 
 for the childish form of the younger, might have shamed 
 the choicest ideal of the Graces — formed a group of uncon- 
 scious beauty, the effect of which was heightened by the 
 heaps of flowers which filled the laps of the elder, and 
 from which they had crowned the glossy head of their 
 little protegee between them. So thought Oliver Vernon, 
 who had approached unobserved, and who stood a few 
 paces off, leaning on his staff, and listening to the musical 
 laughter which pealed from the rosy lips before him. A 
 short space behind, again, stood a man of about fifty years 
 of age, whose spare, sinewy form, long features, and kindly 
 twinkling grey eyes, told plainly that their owner had 
 sprung from the land of the Puritans. 
 
 A genuine New Englander was David Greenwood. 
 Shrewd, industrious, and sententious, he came of people 
 who tilled the soil, worshipped God, and spoke their native 
 tongue after the fashion of their fathers. His steadfast 
 integrity had, years gone by, recommended him to the 
 confidence of Vernon, and he had long filled a position 
 such as a steward occupies in old-fashioned families in 
 England. It was even one of greater trust and respon-
 
 92 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 sibility, for his attaclimeiit to the family and to the interests 
 of its head had been so proved and tried, that most matters 
 were left to his untrammelled discretion, and his authority 
 at Uplands was only second to that of Vernon liimself 
 Between this personage and Aunt Mercy, who had super- 
 vised the household affairs since the early death of Mrs. 
 Vernon, and who was the only inmate who ever ventured 
 to dispute David's supremacy, there had existed for many 
 years a solemn flirtation which every now and then 
 threatened to arrive at a climax, and then subsided into the 
 old routine again. The worthy couple appeared to imagine 
 that they were destined to live forever, and that there was. 
 " time enough" always to take a step which should only be 
 contemplated with extreme gravity and deliberation. " It's 
 darned easy," reasoned our calculating Eomeo, " it's darned 
 easy runnin' your head into a noose, but it ain't so slick 
 haulin' of it out again." So time rolled on, and Aunt 
 Mercy and Uncle Dave were still in a state of single 
 blessedness. 
 
 "Oh, papa!" cried Grace, catching sight of the intru- 
 ders, " how is poor Gerty ? And what does Dr. Saunders 
 say of her ?" 
 
 Vernoh shook his head. "Her bodily health will soon 
 be restored, he thinks — the mental is still dubious. Her 
 head is no clearer than it was on the day she was taken 
 from the wreck — perhaps may never be." 
 
 The child's eyes filled with tears, and she took the 
 wreath gently from her head. " I don't want to wear 
 flowers if Gerty is never to get well," she murmured as if 
 in the way of apology. 
 
 Vernon raised her in his arms and kissed her affec- 
 tionately. " You mustn't fret about that. Darling, since 
 'tis God's will. Gerty doesn't suffer pain. If she had not 
 made the sacrifices she did, you might not now be alive 
 and with us. Docs Ally want me to find her papa?" 
 
 The child looked at him wistfully, and put her arras 
 about his neck. 
 
 " I'd rather stay with you — and sister Grace — and sister
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM. 93 
 
 Nelly." For she had been taught to use the endearing 
 appellation. 
 
 " You havn't heard any thing, papa ?" asked Grace, 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Nothing more than I knew before, my child. As to 
 whom the little girl belongs, I entertain no doubt ; — bul 
 much as to the policy of restoring her. Conflicting claims 
 may arise — and until these are adjusted, at least, it may be 
 better for all concerned that she remains with us." 
 
 " Can't I stay always ?" asked Ally pleadingly. " I 
 can't go back to Aunty now, for she's got some new little 
 girls — and I don't want to go to a papa I never saw — and 
 Gerty's crazy, and I must stay with her." 
 
 " Indeed, dear, you shall not leave us if I can prevent 
 it," said Vernon, gently. 
 
 " But you can prevent it — you are a man, and rich, and 
 strong, and you own all the land about here, and nobody 
 can take me away unless you like." 
 
 " Suppose sister Grace had been lost, and a gentleman 
 had found and taken charge of her, shouldn't I have the 
 right to go and take her when I found out where she 
 was ?" 
 
 " Oh ! but you wouldn't if she wanted ever so much to 
 stay where she was, and they wanted her to stay too." 
 
 " But all people are not so good and kind as papa," sug- 
 gested Grace, coming to Yernon's relief, " and might not 
 be so generous, you know." 
 
 " That's why I want to stay with him," said the child 
 simply. 
 
 "And so you shall," cried the warm-hearted girl impul- 
 sively, " and as long as you please, and I don't care who 
 tries to prevent it;" and away she ran over the turf, the 
 tiny philosopher scampering hand-in-hand by her side. 
 
 Elinor rose and stood by Yernon's side, and then the 
 two, as if by previous concert, walked slowly towards the 
 cliff. 
 
 " You have verified what we suspected ?" she inquired, 
 in a low voice.
 
 94: dakgerfield's rest; or 
 
 " I have. The inquiry was immediately successful. I 
 got the reply since breakfast. It is here," and he placed a 
 letter in her hands, which she, after asking leave with a 
 mute sign, put in a pocket of her dress. They walked on 
 in silence for a while, when Elinor again spoke : 
 
 " Where is she now ?" 
 
 " In New York. It is best I should see her myself — 
 after taking legal advice, of course. I shall go to town for 
 the purpose to-morrow." 
 
 Another pause, lasting for a few moments, and again 
 broken by Elinor: — 
 
 " Do you think it best that I should also go ?" 
 
 " Under existing circumstances, I should say decidedly 
 not ; certainly not before I ascertain the condition of 
 things." 
 
 " You do not intend resigning the child into her cus- 
 tody?" 
 
 " Not willingly, certainly. The case is a very difficult 
 one. Legally speaking, hers would be, I believe, the best 
 claim. The little one has been in the charge, and practi- 
 cally under the control, of her father. You know how 
 unscrupulous he is ; should we give her up, he may give 
 us serious trouble." 
 
 " He is not in the country." 
 
 " He has returned during our absence, and is now in 
 New York." 
 
 Elinor mused for a few moments, and when she spoke 
 her voice was full of disquietude. 
 
 " Are we never to see the end of that terrible business ?" 
 
 Yernon took her hand with an affectionate smile. 
 
 " My dear girl, none of us escape afflictions in some form 
 or another. Let us thank Heaven yours have arisen from 
 no fault of 3'-our own. There is no need to revive the sad 
 story of the past. I shall do my utmost to induce both 
 parties to leave the child in my charge as an easy and judi- 
 cious compromise. The mother has sense and discretion 
 enough to perceive the advantage to Ally herself in such an 
 arrangement ; the father — whose protection to my mind is
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 95 
 
 even less desirable — is selfish enough to be willing to 
 escape responsibility if assured that his daughter's future 
 is not to be associated with that of her mother." 
 
 " You do not think he will molest " 
 
 " He can have no motive for doing so. Bad as the man 
 is, he is not a person to give himself trouble unless he sees 
 some immediate advantage to be derived from it. Besides, 
 his past life has been so equivocal that he will be cautious 
 about provoking new enemies." 
 
 Elinor sighed and proceeded : 
 
 " I cannot help feeling guilty at times, surrounded as 1 
 am by friends and comfort — feeling as if I were leaving 
 duty unfulfilled, in not at least attempting to reclaim, to 
 restore " 
 
 " I am sure you will do me the credit to believe I have 
 thought of that much and seriously," said Oliver Vernon, 
 mildly ; " my conclusion is, as it has been, that, in attempt- 
 ing what is natural and filial to contemplate, you would 
 but mar your own life, and impair its prospects of useful- 
 ness as well as happiness, without mending or strengthen- 
 ing that of another. That is a work in the hands of 
 a Higher Power, and one which will be effected in His 
 good season. But, independently of such considerations, 
 you should remember the dying injunctions of your 
 father." 
 
 " I do — I do — and not least the one which enjoined me to 
 be guided by your wishes and counsel as his chosen suc- 
 cessor." And she kissed affectionately the hand which was 
 clasped in her own. 
 
 "Very well, then; both my wishes and my counsel just 
 now are that you should think of this unhappy subject as 
 little as possible," said Vernon cheerfully. "I mustn't 
 have my pretty Nelly moping herself to a shadow, and 
 getting circles about her bright eyes, because of griefs 
 which cannot be remedied, and which she had no hand in 
 causing. Moreover, I shall give her over into the hands 
 of Dr. Saunders, unless she agrees to accept my regimen." 
 
 " Which is "
 
 96 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Plenty of open cair, plenty of exercise in the saddle, 
 and a course of Charles Kingsley's novels !" 
 
 " And we too, papa," cried merry Grace, dancing up. 
 " Are not Ally and I to share in these luxuries ?" 
 
 " Surely — as fast as you can use and profit by them. 
 "Worthy David here says that Dapple and Lily are as glad 
 to see you back as he is, and that they sadly need exercise 
 — and the Shetland pony will do capitally for Ally." 
 
 The child's eyes grew brighter and larger at the sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 " I have been on a pony before," said she, " on aunty's 
 plantation ; and I'm not a bit afraid." 
 
 " That's a darling. Nobody here is afraid of horses or 
 dogs. "We are fond of them all, and kind to them, and so 
 they are kind to us. You've been very lucky, Davy, with 
 the stock — not a loss or an accident in the whole year and 
 a half!" 
 
 " "Well, sir, we've been pooty kearful," said David Green- 
 wood, with his shrewd and good-natured smile; "we've 
 been pooty kearful, and then agin we've been pooty lucky. 
 Them ere Durrums don't stand the winter quite as well as 
 the native critters, which is nateral enough. They have to 
 kinder git used to't. But the heifers and steei's as comes 
 from the cross is beautiful and hearty as so many bucks." 
 
 " And the people have all got on nicely and amicably 
 together ?" 
 
 " Sartain. They have their little fidgets and squabbles 
 sometimes, but never nuthin' to hurt. Jim and his wife's 
 been, maybe, a little slack now and then, 'bout keepin' 
 things slick and reg'lar at the big house ; but Aunt Massy 
 she's got among 'em now ; she's a rarin' and drivin' about, 
 and she'll have the hull thing in apple-pie order in no 
 time." 
 
 " Do you think Aunt Mercy improved by her travels ?" 
 asked Grace, her eyes dancing mischievously. 
 
 ""Well, Miss Grace, I thought at first she was altered some. 
 She seemed to be sorter airy, and puttin' on furrin ways. 
 Our folks don't like them kind o' ways. But I guess 'twas
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 97 
 
 only at first, feelin' a bit strange to get back — I guess 
 she's the same old sixpence. She's a stunner to drive 
 reound." 
 
 And David relapsed into the profound consideration 
 which usually followed the direction of his thoughts toward 
 the person and merits of Aunt Mercy. His companions 
 were admiring the magnificent panorama which had for 
 years constituted one of their every-day enjoyments, but 
 which, since their return, appeared to their appreciative 
 eyes lovelier than ever before. 
 
 " How very beautiful it is," said Elinor, musingly. 
 " Strange there should seem to be so many new attractions 
 about what we have scanned so often and so closely be- 
 fore." 
 
 "'Tis one of the advantages of travel," remarked Yer- 
 non. " The view remains precisely the same, but your 
 own critical and comparative faculties are more highly 
 developed, so that you see more than you were able to see 
 before." 
 
 " After all, papa," said Grace, " in all our ramblings, we 
 have seen nothing more glorious of its kind than this 
 stretch from the Palisades to the Narrows. If, as you 
 say, the highest beauty is the highest use, the harbor itself 
 is beautiful — but its surroundings, in variety, in coloring, 
 in general effect appear to me quite unrivalled." 
 
 " And so I believe they are, — although the claims of 
 Naples, of Eio de Janeiro, and of San Francisco, cannot 
 be ignored ; and I have heard stout partisans uphold those 
 of Sydney and of Port Royal. We have not, indeed, the 
 architectural elements which lend so much of reverence 
 and of picturesque effect to such a city as Edinburgh, or 
 such a river as the Rhine ; but the natural capacities are 
 nowise inferior to those of either or both." 
 
 " I have heard people argue against the wisdom of tra- 
 velling," remarked Elinor, " on the groun^^ of its produc- 
 ing discontent with things humble and inevitable at home ; 
 we can, at least, claim exemption from such a misfortune. 
 With us the rule clearly works the other way." 
 
 5
 
 98 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Much depends on the nature and education of the sub- 
 ject," responded Vernon. " A clown may be ruined and 
 debauched by the glitter and temptation of the unaccus- 
 tomed city, while a wise man will only see therein fresh 
 beacons to mark the channel of prudence, fresh reasons to 
 appreciate and enjoy with purer zest than before, the calm 
 and unexciting pleasures of his rural home. It is true that 
 some of our young men grow worse rather than better 
 from European tours, and come back greater fools than 
 they went : but on the whole the effect is a salutary one, 
 and I wish that every American who can possibly afford 
 it, would, once at least during life, cross the Atlantic. 
 What is greatly needed with us is the cultivation of criti- 
 cism and comparison. Our insular situation is not favor- 
 able to such culture, and attrition with the incoming foreign 
 element is rather injurious than otherwise, because that 
 element is, as a rule, drawn from the lowest social strata 
 of the old nations. Travel is necessary to obtain attrition 
 with the higher." 
 
 " Well, papa, whatever may be the philosophy of the 
 fact, I feel quite sure that I shall be happier than ever 
 for my trip to Europe — shan't you, my Pet ?" The 
 latter rather incoherent interrogatory was addressed to the 
 little girl, who, seeing acquiescence was expected, gave it 
 ungrudgingly. 
 
 " Most of my happiest, and some few of my saddest days 
 have been passed on this spot," said Oliver Vernon. "May 
 you all, my children, receive here a greater share of the 
 joy — a lesser than my share of the sorrow." 
 
 And their hearts beat a grateful response to the aspira- 
 tion, and even the shadow which had fallen over that of 
 Elinor was dissipated by the light and warmth of the good 
 man's love.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 99 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 1VTEWP0RT was, as Miss Zerlina Von Donk very hap- 
 J_\ pilj described it, " dreadful gay" that season. Almost 
 everybody was there. Almost everybody from legislators, 
 and lawyers, and merchants, to " butchers, and bakers, 
 and candlestick-makers." Sallow Southerners with large 
 diamonds, and Derringers in their trousers' pockets. Boston 
 traders with smug, conceited faces and priggish garments. 
 New York men of various degrees of consideration in the 
 wholesale dry goods, ' W. I.' goods, drug, and boot-and- 
 shoe line. Third-rate Italian singers — choristers and con- 
 fidantes at La Scala, but indubitably prima assoluias at our 
 " Academies." Western Congressmen with rustic airs and 
 indescribable habiliments. Gamblers from the great cities 
 laboring under the delusion common to their class, that 
 their dress and bearing made people take them for gentle- 
 men. Shopmen from various quarters, taking a holiday, 
 and sharing after their fashion in the hallucination of the 
 black-legs. Scores of overdressed peacock-voiced women, 
 bridling and shrieking, in halls, and carriages, and over 
 the sands. Brunettes from Louisiana, blondes from Mas- 
 sachusetts. Fresh and rosy girls from the country, worn 
 and pallid girls from the town. Then, besides the general 
 mass — chiefly found at the great hotels — there were many 
 very different people in villas and cottages which dot so 
 thickly the pretty winding roads and lanes extending along 
 the coast. There were many people of goodly estate — 
 some who had got over, a couple of generations back, the 
 aroma of wholesale dry goods, W. I. goods, drug, and 
 boot-and-shoe lines. Some with familiar names, descend- 
 ants of Revolutionary worthies. Some very large land- 
 owners of the North, some very large planters of the 
 South. You always see the names of the latter mixed up 
 with political life, those of the former seldom or never, A 
 few barristers of high repute, and who have made large 
 fortunes, are here with their families : - these men — per-
 
 100 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 haps the best thinkers the country at present can boast — 
 also refrain studiously, as a rule, from participation in pub- 
 lic life. Then there are some people whom it is common 
 to style as of good old families — the Deddingstones, the 
 Skuyduncks, and the Von Quoits — who have handsome 
 properties, and who pay very low taxes, and who have 
 nothing whatever to do, and who never dream by any 
 chance that they owe any sort of duty to their common 
 country, either in a legislative way, or in that of serving 
 the cause of national literature or art. 
 
 There are, besides, some notabilities of unquestioned 
 distinction. Our friends the Von Donks, of course, make 
 a sensation wherever they go. Gossamer is very fast, and 
 very free with his money, and the girls are pretty, and will 
 have very good fortunes. Moreover, Mrs. General ivill 
 have a very flashy equipage, which makes people turn 
 round always, and inquire whose it is. The General has 
 "political influence," and a vast number of corner lots and 
 brown-stone houses, so that his individual pomp and cir- 
 cumstance augment the prestige of the family group. Just 
 at present he is making a feeble effort to get quite sober 
 against election time. Then there is Bobbinet, the great 
 merchant, who has established almost a monopoly in lace 
 and kid gloves, and who built the magnificent marble shop 
 in Broadway, which looks like a Brobdignagian shoe-box 
 painted white and interlined. Also, the great Spinner, 
 proprietor of the Chambermaid^ s Gazette, with his fast 
 " team" Bopeep and Rat-trap. Slymer has also arrived, in 
 high feather over the publication of a sensation article 
 about himself in the Grier, which represented him as 
 "shaking the thrones of Europe" by some inexplicable 
 process, which, for some equally inexplicable reason, it was 
 the practice of that singular print to attribute to his, 
 Slymer's, " diplomatic" accomplishments. A further an- 
 nouncement under the head of "personal movements" to 
 the effect that " H. Slymer, Esq., Bearer of Despatches 
 from the Court of St. James, had arrived at the St. Germain 
 Hotel," filled his cup of bliss to overflowing, and he
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 101 
 
 tripped away afterward from Washington to the sea-side as 
 happy as the day is long. Sprigg, also, is of the company, 
 trying to look European, and racking his invention to the 
 last agony to keep up the interest of his daily letters to the 
 singular print aforesaid. 
 
 Here, also, are to be seen the Jefferson Bunts, who made a 
 great sensation in Paris the year before last. Miss Henrietta 
 Jefferson Bunt married a real Baron — the Baron De Vieux 
 Fromage — and the family have held their heads very high 
 ever since. They have a gaudy turn-out, with an over- 
 whelming hammer-cloth, a coronet on the panels, and foot- 
 men in gorgeous liveries ; altogether an aftair which made 
 Mrs. General, on its first advent, turn quite green with 
 envy. They tried powder on the coachman when they first 
 came back, but it wouldn't quite do. The founder of this 
 distinguished family, T. Jefferson Bunt, Esq., realized 
 heavily in pork some twenty years ago, out West, but no 
 one knew the extent of his acquisitions until within a very 
 short time back, when the Bunts burst like a meteor upon 
 the starry firmament of wealth and fashion, and have 
 maintained a high pitch of refulgence ever since. 
 
 To add to the assemblage of celebrities, we may see, 
 among others, Darius Graball, Esq., the great contractor 
 and speculator, who has made himself a millionaire^ not by 
 swindling individuals, who feel their losses keenly and 
 have long memories, but by swindling the public, which 
 feels its losses lightly, and has no memory at all. As a 
 reward for transactions which, morally speaking, should 
 have consigned him to the Penitentiary, this adroit person 
 is highly esteemed and respected as a "bold operator" — a 
 first rate " business man," His boorish manners and gross 
 ignorance are quite lost sight of in the halo of glory which 
 surrounds his financial success ; and, in spite of a turpitude 
 which no ingenuity could deny or explain away, the admi- 
 ration for that success is such that the man could, if he 
 chose, be elected to almost any high office. 
 
 Such were a few among the many conspicuous or much- 
 talked-of people, who were driving, flirting, bathing, sail-
 
 102 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 ing, and fishing amid tbo glorious breezes and the charming 
 scenery of tliis the principal American watering-place. A 
 week had passed since their arrival, and although both 
 Cuthbert Boynton and Eobert Eliot had reasons for being 
 elsewhere, yet the novelty of their surroundings, added to 
 the hospitable persuasions of the Von Donks, had pre- 
 vailed upon them to remain a day or two longer. The 
 young Englishman, indeed, found a great deal to amuse 
 him in the motley society and contrasted habits of life and 
 thought which environed him. The curious difference 
 between the sea-side lodgings of England, where people go 
 to enjoy privacy, and the many-storied barrack of Ameri- 
 can shores, where people go to enjoy publicity, naturally 
 attracted his attention. Nor did he fait' to remark the dis- 
 crepancies in dress and speech which are incident to per- 
 sons brought together from homes thousands of miles 
 apart, albeit of the same nation. He observed particularly 
 the great number of visitors from the Southern States, and 
 expressed to his companion the opinion that bringing toge- 
 ther the different sections, year afler year, as it were in 
 informal Congress, should prove beneficial as making the 
 sojourners more conversant with each other's feelings and 
 tastes, and as thus tending to knit more closely the frater- 
 nal relations which, in the common interest, should be fos- 
 tered and strengthened. To his surprise, Cuthbert Boyn- 
 ton dissented. 
 
 "As regards the South," said he, while they strolled 
 through the long corridors of the Ocean House, " such 
 might formerly have been the case, but not since the great 
 increase of Abolitionism. Our best people, for example, 
 who once found in the peculiarities of the New Englander 
 only subjects of good-natured amusement, now encounter 
 them with disgust and aversion. They have learned by a 
 gradual and natural process to associate the idea of uncouth- 
 ness in speech and manner with that of the dishonesty 
 which seeks to rob them of their rights." 
 
 "But surely," said Eliot, "Abolitionists, as a rule, are 
 not uneducated persons I"
 
 BEFOEE THE STORM. 103 
 
 " Probably not. But we find them to be, generally 
 speaking, very narrow and prejudiced ones. They are not, 
 at all events, people who pay much attention to the graces 
 of life — the petiis soins of social intercourse. Those with 
 whom the particular prejudice is most intensified readily 
 fall into a vein of vituperation and abuse, which is directed 
 against all who happen to disagree with them. Educated 
 Southerners regard them as vulgar, therefore, as well as 
 illogical." 
 
 " How illogical ? You will not, assuredly, maintain that 
 people may not consider Slavery to be wrong without 
 being illogical ?" 
 
 " No, truly — but the mode of putting the case may be, 
 * and in this instance is, excessively so. Thus the Aboli- 
 tionists stigmatize contemporaneous Slaveholders precisely 
 as if the latter had personally originated and introduced 
 the system. They attack we, for example, as the guilty 
 party in bringing about a state of affairs which existed 
 before I was born, which I had no hand in promoting, and 
 which, individually, I can have no power to prevent or to 
 change. Such a position is neither reasonable nor gentle- 
 manly ; and it is this double conviction, independent of a 
 natural objection to be shorn of their wealth and strength, 
 which so constantly embitters Southerners against the fana- 
 tics of the North." 
 
 "But still, looking at the matter dispassionately, there 
 can be no resource save agitation for a party which, right- 
 ly or wrongly, considers a great evil to exist, and which 
 has no share whatever in the Government ; and, I am told, 
 your party has had practical control of the Grovernment 
 for a great many years — certainly since a period anterior to 
 the rise of the Anti-Slavery movement." 
 
 " Ah ! now you come, after all, to the gist of our com- 
 plaint. The South holds that, if the Abolitionists were in 
 power to-morrow, they would have no right whatever to 
 interfere with Slavery. The terms of the Constitution pre- 
 clude such a right. The question is one reserved absolute- 
 Jy.to the jurisdiction of the individual States themselves.
 
 104 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 The South therefore maintains that there can be no reason 
 or propriety in agitation which points to a course of action 
 which the agitators, if in office, could not legally adopt. 
 It perceives, however, that if so elevated, their principles 
 ancl their professions would compel them to attempt such 
 a course." 
 
 " In which event — " 
 
 "In which event it sees buf one remedy — the repu- 
 diation, or rather the dissolution of the Federal copartner- 
 ship, and the establishment of a separate Southern Gov- 
 ernment. There are extremists of both sections who aim 
 at exactly that result, both of whom hope to become more 
 prominent and more powerful by bringing it about. The 
 moderates of both sections desire, on the other hand, an 
 amicable adjustment of differences in the interest of a 
 permanent Union." 
 
 " But how can such an adjustment be brought about, if 
 you insist, as one of its terms, upon the absolute cessation of 
 the Slavery discussion ? This, as it appears to me, is what 
 the South would primarily and chiefly demand, and what 
 the North, however disposed, would find it quite impos- 
 sible to assure." 
 
 " By a general and genuine determination, on both sides 
 if you will, to view the matter in a larger and more liberal 
 spirit. By the North being brought to perceive and 
 acknowledge the unfairness of insisting on a subversive 
 process wherein one side is to claim all the merit of a noble 
 and progressive revolution, and the other to suffer all its 
 humiliation and its sacrifice. Wherein the first loses 
 nothing, the second practically everything, because, through 
 the accident, by no merit and no crime of their own, they 
 happen to be born in this or that section. If Slavery is to 
 be abolished, I think the whole country, and not a part of 
 it, should bear the burden of carrying out the change. 
 When the North shows a spirit of willingness to submit 
 itself to sacrifices, the world will be in a better position 
 to credit its sincerity. The South, on the other hand, 
 should discard the stupid and retrograde dream of establish-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 105 
 
 ing an Empire on a basis of Slavery — should exhibit a 
 disposition to accede to the inevitable nature of things 
 as developed by the progress of the age. If the two sec- 
 tions could experience these changes in feeling and opinion, 
 I believe a gradual ameliorative plan of emancipation could 
 be carried into effect, to be compensated by the resources 
 of the entire nation in due course of time," 
 
 " And would the South accede to such an arrangement?" 
 " All the moderates would, and they constitute the great 
 majority. But the longer an agitation continues which 
 tends to illegal, forcible, and sudden emancipation, and 
 which ignores a legal, compensated, and gradual policy, the 
 more difficult will it be to carry the latter into effect. 
 Hence I deprecate such agitation. The more because, 
 ultimately, whatever phases the dispute may pass through 
 — of possible secession, coercion, civil war, negro insur- 
 rection — it is precisely the legal, compensated, and gradual 
 policy which will have to be adopted at last." 
 
 Eliot thought such a prospective solution would be 
 eminently distasteful to most of Boynton's northern allies 
 of foreign birth — such as McSwindle and his tribe, and he 
 said as much. 
 
 " Of course," replied the Southerner, laughing, " we have 
 been compelled to use such tools as came to our hands. 
 Our immigrant friends could not be got to comprehend 
 (or to care a straw for it if they did), the idea of according 
 us abstract justice in our distant isolation. But they could 
 understand that an influx of blacks on the northern labor 
 market would reduce the price of their own day's work ; 
 and this is the idea which has been constantly and steadily 
 kept before their eyes." 
 
 " Do you think the apprehension ill-founded ?" ^ 
 
 "It is quite preposterous — but it hardly becomes me 
 to say so. The negro doesn't thrive in the North, and 
 could not possibly compete with white labor in any of 
 the present Free States. He loves the climate and soil 
 of the South, and to remove his chains would be to furnish 
 him with a last and conclusive motive for clinging to both. 
 
 5*
 
 106 dangerfield's rest : or 
 
 As it is, more free blacks stay voluntarily in the South than 
 come voluntarily to the North. Setting aside the immense 
 unpeopled territory of the West, which must, in the nature 
 of things, keep up the price of all labor — black or white, 
 foreign or native, for an indefinite time to come — the popu- 
 lar apprehension is a fallacious one. I should think an 
 exodus of Irishmen into the South far more likely in the 
 event of emancipation than one of negroes into the North." 
 
 " But why deceive, when the deception may ultimately 
 produce so much mischief?" 
 
 " The necessities of our situation, my dear fellow. We 
 have been growing weaker than the North — in a relative 
 sense — year by year, and have been forced to make up by 
 strategy what we lacked in strength. The vast European 
 immigration happily has furnished us with means — means 
 we have been ready enough to use, however we might de- 
 spise them. We have at least the apology that we were 
 struggling for self-preservation — a justifiable motive enough. 
 Our foreign instruments were actuated by the more ques- 
 tionable one of a despicable fear — half ignorance, half pre- 
 judice — lest their own selfish interest might possibly, at 
 some future time suffer detriment, unless they fought on 
 our side. They cherish, also, a certain rancorous hatred 
 for the blacks, whom they wish to see oppressed, for no 
 better reason than this jealousy, unless it be that they 
 claim their own race has been oppressed, and wish as few 
 as possible to be exempted. If the Irishman really believed^ 
 what we often claim, that the Negro is happier a slave than 
 he would be free, the Irishman would be at least half way 
 on the road to being an abolitionist. As to mischief as 
 consequent on these political intrigues and misconceptions, 
 I suppose we must go through the usual vicissitudes of 
 nations. So long as questions which arise are susceptible 
 of peaceful solution, and, in short, are of no momentous 
 consequence, the mischief from such a cause will be com- 
 paratively unimportant. When, by and by, they assume 
 a magnitude which affects the national life or threatens to 
 destroy its hopes of future greatness, — then, in my judg-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 107 
 
 ment, the time will have come for a change, temporary or 
 permanent, and then Americans will rule the country for 
 themselves." 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 THINGS were going on dully enough at Dangerfield's 
 Rest. Stephen's spirits had been sadly depressed since 
 his discovery touching his impaired prospects. He loved 
 the dear old place, every stick and stone of it. There was 
 no room or cranny in the venerable mansion, not a nook 
 or dingle in the far spreading lands, but that it was dear to 
 him for some cherished memory, some by -gone association 
 of his childhood. He had, moreover, a full share of the 
 traditional family pride, and his soul revolted at the 
 thought of the property passing away from his name. 
 Not that, so far as he knew, there was any immediate dan- 
 ger of such a casualty : but he dreaded to hear some fresh 
 intelligence which should involve the contingency hereafter. 
 He had lived thirty years without knowing, without even 
 suspecting, what had just been imparted to him. How 
 could he tell that his father, who had shown so much reti- 
 cence, did not carry about in his breast some other com- 
 promising secret which should come forth to the light when 
 least expected, to complete his ruin ? 
 
 Stephen cared little for money. He had never known 
 the want of it, and less generous natures than his own 
 become indifferent to golden charms under similar circum- 
 stances. But, for the same reason, he was utterly unskill- 
 ed in its accumulation. Suppose the worse that he dreaded 
 came to pass, how was he to provide for the future, — to say 
 nothing of the wish which would always be nearest his 
 heart — that of relieving his birth-place and home of the 
 weighty incubus which pressed upon it ? 
 
 Again : for the first time in his life, Stephen's heart was
 
 108 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 seriously entangled by the attractions of one of the oppo- 
 site sex. He had had flirtations innumerable. Few men 
 reach his age without them, especially when to the ordi- 
 nary inclinations of youth are added an unusual share of 
 manly beauty and the accepted certainty of a fine estate 
 But these affairs were invariably trifling and evanescent 
 pastimes rather than passions: for although his imagina 
 tion was perhaps relatively stronger than his intellect, he 
 had a fastidious and exacting taste, and would ever de- 
 tect in his latest idol some blemish or defect which speedily 
 disenchanted him. Not that his self-esteem was overween- 
 ing ; the belief was common and quite sincere in his mind 
 that any woman whom he could love well enough to marry, 
 lie was not good enough to have. Now it happened that, 
 while in the society of Grace Vernon, this old theory of his 
 had quite passed out of his thoughts, — and it only return- 
 ed when the facts he had learned brought the conviction, 
 that, in a worldly sense, and as related to her, it was uncom- 
 fortably true. The result was, that he felt himself becom- 
 ing more and more attached to the young lady every day. 
 He had promised to come to Uplands very soon after 
 his arrival. He knew that his father had visited there 
 years ago, and, as he supposed, for the same reason which 
 had led him to omit going into society elsewhere, those 
 visits had long since ceased. It was clear that Oliver Ver- 
 non had no unfriendly feelings toward Martin Dangerfield, 
 nor had Stephen ever heard his father express any such 
 toward the former. Hence there was no family reason 
 why acquaintance should not be renewed, and the young 
 man, with his newly awakened sentiments, had looked for- 
 ward to such a renewal with most pleasurable expectation. 
 Now, however, a qualification interposed productive of 
 some uneasiness. It is but right to say that Stephen had 
 some little — some very slight grounds — to hope that his 
 regard for Grace might be reciprocated. Would it be honor- 
 able, then, for him to subject her to the natural growth 
 and increase of such feelings which his presence might pro- 
 duce? To disguise his own admiration, Stephen began to
 
 BEFORE THE STORAI. 109 
 
 feel, would be quite impossible. The only solution of the 
 difficulty would obviously be that of absenting himself 
 altogether. 
 
 To such a course did he mentally commit himself, not 
 without many misgivings, and by dint of grave efforts at 
 self-control. He was clearly no match now for the daugh- 
 ter and sole heiress of the wealthy Oliver Vernon ; and 
 whatever the magnanimity of the father or the disinterest- 
 ed love of the child might prompt them to waive in his 
 favor, it was not the part of a Dangerfield to take advan- 
 tage of either. To the best of his present knowledge, he 
 would have no other resource than the small margin which 
 might exist between the heavy mortgage which encum- 
 bered it and the whole value of the paternal estate ; and he 
 was in doubt as to how far even that pittance might be 
 forestalled. 
 
 Stephen began to think of his father with a bitterness 
 which he never would have believed any mere worldly con- 
 sideration could have, engendered. He condemned the 
 wretched weakness of the old man's youth with a severity 
 proportioned to the misery he saw it bringing, after so 
 many years, upon himself. He felt as we all do when we 
 suffer from the follies of those who have gone before us, 
 and when we have not ourselves experienced from our own 
 darling vices the extremity of temptation before which 
 the}^ succumbed. He shrank now from asking any further 
 explanations as earnestly as he had sought them before. 
 The absolute silence which his father preserved, and the 
 expression of weary pain which was almost constantly 
 written upon his brow, Stephen accepted .as a conclusive 
 corroboration of the truth of Kirkwood's statement ; and 
 he supposed he should hear the unhappy details quite soon 
 enough without solicitation, when Martin Dangerfield was 
 ready to recite them. 
 
 In the meantime, Kirkwood enjoyed himself hugely. 
 He lounged about the premises, smoking many cigars and 
 drinking much wine, with a face as sunny and a heart as 
 light as the advantage of his position and the excellence of
 
 110 dangerfield's rest ; OR 
 
 bis digestion would allow. For the present, Stephen, the 
 only antagonist whom he feared, was powerless to assail or 
 even to annoy him. Circumstances had enabled him to 
 force his father into a position from whence he could not 
 retreat, and one in which he could prey upon his substance 
 in detail, as his needs or caprices might suggest. Kirk- 
 wood, therefore, abandoned himself with great gusto to the 
 animal enjoyments which were to him so delightful. He 
 rose late, breakfasted luxuriously, read the morning papers, 
 strolled about the garden walks, lolled at full length on 
 the grass, read novels, practised pistol-shooting — at which 
 he was marvellously skilful — dined heavily, and having 
 stultified himself with generous libations of old brandy, 
 betook himself again to refreshing slumbers. He had 
 essayed at first to condole with Stephen on the condition of 
 things ; hinted at offering him advice, and even more tangi- 
 ble aid, with a view to the speedy clearing of the property, 
 and so on ; but as these amicable advances had been 
 received by the young man with sullen, if not contemp- 
 tuous silence, they soon ceased. Kirkwood merely shrug- 
 ged his shoulders, and amused himself in his own way. 
 Long acquaintance with the world, he said, had quite ac- 
 customed him to being misunderstood; his dear young 
 friend Stephen would appreciate in time that he was, in 
 reality, the warm and attached friend of both his father 
 and himself. Many would have been far more exacting 
 than he had been in regard to the terms of the mortgage 
 and the conditions of the payment. Of course it was not 
 to be expected that, with his limited experience and know- 
 ledge of business affairs, Stephen would see these things in 
 their true light in a moment. By and by he would pro- 
 bably be much more reasonable, and certainly much more 
 grateful. Kirkwood favored Martin Dangerfield with not 
 a little of this sort of talk, especially after dinner. He 
 seemed to enjoy it very much indeed, and was not in the 
 least restrained or deterred by the fact that the old man 
 listened uniformly with a vague look of mingled disgust 
 and terror.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. Ill 
 
 There was only one period of the day when our cheer- 
 ful visitant exhibited the slightest break in the equable and 
 roseate tenor of his daily life — that when the messenger 
 brought letters from the neighboring village post-office, and 
 which was during the hour before dinner. There was then 
 just a trace of anxiety and expectancy, lasting until he 
 was either aware there were no letters for him, or of the 
 contents of those which he received ; whereupon he re- 
 sumed his usual condition of complacent satisfaction. It 
 was evident that he expected particular advices — advices 
 which might have some bearing upon his future course — 
 perhaps on the duration of his stay at Dangerfield's Rest. 
 When Stephen perceived this, he began to watch his enemy 
 more narrowly than before. He found his old suspicions 
 coming back to him — vague, floating suspicions, that Kirk- 
 wood meant his father some injury. Then he began to 
 think of the circumstances under which the liabilities had 
 been incurred which the Rest had been mortgaged to pay. 
 Perhaps this mysterious creditor — this cunning intriguer 
 in whom the sinister and the mirthful seemed so strangely 
 to be blended — might possibly have contrived a scheme to 
 profit by his father's love of play — might have employed 
 subordinates, under favorable circumstances, to cheat him 
 out of the large sums whose payment should be secured 
 by the mortgage of his property. But how to prove — 
 nay, how even to investigate transactions of such a nature, 
 and which had occurred fifteen years ago ? 'Twould be 
 difficult, if not impossible. Stephen felt the need of an 
 adviser — somebody of years, of character, and of wisdom, 
 to prompt and counsel him. The more he thought of the 
 subject the better satisfied was he of the propriety of seek- 
 ing such an assistant ; and then, very naturally, he thought 
 of Oliver Vernon. 
 
 How far a certain subtle casuistry had led him to the 
 conviction that there was really no one so eligible to afford 
 the aid he sought as the father of Grace Yernon — how far 
 that consideration was supported by the knowledge that in 
 seeking the father he must, almost surely, come in contact
 
 112 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 with the daughter — we need not pause to inquire. The 
 human heart and brain, alike complex, seldom decide on 
 action from unmixed motives, and it may be readily sup- 
 posed that Stephen's presented no exception. A fortnight 
 had passed away and he was becoming weary of inaction — 
 weary of staying away from Grace. He could make an 
 excuse to himself which should cover, without sullying, 
 the honorable course he had decided upon, and which has 
 been described. A fortnight is a long time passed in 
 country shades without society, or worse, with that which 
 is distasteful. 
 
 It was on the fifteenth morning, and soon after break- 
 fast, that Mr. Kirkwood sat in the arbor which had become 
 endeared to him as the scene where he had, as he expressed 
 it, " clapped a stopper" on Stephen Dangerfield. The 
 worthy gentleman was buried in romance. He was enjoy- 
 ing in the Trois Mousqueiaires the somewhat singular and 
 exceptional adventures of MM. Alhos, Porthos, and Ara7nis 
 — and found them very much to his taste. He was en- 
 hancing the pleasurable excitement of the narrative, by the 
 ejection of small blue spirals derived from the combustion 
 of a fragrant Havana, Suddenly he heard the pawing of 
 a horse on the gravel hard by, and, looking up he saw — 
 saddled and bridled — Stephen's black mare Vixen. A 
 moment after, her owner appeared, equipped for the 
 saddle, and presenting in his attire a notable change from 
 the carelessness of the past few days. Mr, Kirkwood 
 sighed. He perceived with quick instinct that his respite 
 of calm and dignified enjoyment must give place to action 
 — perhaps to the combat. Young Dangerfield had scarcely 
 been out even for a walk all this time. He had slouched 
 back and forth, staring up and down the river, rambling 
 about the house, to and from the stables, but never out 
 of sight or earshot of the mansion. Kirkwood was too 
 experienced a tactician not to know that a sudden change 
 in this routine boded something new in the way of demon- 
 stration ; — a cavalry reconnoissance usually precedes an 
 attack in force ; — so he commenced to lay his plan of cam-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, 113 
 
 paign almost before Stephen was out of sight, and was 
 hard at work on it the while Black Vixen swept on at 
 a swinging gallop toward the point which made her 
 master's heart beat to think of far more than did the 
 unwonted exercise — for she went toward Uplands. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SHE was standing on the piazza making a very charming 
 picture with a frame of clustering honeysuckles and 
 Madeira vines, A dark green riding-habit, exquisitely 
 cut, displayed to bewitching advantage her moulded figure. 
 An English hat, with slopings of mysterious feathers 
 of equally sombre hue, which was unbroken in the whole 
 costume, save by a bit of cherry riband at the throat, and 
 by the white of the tiny gauntlets. The sun was glinting 
 through the nut-brown hair and lending it a ruddy tint, but 
 it could lend neither light nor vivacity to the smile which 
 played over the sweet face, and which, in parting the red 
 lips, showed glimpses of pearls behind. One little hand 
 had caught up the clinging amplitude of skirt, the other 
 grasped a slender riding- whip. This was Grrace Vernon, 
 
 A few steps in front and held by a groom, was a snow- 
 white steed, a trifle over fourteen hands, spotless and 
 unexceptionable in condition and caparison. The arching 
 neck was curved far over, and the large eyes appeared to 
 be curiously inspecting the creature's fore-feet. This was 
 Lily, 
 
 Such was the group which Stephen Dangerfield saw, the 
 first time he met its principal figure after they came back 
 from sea. He had turned in from the high road at the 
 little stone-lodge, decorously checking as he did so the 
 swift gallop wherewith Black Vixen had favored * him 
 all the way from the Rest, and receiving intimation as 
 to " the family" being at home from the gate-keeper. He
 
 114 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 came along the winding road gently enough, and in truth 
 with a less steady heart than was usual for stout Stephen to 
 carry in his bosom. Was it that mysterious prescience, 
 which is so unreasonable, so inexplicable, so impossible, 
 and yet so true, which we have all felt, and yet scarcely 
 believe, except the feeling is actually upon us — that innate 
 consciousness which philosophy cannot explain, nor scep- 
 ticism refute, which warns or gladdens us with unerring 
 certainty of the approach of those we hate or love ? 
 Perhaps. All we can say is that before Stephen skirted 
 the little arc in the road which opened the picture to his 
 gaze, his heart was almost in his mouth, and that when he 
 had skirted it — to carry out the exceptionable figure — it 
 was quite so. He was abreast of the group and off his 
 horse in an instant, crushing down the compunction that 
 told him he s.hould pause and admire, nor break the lovely 
 tableau until his presence was discovered. For — as he 
 turned the curve in question, the thought struck him that 
 Grace was waiting to be joined by some one, and might be, 
 speedily, and, the moment after, she turned her head. 
 
 A little cry — one of those indescribable sounds girls 
 make when they are surprised and pleased and : — 
 
 " Mr. Dangerfield !" 
 
 " Miss Vernon !" 
 
 His strong hand caught one of the tiny white gauntlets, 
 and a rapid incoherent word or too from each, nearly simul- 
 taneously, from which emerged, clearly and simply enough, 
 from the young lady : — 
 
 " I'm very glad to see you 1" 
 
 " Are you, indeed ?" 
 
 Here their eyes met again, and this time up rushed the 
 crimson to Grace's brow as both her eye and ear taught 
 her the literal signification Stephen was applying to the 
 common-place expression. She must speak again to break 
 that charm, so she did, hastily, and, of course, unluck- 
 ily :*— 
 
 " It seems an age since I saw you 1" 
 
 " Oh ! Miss Yernon — Miss Gra — "
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 115 
 
 Stephen paused, and well he did so, for his sense of pro- 
 priety came to his aid. Preposterous ! He was absolutely 
 on the very brink of a declaration in the first twenty words 
 of his meeting, in an ordinary visit of courtesy, with one 
 he had known barely a week, and a month before had never 
 seen. Stephen thought himself demented, for questions 
 of time and moulds of conventionality always strike men 
 most forcibly. Grace, with her woman's nature, was more 
 wise. She knew and knew well that love was not a matter 
 of days, nor months, nor years. She knew precisely what 
 Stephen felt, what he was floundering and stumbling 
 about ; but she was mischievous and wouldn't relieve him. 
 We say she knew — meaning in the same sense wherewith 
 women always know by force of interior perception. The 
 man must reason first and feel afterwards : the woman 
 must feel first and reason afterwards — perhaps ; at any rate, 
 she gets first at the truth, which is the main point to be 
 enforced. 
 
 And who shall tell us what this love is, which, sown we 
 know not how, grows up and puts forth leaves and blos- 
 soms and fruit in due season — this love which is not based 
 on previous knowledge of character, tastes, sympathies — 
 which comes unsought and unbidden, but will not leave 
 except at its own good pleasure. People call it love at first 
 sight, but this cannot be. Is it not rather the passion 
 elicited by an embodiment of what we have loved and 
 cherished long before, — long before we can remember per- 
 haps — ages before, possibly, — far back through the long 
 stages of this marvellous progression and development, 
 which, if it^ is to outlast the mortal death, may have com- 
 menced before the mortal birth ? 
 
 Not a gross earthly passion merely. Not a happy acci- 
 dental combination of this type of head, eyes, complexion, 
 figure, each of which we remember to have admired before ; 
 but the subtle, mysterious, spiritual affinity whose analysis 
 exceeds in its difficulty those of electricity and magnetism 
 as much as that of those marvellous forces themselves tran- 
 scends the analyses of all lower physical phenomena.
 
 116 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Stephen and Grace walked mechanically to the end of 
 the piazza. Their eyes swept for a moment over the far 
 stretching landscape, ran for an instant over the rippling 
 currents of the wide and glorious river, then turned and 
 met again. Neither spoke a word : and it might have 
 been two minutes before Elinor Grazebook and little Ally 
 and Oliver Vernon came forth from the house, and ad- 
 vanced to greet the stranger : yet it might have been 
 counted as years for them, for they had entered, half uncon- 
 sciously, the portals of a new life, to which the past was 
 as nothing, and the future, all. 
 
 Oliver Vernon gave his guest a hearty and cordial wel- 
 come, Elinor a gracious and friendly one, and httle Ally 
 insisted upon being lifted in his stalwart arms and kissed 
 again and again. The child had not many memories, and 
 deeply fixed among them was that of the moment when she 
 had been lifted in the same way from the deck of the wreck. 
 
 " You have rather neglected us," said Vernon, with his 
 kindly smile ; "we expected to see you before, as you were 
 so near." 
 
 "Indeed, I appreciate my loss," replied Stephen, sin- 
 cerely; "my father's affairs have claimed much of my 
 attention, and I thought you might gladly be free of intru- 
 sion for a while, after so long an absence." 
 
 " So near and old a neighbor could not be an intruder 
 even if there were reasons for others being such. This 
 little lady has particularly felt your long absence. She 
 thinks she has a right of property in you since you were 
 instrumental in her deliverance." 
 
 " Dear child," quoth Stephen, very glad as most men 
 are to caress little girls in the presence of older ones they 
 have the decorously restrained inclination to subject to the 
 same attentions. 
 
 "Have you seen my other papa?" queried Ally, pro- 
 pounding to Stephen a question she was in the habit 
 of putting to each fresh person she met — and of being 
 uniformly surprised, if not displeased, at being answered in 
 the negative.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, 117 
 
 " No, my dear. Are you not content with this one ?" 
 
 Stephen told a fib here, but neither he nor any one else 
 was conscious of the fact at the time. 
 
 " Oh, yes. I'm to stay with hira always ; unless," she 
 added, reflectively, " unless you and Aunt Gracy would 
 like to take me with you !" 
 
 Grace blushed scarlet at this somewhat extraordinary 
 and premature sally. There had been talk of Stephen 
 Dangerfield in the child's presence between herself and 
 Elinor ; and some little rallying on the part of the latter, 
 who saw before either of the parties most interested, what 
 things were drifting to when on board the Assyria. She 
 essayed to atone for her sin by coming to the rescue with 
 friendly alacrity. 
 
 "We were going toward Fort Lee. Perhaps Mr. Dan- 
 gerfield will make up the appropriate number of our escort, 
 as I see he cam« in the saddle." 
 
 Mr. Dangerfield would be delighted. He usually rode a 
 great deal, although his habit had been somewhat inter- 
 rupted of late. With the permission of the ladies and that 
 of ]\[r. Yernon, he would gladly make one of the party. 
 The arrangement was effected amid great demonstrations 
 of satisfaction on the part of Ally and the warm approval 
 of Mr. Vernon, who was admiring Black Vixen, and who 
 missed the episodical agitation in progress while contrasting 
 that spirited animal with the gentle Lily. Then David Green- 
 wood appeared with Dapple and the Shetland pony, and a 
 stout bay for his master, and a rather better-blooded chestnut 
 for the groom, and the cheerful party prepared for a start. 
 
 Grace became flushed again as Stephen Dangerfield took 
 her dainty foot in his hand, and for the first time put 
 her in the saddle; and this time Vernon noticed it, and 
 remarked on her brilliant color, which, as a matter of 
 course, made things worse. She murmured something 
 about the heat, and managed to get up a little contest 
 with, and caprioling on the part of, Lily, who was much 
 astonished in her innocence by these aggressive measures 
 from her usually gentle mistress. All were safely mounted,
 
 118 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 and the cavalcade set out in high good-humor, Stephen 
 carefully placing himself by the side of Elinor, a maneuvre 
 partly intended in courteous deference to her seniority, partly 
 with the artful idea of throwing dust in the general eye apro- 
 pos of his feelings toward Grrace. But parties though they set 
 out abreast, and with conjunctions least desired, inevitably 
 shape themselves into harmonious couplets as they pro- 
 gress, and this instance proved no exception. The first 
 half-hour found Grace and Stephen together in the advance 
 at a distance somewhat greater from the others of the party 
 than was that of the groom again in the rear. 
 
 And they talked of the lovely scenery which surrounded 
 them on every side, and which both had been born and 
 bred among ; and of books and pictures and the Opera ; 
 and of Europe, and their respective travels and adven- 
 tures ; and of horses and dogs, and rural sports and diver- 
 sions ; and Stephen told Grace of how he first bought 
 Black Vixen, and of her wonderful exploits and escapades 
 before and since ; and Grace told Stephen the pitiful story 
 of her beautiful Skye terrier, imported with so much trou- 
 ble, and so greatly admired, to be poisoned the winter 
 before last in town by a wretch, who threw out strychnine 
 on meat, to revenge himself upon cats who had molested 
 his pet pigeons. But neither said anything of what each 
 was becoming more and more conscious, and of which both 
 were all the time thinking far more than of anything else. 
 And, for that matter, what need was there of words ? 
 Volumes could not have contained more than had been 
 crowded into that silent tete-a-tete of scarcely two minutes 
 which had occurred on the piazza. And both were 
 supremely happy ; happier than they had ever been before. 
 
 Dream on, O young, healthful, and happy beings ! Enjoy 
 to the full, while you may, the halcyon visions of the future, 
 over which the dear presence of the other sheds for each 
 the rainbow glories of promised Hope ! And be the sad 
 day far distant when you awake from that dream to know 
 — as, alas ! sooner or later all must know — that before the 
 Rainbow there must come the Storm.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 119 
 
 It is remarkable that not until the present red-letter day 
 was far advanced — not, indeed, until he reached his home, 
 and was recalled from the clouds by his first sight of the 
 dark and inquiring face of Kirkwood — did Stephen 
 remember the subject that had furnished the excuse for 
 his cup of fehcity. He had altogether forgotten, while 
 with Grace, the heavy mortgage which existed on Danger- 
 field's Best. 
 
 CHAPTER XI , . 
 
 SOFTLY and serenely glided the days for some time after 
 Stephen's first visit to Uplands. Only for convention- 
 alities' sake, and with great struggling, did he omit riding 
 over the next morning. On the second day he made no 
 bones of the matter, but gallopped over directly after 
 breakfast ; and, as before, a long ride engrossed the greater 
 portion of the day. Then Vernon, of course, asked him 
 to dine on the day succeeding — Stephen having art enough 
 to plead an engagement when the time was exhausted 
 which could be spent with Grace, so as to husband his 
 invitation to cover future opportunities. Then there were 
 drives and walks, and divers reasons connected with music 
 and chess-play, which, in turn, supplied ostensible cause for 
 Mr. Dangerfield passing a great portion of his time at 
 Uplands. He had never yet hinted, however, to Oliver 
 Yernon aught of the subject whereupon he had proposed 
 to solicit his advice. This was weak enough, no doubt, 
 but we must narrate things as they really were, dealing as 
 we do with living, erring, mortal beings, and not with 
 monsters, perfect or other. When in the immaturity of 
 judgment we harshly condemn, we sharpen our own pun- 
 ishment for the day that the great rush of temptation comes 
 over ourselves. We get to learn for the most part that he 
 is often strongest who most gently entreateth. Stephen
 
 120 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 knew perfectly well that he ought not to permit affairs to 
 take their present direction without a candid exposition of 
 his prospects to both Vernon and Grace ; but he was in 
 doubt as to the effect of such a step. To be sure, the old 
 man was most generous and unworldly ; yet people who 
 enjoy that character very often exhibit remarkable appre- 
 ciation of the main chance, and obstinate tenacity in cling- 
 ing thereto when brought to face important secular inte- 
 rests. Stephen Dangerfield, the heir to a very fine pro- 
 perty, and Stephen Dangerfield, an idle yet needy man, 
 were two very different persons. If the sagacious parent 
 made no objection to what was progressing between his 
 daughter and the first-named gentleman, it by no means 
 followed that he would be equally contented when he knew 
 what was going on with the second. Clearly, the latter 
 had no right to keep him in ignorance ; yet he hesitated. 
 Intoxicated with his new-found happiness, Stephen was 
 hardly responsible for his sin. And we must remember 
 tha-t a strict adherence to duty would, as he feared, nip 
 that happiness in the bud. 
 
 Kirkwood observed him with a mingling of amusement 
 and vigilance. With a minuteness of research quite cus- 
 tomary with this man in treating any subject of importance 
 to his dear self, he had carefully scanned and noted the 
 Passenger List of the Assyria. He recognised the names 
 of Vernon and his party, and drew his own conclusions as 
 to th-e probability of an acquaintance having sprung up. 
 between them and Stephen. We may remark, in passing, 
 that his minuteness was not quite exhaustive in this in- 
 stance, as there was a certain matter under the heading of 
 "Shipping Intelligence," which he would have found much 
 more interesting than the Passenger List. He was, however, 
 on the right track in his inference as to the nature of the 
 fascination which drew Stephen so often in the direction of 
 Uplands. The question in his mind was first to make sure 
 that the latter was bent on serious relations with one of the 
 two fair girls whom he knew to be there, and then to 
 determine how far such an arrangement might be favorable
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 121 
 
 or otherwise to his own projects. In pursuance of these 
 ideas he instituted a series of elaborate congratulations on 
 Stephen's improved spirits, and the notable advantages to 
 be enjoyed in the proximity of congenial society, etc., etc. 
 
 The young man received these advances with hauteur 
 and reserve. Mr. Kirkwood might have a mortgage on 
 his father's lands, but he certainly had none upon his own 
 confidence. The effrontery of the man was such as to 
 make him capable of anything ; he had already suggested 
 the propriety of the Dangerfields' introducing him to some 
 of the better people of the neighborhood ; — his next step 
 would, no doubt, be that of making a request to be pre- 
 sented at Uplands — a request with which Stephen deter- 
 mined in advance not to comply. His father had the 
 plausible defence against similar assaults that he no longer 
 under any circumstances went into society. Stephen could 
 only employ the less propitiatory resource of direct refusal. 
 He therefore endeavored to lessen the chances of an attack 
 on the subject by treating Kirkwood with studied distance 
 and ceremony. 
 
 Stephen erred so far as his immediate apprehension was 
 concerned. Little regard as James Kirkwood paid to 
 delicacy when it stood in the path which led to his desires, 
 he was willing enough to remember its behests when 
 nothing was to be lost thereby. He had no wish to revive 
 disagreeable recollections, and this would be the result 
 of contact with at least two persons at Uplands ; — of the 
 presence of a third, about whom there clung a gentler 
 association, — he was, as the reader has surmised, quite 
 ignorant. 
 
 Meanwhile old Martin Dangerfield tottered wearily about, 
 becoming more bowed, more silent, and more sad. He was 
 affectionate to his son, but it was evident he avoided being 
 alone with him. He was civil to Kirkwood at ordinary 
 times, but occasionally would oppose him querulously, and 
 seemed to be approaching that point of emancipation 
 where people throw off all restraint and prepare themselves 
 desperately to take all consequences. Then Kirkwood 
 
 6
 
 122 daxgerfield's rest; or 
 
 would speak to him softly and soothingly for a while, 
 ending always with words of smothered warning, and 
 then the stifled whisper and dark menacing eye re-enforced 
 the subjection which loud words and blatant threats were 
 used to effect before. lie was merely substituting the 
 tactics of the serpent for those of the lion ; the latter were 
 not exactly safe in the presence of Stephen. 
 
 It was remarkable that whatever sallies Kirkwood ven- 
 tured upon in the way of raillery or ironical congratula- 
 tion, he never alluded to Uplands or its inhabitants in the 
 joint presence of the Dangerfields. Whether the omission 
 was accidental or designed, the younger man could only 
 surmise. It was, in any case, a matter of no great moment. 
 One day, one of the few, when for decency's sake Stephen 
 had not ridden over to Uplands, he happened to be sitting 
 in the large bay-window of the library, and it also hap- 
 pened that the falling curtains concealed his person from 
 the room. The door leading into an adjacent corridor was 
 open, and along this corridor his father and Kirkwood 
 were advancing engaged in earnest conversation. Stephen's 
 quick ear caught the name of " Vernon," uttered by Kirk- 
 wood, and then came from his father a sharp remonstrance, 
 as it seemed, against his companion's allusion. " I like the 
 name as little as you do, Martin Dangerfield," answered his 
 visitor, " so we need hardly quarrel upon that score." 
 
 Stephen rose instantly and stepped unperceived on the 
 piazza and so into the garden. He had no wish to play 
 the spy, and least of all if any overheard discussion 
 trenched on such a subject. Perhaps he had a lurking 
 apprehension of special evil in that very direction. Be it 
 as it may, it was his present pleasure — infatuation, perhaps, 
 were the better word — to preserve his halcyon dream intact 
 and undisturbed by any voluntary discoveries of his own. 
 But what he had heard had at least this not unpleasing effect ; 
 it removed such little surprise as he had previously felt 
 that Kirkwood had not proposed on any occasion to accom- 
 pany him to Uplands — and it satisfied him that that gentle- 
 man was unlikely to make such a proposition hereafter.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 123 
 
 These impressions, which, took the force of conviction in 
 Stephen's mind, were, as far as thej went, highly agreeable 
 to him. 
 
 We may readily imagine, therefore, that he was some- 
 what astonished and not a little disgusted when, on the 
 day after the incident described, and when at almost dusk 
 he rode past the lodge at Uplands on his way home — he 
 encountered Mr. Kirkwood bestriding a quiet hack of 
 his father's and in the act of proceeding toward the mansion 
 he had just quitted. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE last rays of the sinking sun were playing on the 
 volumes which filled the highest shelves in Oliver 
 Vernon's study. In the dusky light might be traced the 
 sober furniture of a comfortable but compact apartment, 
 whose fittings and surroundings spoke, as such things do, 
 much of the character and pursuits of the occupant. 
 Books of philosophy were there, of history and belles-let- 
 tres, whereof the general drift, to an eye nice enough to 
 appreciate such distinctions, might be seen to incline 
 towards benevolence, and broad, genial humanity. There 
 were busts in the corners of the room close up to the ceil- 
 ing, and they were those of philanthropists and not of con- 
 querors, — Howard was there, but not Napoleon. The 
 engravings on the walls partook of the general sentiment, 
 which breathed of generosity and toleration ; and a beau- 
 tiful head of Grace, in crayons, sketched a dozen years 
 before, smiled down from the place of honor over the man- 
 tel, a fitting tutelary genius for such a temple. 
 
 Oliver Vernon had been writing until the gathering 
 gloom had warned him to desist, and he now sat in his arm- 
 chair wrapped in reverie. The days which had passed 
 since his return from abroad had been days of activity,
 
 12-i dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 and therefore — necessarily in bife case — days of usefulness. 
 Few men did more good in their various orbits than did 
 Vernon. Not in mere alms-giving alone, but in the patient 
 seeking out of the causes of grief and distress, and in striv- 
 ing to administer conclusive rather than temporary relief. 
 Here, indeed, was the key to his character. We have said 
 before that he was regarded by some as radical in creeds 
 and political opinions ; but his principles were, in reality, 
 as those of many are who are assailed with the same re- 
 proach, rather the opposite of those which the term should 
 properly suggest. They were seminal rather than radical. 
 He wished not to uproot evil so much as to sow good ; not 
 so much to punish the misdirected plants in the maturity 
 of their prejudiced and distorted growth, as to train the 
 new and callow shoots into a harmonious and symmetrical 
 one. lie took no pains to explain or to define his posi- 
 tion, however, other than his acts implied ; they would 
 speak for him in the future if not to-day. Vernon had run 
 twice for Congress in his district, not for the chance of 
 election — for his party was weak, and his own local popu- 
 larity, however considerable, was inadequate to balance 
 the discrepancy of numbers — but strictly as a matter of 
 principle, and because most of the wealthy landholders of 
 the neighborhood regularly declined entering public life. 
 On the first occasion he was defeated by General Von Donk, 
 who then resided in the district ; and on the second by a 
 brawny, hard-drinking Irishman, of the McSwindle class, 
 who had been sent up by his party within the prescribed 
 time for election as a reward for his services in the great 
 city during certain municipal struggles. These results, 
 quite anticipated as they were, had done Vernon more good 
 than harm in popular estimation. His gentleness, his unos- 
 tentatious charities, his urbanity under defeat, were natu- 
 rally bruited about, until there was now scarcely a man in 
 the county so much loved and respected as he. 
 
 The reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door, and 
 in response to the succeeding permission, a servant with — 
 
 " A gentleman, sir, would be pleased to see you."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 125 
 
 "Did he send no card — no name?" 
 
 " He said it was unnecessary — you wouldn't require it, 
 sir. Simply to say he was here, and would be pleased to 
 see you." 
 
 "Where is he now — in the drawing-room, T suppose?" 
 
 " No, sir, the young ladies are there. Mr. Dangerfield 
 had just left them. The gentleman heard their voices, 
 and walked into the little dark parlor, the other side of the 
 hall. He only wished to see you, he said." 
 
 " Yery well. Show him in. And, Parsons, bring can- 
 dles directly after." 
 
 A few moments and James Kirkwood stood in the room. 
 Parsons preceded him, and, placing a chair opposite his 
 master, withdrew. There was a brief silence as the two 
 men sat facing each other in the darkened room. Perhaps 
 both were studying the effects of time on the other ; per- 
 haps they were considering the chances of the diplomatic 
 struggle about to be waged ; perhaps they were thinking 
 of what each knew of the other in days long past ; how- 
 ever this may have been, Kirkwood was the first to speak. 
 
 " I received your letter — only yesterday. The people in 
 town didn't know where to forward it. It's not always 
 convenient for me to leave my address, that any who choose 
 may ferret me out. I became anxious about the schooner 
 not arriving, and wrote to the consignor. He replied, 
 inclosing your letter." 
 
 " Have you considered the proposal that letter con- 
 tains?" 
 
 " Yes and no. It's a queer coincidence enough. How 
 do you know you are right? There may be some mis- 
 ake ?" 
 
 " There is none. The resemblance to both parents would 
 alone be almost conclusive. Then the name " 
 
 "Ay, I called her after my own State. They called her 
 'Ally,' for short, on the plantation." 
 
 "Besides," continued Yernon, unlocking an escritoire, 
 and taking therefrom a small packet tied with blue riband, 
 " these letters addressed to you, and which are possibly
 
 126 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 duplicates of others sent by mail, would seem to place the 
 matter beyond doubt." 
 
 Kirkwood took the letters, and, breaking the untouched 
 seal of the first, directly acquiesced. 
 
 " It's clear enough. But it was natural to question, the 
 incident being so unusual. It only remains, then, to decide 
 about the future." 
 
 " The responsibility and anxiety of which I propose to 
 relieve you of" 
 
 " Your object in that is not so clear." 
 
 " There is not the slightest difficulty in making it so. So 
 far as intrusting the child to its mother is concerned, there 
 needs no argument to show that such a course were inju- 
 dicious — to say the least. You and I agree upon that 
 point, and it cannot require discussion, especially as she is 
 willing the child shall be left in my custody, provided you 
 undertake to leave her undisturbed therein." 
 
 "Goon." 
 
 " The remaining alternative of your taking charge of the 
 little girl yourself," continued Oliver Vernon deliberately, 
 " appears to me almost equally objectionable. Your life 
 has been a disreputable one, and unless a reform took place 
 • — of which I regret to have heard no signs — no social 
 position which could accrue to a daughter of yours — espe- 
 cially under all the circumstances — could be an enviable 
 
 one." 
 
 " You go too far, Vernon," cried Kirkwood passionately, 
 " you go too far." 
 
 " I hope not," said the other calmly. " What your 
 career was before you went to California I need not recal — 
 enough, that you know me to be conversant with it. What 
 it has been since, I can, if you wish, recite to you." 
 
 Kirkwood waved his hand impatiently, and Vernon con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " I agree with you : it is unnecessary. My object is to 
 come to an understanding as quickly as possible. If you 
 question me, I must reply candidly and explicitly. I am 
 willing to take the care and responsibility of your daugh-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 127 
 
 ter's girlhood : when she attains her majority she can 
 decide upon her own course for the future." 
 
 A knock, and the lights borne by Parsons here inter- 
 vened, and the latter having retired, the illumination sup- 
 plied the speakers with additional motive for pausing while 
 each was studying the other's countenance. It was re- 
 markable that while conferring with Yernon, Kirkwood 
 was entirely natural and unaffected. There was not a trace 
 of that assumption of suavity and courtliness which he 
 prized as a valuable weapon in his ordinary intercourse 
 with the world, and which he affected so largely when in 
 the company of Stephen Dangerfield. To Yernon he was 
 thoroughly well known : upon Yernon it was impossible 
 that any hypocritical airs and graces coukl impose : he 
 therefore confined himself to the outer expressions of the 
 sentiments which naturally and successively filled his 
 breast, and was by turns sullen, grasping, and apprehen- 
 sive. "With a man of less force and character than Yer- 
 non he would have been — as in the case of Martin Dan- 
 gerfield — threatening and tyrannical. Presently he spoke 
 again : 
 
 " You seem to give me credit for no sort of human feel- 
 ing, Yernon." 
 
 " I certainly wish I could give you more — and. Hea- 
 ven knows, I would gladly aid you to deserve it. Your na- 
 ture is too strong to be a colorless one. You must be either 
 actively good or actively bad : there is every appearance of 
 the latter in your past life and nothing of the former. It 
 may be that you cherish affection for the child you have 
 not seen since infancy — but my knowledge of your charac- 
 ter would not lead me to rate it very high." 
 
 " I am as I am," replied Kirkwood morosely. " 'Tis 
 idle to bandy personalities. It may be in my power one 
 day to serve or punish you, so fair words are wisest. I 
 came not to discuss this subject alone, either. Because I left 
 the country under a cloud, is no reason why I should not 
 have my just dues. The estate of John Grnzebrook owes 
 me twelve thousand dollars. You administered that es-
 
 128 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 tate. I come to produce my proofs and to demand liqui- 
 dation." 
 
 " How do you know, even if you substantiate the justice 
 of your demand, that there is aught to satisfy it ?" 
 
 " I know that the girl, his daughter, is reputed to have 
 inherited property from him, — that you made over a third 
 thereof to his wife, who was never divorced, — and that 
 vou hold the remainder in trust for the girl. Do you 
 deny it?" 
 
 " On the contrary, I acknowledge it to be strictly 
 true." 
 
 " Very good. Then here are the evidences of the 
 validity of my claim." 
 
 He produced as he spoke sundry papers and notes, which 
 the two men examined and discussed for half an hour. 
 Yernon soon perceived that these documents, if genuine, 
 were conclusive in establishing the legality of Kirkwood's 
 demand : he divined, too, that should he refuse to recog- 
 nise their force, how strong a weapon might be employed 
 in the threatened revival of scandal and misery which liti- 
 gation would surely involve. Kirkwood drew up a pen- 
 cilled memorandum of the added sums with their interest, 
 which he headed " Estate of John Grazebrook to James 
 Kirkwood Dr.," and tossed it across the table to his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " I think you will find that correct. 
 
 " I am to understand, then, that, notwithstanding its 
 satisfaction would leave Miss Grazebrook penniless, you 
 will persist in pressing this claim?" 
 
 "Is there anything unjust in that? Is not the debt 
 obviously a fair one ? I am getting older ; I am needy ; 
 ]\[iss Grazebrook, under your auspices, will make a bril- 
 liant marriage ; why should I not have my just dues ?" 
 
 Vernon pondered for a few moments, and came, as he 
 usually did in questions involving practical action, to a 
 prompt decision. 
 
 " There is reason in what you say, and I will comply 
 with your demand upon certain conditions."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 129 
 
 " Name them." 
 
 " You will agree definitely to my proposition about the 
 child, and make the agreement conclusive by a legal under- 
 taking covering her life until she is of age," 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 " You will surrender these papers, and give a proper 
 acquittance in full of all claims against John Grazebrook's 
 estate." 
 
 " Is that all ?" 
 
 " Finally, you will promise to leave your child to my 
 unrestricted charge, and in ignorance, so far as any act of 
 yours is concerned, of your true relationship towards her." 
 
 " You drive a sharp bargain, Oliver Vernon, in spite of 
 your philanthropic reputation ; but be it so. When am I 
 to receive the money ?" 
 
 " Within three days. I will cause the necessary papers 
 to be drawn by a discreet and practised hand. Where can 
 I communicate with you ?" 
 
 " At the house of your neighbor, Martin Dangerfield." 
 
 " Martin Dangerfield ! you at his house ?" 
 
 "Why not? I am, and for some time expect to con- 
 tinue to be, his guest." 
 
 "I had the impression he saw no company of late years." 
 
 " Nor does he. I am an exception. We are very old 
 friends." 
 
 Whatever surprise Vernon may have felt at this state- 
 ment, he expressed no more than was conveyed by his first 
 exclamation ; and the interview concluded upon a reitera- 
 tion of the compact and stipulations which have been 
 described. 
 
 6*
 
 130 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ANOTHER fortnight rolled away, and Stephen and 
 Grace continued to quaff the cup of their new-found 
 felicity. A hundred times did the former think of and 
 defer his resolution to seek the advice of Vernon, notwith- 
 standing the additional reason which had grown up to 
 make such a step necessary as a matter of honor, however 
 questionable as one of policy. As to Kirkwood, the appre- 
 hensions excited in Stephen's breast on the evening of his 
 encountering that gentleman on his way to Uplands, had 
 slowly subsided. He had at first coupled this sudden visit 
 to the Vernons with the probability of some statement 
 being made to the head of that family in relation to his 
 own position apropos of the mortgage, and felt rather humi- 
 liated as he thought of how equivocally he should stand in 
 the estimation of Vernon should the latter thus receive the 
 statement which ought to come from his own lips. But 
 with the specious reasoning common to lovers, he argued 
 that if the intelligence had been communicated, it was use- 
 less alike for him to repeat or to deprecate it ; he could 
 only await the result, whatever that might be. Soon, how- 
 ever, he came to the conclusion that no such confidence had 
 passed between Oliver Vernon and Kirkwood — a conclu- 
 sion based on various concurrent circumstances. The man- 
 ner of Vernon towards himself had not changed in the 
 slightest degree — which in itself was pretty good evidence, 
 Kirkwood became more reticent than before, never making 
 any allusion whatever to the Vernons, or to the incident 
 of meeting Stephen at the lodge. If, from any motive of 
 caprice or malice, he had made the communication in ques- 
 tion, it was unlikely that he should never refer to the fact, 
 — the same motive would induce him to suggest, by open 
 allusion or covert sneer, the step he had taken, or its in- 
 tended consequences. Thus Stephen came around again to 
 face the necessity for an effort of pluck and straightfor- 
 wardness on his part, and was, to do him justice, on the
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 131 
 
 point of making that effort. Of the real connecting link 
 which bound Kirkwood to the family of Vernon, we need 
 scarcely say, he was entirely ignorant, and the understand- 
 ing of which the reader is cognizant was calculated to 
 keep him so. Kirkwood paid no further visits to Uplands, 
 and although the curiosity of Stephen was strongly piqued 
 at the outset, the paramount interest of his absorbing pas- 
 sion soon thrust the other from his attention. He felt that 
 he was doing wrong in postponing an explanation with 
 Vernon, and he was not the man to persevere for any great 
 length of time in wrong-doing. Nor was he willing to 
 avail of the obvious excuse that his acquaintance with 
 Grrace was too short to justify conclusive prognostications; 
 for he knew perfectly that his feelings towards her, and he 
 knew almost perfectly that her feelings towards him, were as 
 defined and absolute as ever so lengthy a wooing could 
 have made them. But just as he had made up his mind 
 to bring matters to a climax, a fresh interruption presented 
 in the arrival at Uplands of their two fellow-voyagers — 
 Cuthbert Boynton and Robert Eliot. 
 
 This visit was in compliance with the invitation given 
 and accepted on board the Assyria^ and it operated as a 
 diversion in a variety of ways. Vernon — wishing always 
 to do good rather than to be triumphant — was not sorry to 
 bring himself and his family into the familiar contact of 
 social intercourse with one who, both in theory and prac- 
 tice the upholder and representative of opinions so opposed 
 to their own, was yet so cultivated and so moderate an 
 exponent of them. He was desirous, too, that Eliot, as a 
 young Englishman, whose views and experience might 
 have some leavening effect on the future opinions or polic}^ 
 of his countrymen towards America, should have all op- 
 portunity of seeing her social life in its various phases, and 
 not return to England with those mere surface prejudices 
 which so many of his morbidly conventional compatriots 
 are so ready to imbibe, and so active to disseminate. He 
 appreciated and deplored the vast deal of mischief which 
 is effected by tourists, who go about collecting microscopi-
 
 132 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 cally every little trait, custom, mode of speech or thought, 
 which is calculated by their nice perceptions to be pecu- 
 liarly ofifensive and distasteful to the more insular or more 
 fastidious civilizations of the Old World ; who, utterly for- 
 getful of the changes and modifications inevitable in the 
 formation of a vast new society, from whatever stock it 
 springs, weakly permit their prejudices to place to the 
 account of Republicanism so much that is justly ascribable 
 to the extended settlement of new territory, and to an 
 unprecedented mingling of races; who, in their ambition 
 to achieve the reputation of being wits and " photographic" 
 depictors of scenes and incidents, neglect to consider that, 
 when absurdly affecting that descriptive felicity is best 
 attained by emphasizing all that is small and mean, and 
 ignoring all that is great and noble, they are also sowing the 
 seeds of hatred and contempt between mighty nations ; who, 
 in a word, degrade letters and themselves, as well as debauch 
 opinion, by choosing to ignore the fact that he who professes 
 to instruct others should be guided in his course by the 
 courtesy, the toleration, and the integrity of gentlemen. 
 
 It' was obvious that Robert Eliot would not add to 
 the objectionable category we attempt to describe. He was 
 at once sufficiently educated and sufficiently liberal to per- 
 ceive that there might be good things in America whose 
 existence could be admitted without detriment to England 
 or any other country. lie had intellect enough to appreciate 
 that among nations as well as among individuals the true 
 philosophy is to strive to adopt and emulate whatever is excel- 
 lent or commendable in another, rather than to pass life in 
 stigmatizing and ridiculing whatever is bad or objectionable. 
 He was therefore prepared to be both candid and just— 
 a state of mind likely to lead to very different conclusions 
 from those which have resulted from the labors of most of 
 our European critics and observers. 
 
 Thus, when questioned, Eliot did not hesitate to say 
 that, so far as his observation had extended, although our 
 wealthier class was not, as a rule, up to the standard of 
 European culture and refinement, yet that our masses were
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 183 
 
 much better educated and much more intelligent than 
 their transatlantic prototypes. If our Patricians were less 
 polished, our Plebeians were much more so. He had the 
 generosity to admit what is incontestably true, that the., 
 abuses of our large sea-board towns are due in a great 
 degree to the foreign rather than to the native portion 
 of their population; — and that the worst element therein is 
 that derived from the British Isles. He was too well bred 
 to ridicule people whose hospitality he had partaken, so he 
 did not openly laugh at the Von Donks. But it was 
 evident that the class of which they constitute a sample 
 struck him as being absurdly ignorant, pretentious, and 
 illiberal. He was not prepared to admit that the Fifth 
 Avenue Hotel was a more imposing pile than "Westminster 
 Abbey, or that the — th Militia Eegiment would put to the 
 blush the Coldstream Guards, but he was quite ready to 
 acknowledge that each had excellences and uses in its 
 way, to allow which need not derogate from the beauties or 
 the merits of the other. 
 
 The evening mail on the same day which saw the new 
 guests at Uplands, brought a letter for Grace, which that 
 young lady perused in her chamber after retiring for the 
 night ; and, inasmuch as she had the bad faith to show it to 
 Elinor, who came from her room adjoining to learn the cause 
 of her friend's half-smothered laughter, we may be pardoned 
 for revealing its contents. They ran as follows : — 
 
 Newport, October 25th, 185 — . 
 
 Respected Miss : — 
 
 I hope you will not think me presumptuous that I sit 
 down and take my pen in hand on this occasion. My 
 feelings during those happy hours I passed in your fasci- 
 nating society aboard the Assyria (so soon Alas to end), 
 could not have been entirely unknown to you, and I hope 
 your ob*^'- ser^*- has not been too vain in counting 
 them not altogether unreciprocated. My friend and adviser 
 Elias P. Staggers (you remember Elias P., a high-toned and 
 whole-souled gentleman in the Stock Brokerage and Com- 
 mission line ?) assures me that this is the proper method for
 
 13-i dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 making you acquaint*^ with the present condition of my 
 sentiments. It is true as you may have heard that there 
 was a sort of engagement (in compliance with the wishes 
 of my mother) with Miss Joanna, first and only daughter 
 of our distinguished fellow-citizen Hon. J. Ileydensucker ; 
 but I am happy to assure you that owing to the disinter- 
 ested exertions of Elias P., this is broken off and the hated 
 nuptials will never come off, I am therefore free, Dear 
 Miss to offer my hand where my heart has long been 
 donated, and my family approve the happy deed. Elias 
 P.'s conduct in the role of mediator meets the applause of 
 all. The arrangement conflicted at first with the ideas of 
 Gen. Von Donk (who expects to shortly represent our 
 district in the Halls of State), but he is now utterly 
 agreeable. I need say nothing of my family or means as 
 both are well known to you. Pa thinks I ought to be in 
 some business prior to the blissful event, and as there is 
 a retirement of a junior partner in the house of Brine, 
 Cutts & Co. (In the pork packing line) he proposes to buy 
 me an interest. Their Mr. Cutts and he have had an 
 understanding to that effect, which need not operate should 
 you oppose. We shall have a new brown stone on De "Witt 
 Clinton Square close to the park and stocked with entire 
 new furniture. All shall smile propitious, your every wish 
 shall be my law. I have the nicest span on the Island. 
 They beat Spinner's hollow. They are named Filagree 
 and Amethyst, and can show 2.36 to a light road wagon. 
 On hearing from you, I will immediately arrange with 
 Emmanuel Isaacs Esq. (the gentlemanly lessee of the Opera 
 here) for a box quite as large and stylish as the De Buggins'. 
 Hoping soon to receive the favoring reply which may calm 
 and delight my anxious heart, I am 
 
 Yours Respectfully, 
 
 Gossamer Von Donk. 
 
 We need say nothing of the response which the followmg 
 post conveyed to this epistle, further than that it in no 
 wise imperilled the hopes of Stephen Dangerfield.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A LAZY afternoon in October. The long drawing-room 
 at Uplands, with windows to the floor, opening on the 
 piazza, and showing through their snowy curtains the 
 nuttj brown, and golden yellow, and dappled crimson 
 which glorify the foliage of an American autumn. The 
 Hudson bright -and blue, just embracing old ocean at the 
 edge of the horizon. The sky with its deep melting 
 tenderness of tone, broken here and there with flocky 
 lumps of clouds which are standing almost immovable. 
 
 Stephen Dangerfield and Grace Vernon pretending to 
 play at chess, their table at the room's furthest extremity, 
 half in, half out of window. Long pauses between the 
 moves, when the gentleman, whose back is turned toward 
 the interior of th^ apartment, is supposed by the careless 
 spectator to be pondering over the convolutions of knights 
 and bishops, but who in truth is diligently studying the 
 expression of the blushing face before him. Sweet Grace 
 prettier than ever, trying to feign unconsciousness and con- 
 stantly betrayed by the rebellious color. 
 
 At the piano-forte hard by, sits Elinor Grazebrook, 
 softly singing in her melodious mezzo-soprano a fragment 
 from the favorite Opera of the day. Cuthbert Boynton 
 is not so fortunate in his position as Stephen, for his 
 unmistakable expression as he stands watchfully to turn 
 the music, is reflected in the mirror opposite, and caught by 
 the amused eye of Robert Eliot, who is chatting with Ver- 
 non, while the latter in turn is caressing little Ally. 
 
 It is odd how fast people get on who have made sea- 
 voyages together. The having shared a community of 
 danger and adventure tends perhaps to loosen the chain of 
 conventional restraint, and to increase the disposition to 
 frankness and cordiality. "We usually either like very 
 much or dislike verj'- much those with whom we are thus 
 thrown in close contact on the ocean, as the party we 
 describe had good occasion to believe. Again, there is
 
 136 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 very little doubt but that love-making is, to a great extent, 
 a contagious disease. We can't help thinking there must 
 be something very pleasant about an occupation others are 
 pursuing with such alacrity under our very noses ; and 
 from thinking thus to joining in the popular diversion 
 when the opportunity presents, is but a step. Such was 
 the step — one he was quite ready to take — which the 
 young Southerner adopted very soon after his arrival at 
 Uplands. 
 
 His eye and his imagination had been alike fascinated by 
 the exquisitely moulded figure, the classic and harmonious 
 face of Elinor when he first encountered them on the quar- 
 ter-deck as they steamed out of the Mersey. The admira- 
 tion of his intellect, the solid esteem of his judgment, were 
 additional conquests made by the unconscious girl as the 
 acquaintance progressed. We have intimated before that 
 from organization as well as from the accidents of associa- 
 tion, Elinor was far more reticent than Grace Vernon. The 
 feelings which instinctively fear to be hurt, lie concealed in 
 the breast of the sensitive who have suifered, whilst they 
 play about in the sunshine, and are open as day with those 
 who have neither felt wrong nor smarted under affliction. 
 Grace was early aware of the unspoken attachment of her 
 admirer, while Elinor was quite unconscious of the havoc 
 she was making in the heart of Cuthbert Boynton. 
 
 " Dear me," laughed Grace in the symphonied interval 
 between two verses, " dear me, Mr. Dangerfield, that's the 
 third time you have discovered a check on your king. You 
 really must move him this time !" 
 
 Stephen muttered something which ought to have 
 been an acknowledgment of the impossibility of looking 
 at the board and at Grace at the same time, but which 
 was not. 
 
 " Beautiful ! most beautiful !" murmured Cuthbert, his 
 eyes riveted to the lovely face of the singer as she 
 ended her strain. Then to cover some little confusion of 
 his own he went on rapidly, " I really don't see why Verdi 
 should be so much decried : grant that his music is emo-
 
 ' BEFORE THE STORM. 137 
 
 tional, or, as the current slang has it, sensational — why 
 should it not be ? For what is music but a power acting 
 upon the emotions through the medium of the senses ?" 
 
 " I think music something higher and nobler than that," 
 said Elinor. " Your definition might be accurate enough 
 if we consider ourselves as bodies without souls. The 
 higher and nobler part of music, I suppose, must be that 
 which we only catch glimpses of now, but which we shall 
 appreciate and enjoy to the full hereafter. That which is 
 so purely passional can have little to do with the soul." 
 
 " Verdi is the melodramatist of music," said Vernon, 
 " in the acquired, of course, and not in the strict sense of 
 the term. His is the cup of all honey which cloys long 
 before we come to the dregs. The Italians always appeal 
 to the senses where the Germans appeal to the soul. There 
 is an ineffable dignity, a reaching into the mysteries of the 
 immortal future about Beethoven, for instance, which can 
 never be found in Verdi." 
 
 " He's the fashion, however, both with you and in Eu- 
 rope," remarked Eliot, " his melodies certainly captivate 
 the popular ear. I don't think any composer has been so 
 genuinely successful in reaching and pleasing all classes in 
 England since the earlier efforts of Kossini and Bellini." 
 
 " 'Tis the evanescent trick of the times, at least, in some 
 degree," replied Vernon ; " the passion of the hour on both 
 sides of the water is for what Mr. Boynton quotes as ' sen- 
 sational.' Monstrous concerts and exhibitions of all man- 
 ner of things anomalous crowded together, instead of the 
 various parts being perfected and enjoyed in detail ; Novels 
 which appeal to a prurient love for the gross and the mar- 
 vellous, instead of a healthful taste for the natural and the 
 true : Plays relying upon scenery, mechanism, and ' won- 
 derful effects,' instead of upon originality of construction 
 and talent in composition. The author of Waverley now- 
 a-days would have about as much chance (with the masses) 
 if competing with G. W. M. Eeynolds, as Shakespeare 
 would have in the same relation with Mr. Bourcicault. The 
 corrupt taste extends to the press and makes possible the
 
 138 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 success of such monstrosities as the New York Crier. We 
 are worse off in this particular respect than the EngHsh, 
 because the lowness of price and consequent habit of ap- 
 pealing to the grossest prejudices of the lowest classes 
 intensifies the evil to an extent which they partly escape. 
 Even the very pulpits have become sensational ; the infec- 
 tion extends to theology as well as to literature and art. 
 Of course these exaggerations are but ephemeral ; they are 
 unnatural and untrue, and will therefore be short-lived." 
 
 " Still, they will achieve a certain good," said Eliot, " on 
 the principle that it is only when mankind have suffered 
 from oppression and tyranny that they fully comprehend 
 the blessings of constitutional freedom. The exaggeration 
 and falsehood of a ' sensation ' age will beget and stimulate 
 a healthful appetite hereafter for the natural and truthful. 
 Verdi will thus be the instrument of good in his art in the 
 same manner as other offenders are unconscious reformers 
 in theirs." 
 
 " T wouldn't do him injustice," said Vernon; " there is 
 much that is beautiful about his compositions, although in 
 a limited sense. lie is certainly not such a blot and defor- 
 mity in his art as these scribblers we speak of in theirs." 
 
 " Limited, I suppose," said Elinor, " because the capacity 
 for very high thought is so seldom compatible with that for 
 describing extreme emotional phenomena. The best quali- 
 ties of Milton and the best qualities of Byron, if com- 
 bined, would make a writer who might be the type of an 
 ideal composer." 
 
 "A sort of lyrical Shakespeare," remarked Vernon; " I 
 fear the world will have to wait another age or two for 
 him." 
 
 "Speaking of Shakespeare," said Robert Eliot, " in my 
 walk this morning I fell in with a face and form which 
 would ' make up ' capitally for the stage idea of ' lago.' 
 A dark handsome man, with a glittering eye, and such a 
 curious expression of alternating subtlety and frankness. 
 A compatriot of yours, by the way, Boynton, born in 
 Alabama, I hear."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 139 
 
 "In Alabama?" said the Southerner with interest ; "did 
 he. mention his name?" 
 
 " Oh ! no. Our meeting was quite accidental — at the 
 little banking-office in the village. But I heard the clerk 
 in attendance address him as ' James Kirkwood,' and while 
 I transacted the trifling business which took me there, the 
 same official, with that laudable desire for the spread of use- 
 ful knowledge which seems so common hereabouts, ac- 
 quainted me with the gentleman's birthplace, adding that 
 he had been a visitor for some time at Daugerfield's 
 Rest." 
 
 " Yes," said Stephen from the chess-table, and speaking 
 with some embarrassment, "an acquaintance of my father's. 
 They have some business relations, I believe." 
 
 Grace looked very uncomfortable, and Elinor, the color 
 mounting to her face, murmured an excuse, and glided 
 forth on the piazza. A shade came over the usually placid 
 face of Vernon, and there was an instant of awkwardness 
 and silence. Eliot saw with a glance that he had inadver- 
 tently been the cause of the general confusion, and with 
 quick good breeding effected a diversion by commencing a 
 game of romps with little Ally, who, as ignorant as him- 
 self, entered into his views with high glee. Vernon pre- 
 sently took the opportunity to follow Elinor to the piazza. 
 She took his arm with an affectionate but apprehensive 
 pressure. 
 
 " That man — here again?" she inquired. 
 
 " He has been here — here in this house — not by my wish, 
 but of his own instance. It was to arrange the matter of 
 which we spoke, and which, as I told you, he was willing 
 to adjust as proposed, and as she agreed. He will come 
 here no more. That is included in our understanding, as 
 well as the stipulation that he is not to make known his 
 relation to the child — or others." 
 
 " But what can he be doing at Daugerfield's Rest?" 
 
 " Of that I am as ignorant as yourself He explained 
 his sojourn as being a visit to an old friend. I had hoped 
 that ere this he would have taken his leave."
 
 140 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Is it not strange that Mr. Stephen Dangerfield has 
 never named the circumstance ?" 
 
 " It appears so, certainly. Perhaps he has an inkling of 
 matters which, in such a case, would impose silence on the 
 score of delicacy. I can imagine no other reason." 
 
 " Had you no conversation with him excepting on the 
 subject of Ally ?" 
 
 " None. There was no other to discuss. Stay — at my 
 second interview with him, which took place at the bank- 
 er's, he undertook to refrain from molesting hery 
 
 Elinor marked the good man's venial prevarication, and 
 well understood the cause. At early morning, on the day 
 after Kirkwood's visit, she had, while walking in the gar- 
 den, discerned a white slip of paper lying in the grass 
 under the study windows. Some document of Mr, Ver- 
 non's, she thought, blown out by the wind — no unusual 
 incident. She picked it up wath the intention of restoring 
 it, and as she did so her own name caught her eye. It was 
 Kirkwood's pencilled memorandum, headed " Estate of 
 John Grazebrook to James Kirkwood, Dr.," and dated. 
 The story was clear to her. There was a claim against the 
 small property left by her father, which the figures showed 
 to quite absorb her little fortune. Oliver Vernon had satis- 
 fied this claim, and intended to keep her in ignorance of 
 the transaction. The untoward accident had baulked his 
 kindly purpose. 
 
 "Do. not let this trifling incident annoy you, my dar- 
 ling. 'Tis but for once. No one here will allude to the 
 man again, and I will endeavor to induce his speedy depar- 
 ture from the neighborhood. It distresses me deeply that 
 such things should occur, but only because you attach to 
 them an exaggerated importance." 
 
 He spoke anxiously, with a loving and still strong arm 
 about her, and, as Elinor looked up wath a smile half 
 painful, half wistful, pressed a father's kiss on her pure, 
 broad brow. And Cuthbert, who saw what passed, mar- 
 velled what possible connexion there could be between this 
 dark lago Eliot spoke of, and the beautiful girl who had
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 141 
 
 SO swiftly and unconsciously become the mistress of his 
 heart. 
 
 "Who has not spent many an hour of the interior life — 
 ever unsatisfying because ending in shadows, ever sustain- 
 ing because rosy with hope — in dreaming of that ideal 
 which is said to exist for all — whose qualities physical and 
 spiritual are precisely adapted to our utmost needs of love, 
 devotion, use, — whose virtues shall eke out our own pecu- 
 liar imperfections and blend two natures into the promised 
 harmonious unity ? The beautiful theory which teaches 
 this principle as a truth has, at least, its universality to 
 recommend it. It is cherished in the dwellings of rich and 
 needy, of the powerful and the weak, of the scholar and 
 the boor. The ignorant peasant who has neither read nor 
 been told of the poetic thought, will tell you it is yet no 
 stranger to him. Men whose lives have been devoted to 
 hard, petrifying pursuits, as of state-craft, law, figures, 
 mere money -getting, will tell you if you can get at what 
 left of their softer natures, that they too have felt and 
 dreamed of it — and that when they found, or thought they 
 had found, that they were not to be of the fortunate few 
 who realize it, they turned for comfort or oblivion to their 
 present ways of life. Some say, that only boys and girls, 
 young men and maidens cherish this lovely hope, indulge 
 this romantic aspiration. Is this true, silver-haii'ed old 
 man ? Is it true, poor faded sister ? both going, perhaps, 
 tremulously down to mateless and unloved graves ? You 
 do not say so. You say, " if not now, hereafter^ No, the 
 hope is universal — one proof of divine inspiration in its 
 origin, to add to the greater one — that it consoles. 
 
 "We meet a man, a woman, and we know instantly, mag- 
 netically, that they have this or that quality which is also 
 a part of our ideal — the other more beautiful self that 
 belongs to us. Sometimes there are many of these quali- 
 ties, and we are surprised or attracted to pursue the posses- 
 sor. Thus many unions come which are mistakes and 
 which cause misery. Yet both parties have been but obey-
 
 142 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 ing nature or destiny in so struggling to attain their ideal. 
 They fail ; but it is because they are unfortunate, or because 
 their sight is not clear. In either case, they are to believe 
 that the blunder is to conduce to their own ultimate good, 
 and that the happy junction will infiillibly take place — 
 hereafter. 
 
 Cuthbcrt Boynton had found his ideal. He was firmly 
 convinced of it, and nothing could have persuaded him to 
 the contrary. Certainly his experience was entitled to much 
 respect and consideration. He knew a vast deal about pretty 
 women in a general way. He appreciated the cognate force 
 which lies in handsome eyes, snowy complexions, flowing 
 tresses, budding figures, pretty ankles, irresistible Balmo- 
 rals, and all the rest of it. He had too much money, and 
 had travelled too much not to have been compelled to 
 march up to these batteries — or past them — in many lands 
 and under various and critical circumstances. The mere 
 fact of encountering a woman and finding her handsome 
 by no means included with him a forced flirtation at any 
 price. He would rather smoke cigars, read books, look at 
 pictures, drive, hunt and shoot. Men get indurated, cal- 
 loused in a manner, to what was once temptation, who have 
 been accustomed to roam at will, and have been taught by 
 experience to beware of traps and pitfalls. He was cour- 
 teous, refined, attentive so far as prescribed by convention, 
 to every lady he met, young or old, and quite as a matter 
 of course. But when, as the Fates would have it, he stum- 
 bled upon Elinor Grazebrook, Cuthbert knew that his hour 
 was come. She answered in every respect, so far as person 
 was concerned, the creature of his dreams. And, as he 
 got to know her more and more, he saw without surprise, 
 but with exceeding joy, that the nobler qualities quite came 
 up to the air-drawn previsioos of his ideal. He felt so 
 satisfied that here was a case of natural adaptation, that 
 he astonished himself one day soon after arriving at Up- 
 lands by the sudden suggestion, " Is it absolutely certain 
 that the lady will recognise the fact as thoroughly as I 
 myself do ?"
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 143 
 
 On the same day he set about gathering such information 
 as might throw light on a subject so interesting, and, as 
 became a strategist, he essayed to obtain some knowledge 
 of its topography before venturing into the enemies' country, 
 Grace and Cuthbert were very good friends, as young people 
 always are when enjoying a pleasure in common which 
 each sees without conflicting with the other. The only 
 difference was in their manner of enjoying the pleasure, 
 for Cuthbert was rather serious if not solemn, and Grace 
 was somewhat arch if not coquettish. Would Miss Vernon 
 be pleased to tell him, he asked in confidence, if — that is, if 
 she saw no impropriety in the question, — if Miss Graze- 
 brook had as yet contracted any engagement — that is to say, 
 any attachment? And Miss Vernon blushed, as young 
 ladies usually do at such questions, and said, " None that I 
 know of — unless, indeed it might be for — papa." 
 
 Cuthbert would have been annoyed by an approach to 
 trifling but for his pleasure at the information he elicited. 
 He went on : 
 
 "Miss Grazebrook has been a member of your family 
 for some years, I believe ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. Quite five. Ever since she lost her father. 
 We regard her as belonging entirely to ourselves now ; 
 papa as his daughter, I as my sister." 
 
 "She has a most engaging character — I mean a most 
 attractive and lovable one." 
 
 " Has she not ? Every one likes Elinor, except people 
 "who now and then try to be a little too familiar with her, 
 and get snubbed for their pains." 
 
 " You think her very proud, then ?" 
 
 " Not exactly proud. She has a great deal of self- 
 respect. Perhaps rather more personal dignity than most 
 girls of her age. She suffered much pain — experienced 
 great misfortune — in earlier days, which perhaps has added 
 to her self-respect, and possibly makes her a little dis- 
 tant with strangers. Those who knew her best love her 
 most." 
 
 "I know it," said Cuthbert, " I mean the affection of
 
 144 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 Mr. Vernon and yourself is obvious enough — and I pre- 
 sume none know her better than yourselves." 
 
 " And none whom she loves better — at least we hope so. 
 We could never part with Grace now," 
 
 The young man's countenance fell, and then brightened 
 again at this. There was comfort as well as depression in 
 what he had heard. He stood in silence for a moment, and 
 then made a coup in the way of revenge. 
 
 "Is it quite impossible that such a catastrophe may 
 occur through the voluntary action of Miss Vernon ?" 
 
 " Or through that of Miss Grazebrook, you would say," 
 cried Grace, the rosy betrayer rushing to her cheek again. 
 "It's not fair of you, Mr. Boynton, after extorting so much 
 of my confidence." 
 
 " Pardon," besought Cuthbert with contrition, " one 
 question more, and I'll submit to any penance you have 
 the heart to impose. Do you know of any reason why 
 your friend should not be free to — to — " 
 
 " There, I'll come to your relief and shame you by my 
 generosity. Do I know of any reason why Nelly should 
 not receive the addresses of any gentleman who is worthy 
 to offer them? No, none. Will that do ?" 
 
 " A thousand thanks, and — " 
 
 " And you'll remember that my grace was bountiful." 
 
 "Indeed, I shall." 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CALUMNY lives in republics as well as fn monarchies. 
 We do not escape it by changing a King for a Presi- 
 dent. Rather the reverse ; for among the other privileges 
 claimed under the latter, that of making free with our 
 neighbor's good name is by no means to be omitted. And 
 it is a curious feature of Republican society, that, while in 
 its hatred of hereditary distinctions it refuses to honor a
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 145 
 
 man for tbe heroic deeds of his ancestor, it insists on pun- 
 ishing him for that ancestor's weaknesses or crimes. The 
 sins of the father are visited on the children here with a 
 vengeance. Whatever may be due to the defects or the 
 merits of our Puritanical heritage, it is undeniable that 
 there exists among us a very strong bias for detraction. 
 This partly arises from the absence of standards. It is 
 also stimulated by the preposterous claim of our newspa- 
 pers to abuse everybody and everything under the cry of 
 freedom. Our Press, unhappily, has been too much under 
 the control of men who, entirely blackened and disgraced 
 themselves, have been seldom happy unless hard at work 
 begriming and traducing all who come within their sphere, 
 that none may be distinguished as being above their own 
 dirty level. It is true that this is an evil which offers the 
 consolation of most others, namely, that it will ultimately 
 correct itself But it is no less, while it lasts, a social ble- 
 mish — a blot on the national character. We claim theore- 
 tically to judge and to value individuals for themselves 
 alone ; but practically we persecute and underrate them for 
 the misdeeds, real or imaginary, of all who are connected 
 with them. The fruits of such a system are too manifest 
 to require more than suggestion. They lead people to 
 strive not so much to he better as to seem so. They point 
 their moral at last in the Spartan creed which teaches "not 
 to leave undone, but keep unknown." 
 
 Take the most common of domestic illustrations — the 
 case of him or her who is so unfortunate as to have had an 
 intemperate father or an erring mother. How does society 
 treat the innocent offender ? Does it sraoothe the path and 
 stretch a helping hand for the unfortunate who has suffered 
 so much undeserved trial and misery ? or does it take 
 counsel of the usurer. Overreach, to set its foot upon and 
 trample on them ? Where is the chivalry which, now we 
 have abolished Feudal remedies, now that we no longer 
 tolerate the duello — where is the generosity, the manly feel- 
 ing which should protect and uphold the unprotected 
 woman, the helpless orphan ? Alas ! the substitutes are 
 
 7
 
 146 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 yet to come, and the institutions are yet imperfect which 
 protect the person indeed, but leave the unarmed and de- 
 fenceless no shield to ward the strokes of idle slander or 
 malignant venom at that part most tender and most pre- 
 cious — their reputation. Society treats those who, for every 
 philanthropical and physiological reason, should be treated 
 with the utmost leniency, the most delicate consideration, 
 with a harshness and a scorn which are the precise oppo- 
 sites of the sentiments such cases should justly elicit. 
 
 Poor Elinor Grazebrook suffered both the misfortunes 
 suggested by the illustrations we have cited. Her father 
 had been for years notoriously intemperate. His acknow- 
 ledged talent had only delayed and graduated the social 
 downfall his vice brought upon himself and his family. 
 People care little to cultivate the society, or propitiate the 
 good will of those whom they see, by a slow but certain 
 process, descending in position and influence ; and there is 
 no instance of such decadence more inevitable than that of 
 the family of the inebriate. No need to mark the down- 
 ward steps. Most of us have seen them often enough, and 
 know, if we have not felt, their bitterness. This domestic 
 calamity of itself was enough to sadden so sensitive a 
 spirit as that of Elinor. Doubtless she inherited from the 
 nature which had succumbed in fighting the battle of life, 
 that which made her feel so acutely the consequences of his 
 fall. But then there came the crowning blow to her pride, 
 the last drop in her cup of humiliation. Her mother fell, 
 and with her honor was destroyed, in her daughter's esti- 
 mation, all hope of ever again filling her proper niche in 
 society. Mary Grazebrook had suffered much to palliate 
 her crime, in the eye of Heaven if not in that of the 
 world, and none knew this better than Elinor. The sick- 
 ening horror of dragging on year after year in enforced 
 and most intimate association with a drunkard ; the weary 
 ing alternations of brutality and imbecility ; the endlessly 
 broken promises of amendment which the poor wretch 
 would, but perhaps could not keep ; the disdainful pity of 
 the hard world ; the manifold troubles and mortifications
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM. 147 
 
 arising from stinted means and failing credit — these are the 
 griefs often borne till death comes with its sad release to 
 one or other of the wretched partners ; but which have 
 often enough before Mary Grazebrook's time furnished the 
 stimulus and the excuse for crime such as she was guilty 
 of. The idea which filled her soul after ten years of misery 
 was solely that of escape — escape from the wretched life 
 she had not religious or moral strength longer to endure. 
 Had there been a father's, brother's, sister's home open to 
 receive her, she had doubtless sought refuge in it. But 
 there was none such, and the wily villain to whose arts she 
 succumbed, knew well how accidental circumstances were 
 fighting on his side. His feeling towards her was one of 
 all but unmixed animal passion. She was still very hand- 
 some, and had one of those amply rounded figures which 
 present voluptuous attractions to strong and profligate 
 natures such as Kirkwood's. As might have been expect- 
 ed, and as has been previously related, the man soon wea- 
 ried of his beautiful mistress. Before he abandoned her, 
 she had learned to loathe and despise him with an intensity 
 of which she had never before thought herself capable. 
 This aversion, which might otherwise have remained pas- 
 sive, had grown into an absolute thirst for vengeance, when 
 Kirk wood in leaving her had also deprived her of her 
 child. In vain had she searched up and down the land to 
 punish the one and recover the other. Kirkwood carried 
 out his plans with exhaustive sagacity. The little girl had 
 been taken far down into the beautiful State after which he 
 had named her, and the charge accepted by a half sister of 
 the father, who told his own story of its origin. He then 
 made his way to New Orleans, and took the steamer for 
 California. 
 
 Elinor had always felt compunction respecting her domes- 
 tication in the family of Oliver Vernon. Her acuteness in 
 worldly matters, sharpened by early trials and sufferings, 
 was at no loss to teach her that there were those who would 
 regard the position of Grace Vernon as in some sort com- 
 promised by intimate relations with one whose family was
 
 148 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 so disgraced as her own. She felt that, whatever her own 
 misfortunes, she had no right to entail their consequences, 
 however remote or indirect, upon her guileless friend. 
 However unmerited by any misdeed on her own part were 
 the slights and scorns of society, her innocence did not jus- 
 tify her in permitting others to share the burden. Such 
 were her reflections and expressed convictions when Oliver 
 Vernon first came to fetch her to Uplands. The good 
 man anticipated, and was therefore prepared to combat 
 precisely such objections. He pointed out that few if any 
 persons moving in the orbit of his country home had ever 
 heard of the disasters which were so momentous to herself. 
 Even if by any chance there might be such, his own posi- 
 tion and influence were not likely to be challenged by the 
 offensive bruiting of distasteful reminiscences. No really 
 worthy or generous person would dream of visiting upon 
 her the misfortunes of her parents. It was, moreover, 
 highly desirable that Grace should have a companion of 
 something near her own years and tastes — it was, in fact, 
 indispensable. So far as Elinor's delicacy was concerned 
 respecting the independence of her position, the sum her 
 father had secured to her, if not large, was yet quite ample 
 for the needs of a single young lady. These and similar 
 considerations had overborne the girl's scruples, and 
 although counter arguments often recurred to her mind 
 with painful eifect, she had never after her first acqui- 
 escence seriously thought of them as furnishing grounds for 
 any prospective change in her situation. 
 
 Now, however, the case was far different. Whatever 
 may have been the original force of Oliver Vernon's argu- 
 ments or the conclusion which they established, it was 
 clear that the conditions had been transposed so as to 
 establish with equal force a conclusion exactly opposite. 
 It was now known — or certain soon to be — in the neigh- 
 borhood, who and what Elinor's father and mother were, 
 or had been. The presence of Kirkwood and the myste- 
 rious protraction of his visit at Dangerfield's Rest, together 
 with his admitted relation to the child, Alabama, appeared
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM. * 149 
 
 to make publicity on these points quite inevitable. Again : 
 the claim Kirkwood set up to the property left by John 
 Grazebrook, while, if resisted, it would lead to litigation 
 involving notoriety damaging to all but himself, if admitted, 
 would leave Elinor in the position of being utterly de- 
 pendent upon the bounty of Oliver Vernon. Jn either 
 case she would not be justified in remaining at Uplands. 
 
 So reasoned Elinor, and the bitter struggle it cost her to 
 determine on the action her reasoning confirmed to be 
 right, satisfied her the more that there was but one proper 
 course for her to pursue. She must leave Uplands. Leave 
 the noble-minded old man she had learned to love as she 
 never had been able to love her father. Leave the warm- 
 hearted girl whom she loved better than a sister. Leave 
 the sunny and beautiful home whose grand old trees, lovely 
 views, pictures and books, bowers and shady walks — even 
 the humble animals they made pets of — rose painfully to 
 her mind as costing each so many regrets. Every one 
 employed about the place was more or less dear to her, 
 for here — and for the first time in her life, she had been 
 truly happy. To quit the scene which she had grown to 
 love so fondly with all its clustering association of objects, 
 animate and inanimate, was to Elinor like going back to 
 the past — and she looked back on her sad, desolate child- 
 hood with a shudder. 
 
 Yet she must go. Even if it did no wrong to Grace, 
 she could not now remain. She had suffered deeply 
 enough at times from the stray insinuations or covered 
 sneers of vulgar people like the Von Donks, — but those 
 times were rare, and it was not impossible to avoid them. 
 How would it be now, when the knowledge of her mother's 
 shame should be rife on every lip, and every finger, high 
 or low, be raised to point her out ? Anything rather than 
 that. Better be buried far away, deep down in the quiet 
 ground, than hear those whispers, than see those levelled 
 indices of contempt. 
 
 To go she was resolved. There were two considerations 
 connected with her departure, upon each of which she was
 
 150 ' dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 equally determined. Firstly, as regarded the communi- 
 cating of her purpose to Oliver and Grace Vernon. She 
 was well aware that they would oppose it by every pos- 
 sible argument and entreaty. Scenes would occur which 
 were sure to be inexpressibly painful to all parties, and 
 which would be productive of no good whatever. Elinor 
 therefore resolved to depart without giving any previous 
 intimation of her design, intending to forward, directly 
 afterward, written explanations of her behavior. She 
 meant to entreat that she might not be pursued or sought 
 out, but hoped by certain precautions to secure herself 
 from discovery in the event of her entreaties being un- 
 heeded. 
 
 The second consideration had reference to the immediate 
 future, as well as to what the young girl regarded as 
 her career and destiny in life. It was a subject which had 
 long occupied her thoughts, and had been almost shaped 
 into purpose at the time she came to live at Uplands. 
 The aspirations connected with it had lain dormant for a 
 time, but they had never been entirely extinguished. 
 When she lately commenced to persuade herself that duty 
 and self-respect would oblige her to leave Vernon's pro- 
 tecting roof, those aspirations had rekindled in her heart, 
 and had prompted her to take preliminary measures such as 
 should prepare the way for consummation when the hour 
 of her departure should arrive. The measures taken, and 
 the consummation arrived at, will fully appear as we trace 
 Elinor's adventures in the future. 
 
 " No good' 11 come on't." 
 
 This was the opinion, rather dogmatically expressed, of 
 sturdy David Greenwood as he sat drinking tea according 
 to his evening custom in Aunt Mercy's own room. The 
 snowy cloth, the fragrant beverage, the pleasant fatigue 
 that comes of labor done and well done, usually combined 
 to make these occasions the chosen ones for gossip, or, as 
 Aunt Mercy said, for a bit of a chat. 
 
 " La sakes. Uncle Dave, don't go on like that. It's kip-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. . 151 
 
 der fljin' in the face of Providence to keep a prophesyin' 
 like Jeremiah of what's going to come to pass in the futur'. 
 He's kind and gentle and every bit a gentleman if there 
 ever was one." 
 
 " He's a nigger driver, that's what he is. Not that I'd 
 say any thing rily or hurtful of one of the Squire's com- 
 pany outside. But he aint nuthin' more nor less than a 
 nigger driver. Of course there's different kinds. There's 
 good and there's bad, and there's some sorter nootral. I 
 dare say he's one of the best of the lot. Like enough he 
 don't skin men alive, nor brand 'em with red-hot irons, 
 nor chase 'em with bloodhounds ; but it's the same cryin' 
 old iniquity. He ha'n't got no business ownin' of 'em 
 at all." 
 
 " Well now supposin' he hasn't, he's got 'em, ha'n't he ? 
 And he aint goin' to give 'em up, is he ? And isn't it 
 better, if they must be in bondage, for the colored folks 
 to be treated like Christians, as Mr. Boynton most likely 
 treats his, than to be tortered and worried like so many 
 wild beasts ?" 
 
 " "Wall, I don't know as it is. Aunt Massy. If they 
 ought to have their freedom, p'raps the treatment which 
 would stimerlate 'em to stick up for't would be best in 
 the lonsr run. These here slaveholders have all but ruined 
 the country our fathers fit for, and I've no likin' for 'em 
 any how. If it weren't for the Paddies we'd a run 
 'em out o' power long ago, but the day'll come yet I 
 reckon." 
 
 " If there's wrong done, the Lord'll avenge it, Uncle 
 Dave. Any how, Mr. Boynton aint responsible for Sla- 
 very, is he ? He didn't bring the colored folks from 
 Afriky, did he ? They were here all ready to his hand 
 left to him by his father, most likely, and what's he to do 
 but treat 'em as well as he knows how ?" 
 
 " The Lord helps them as helps themselves, Aunt Massy. 
 I reckon he don't intervene directly, but through chosen 
 instruments, makin' 'em gradooaly git wiser and better so's 
 to be fit for the work. It's true the Britishers brought the
 
 152 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 niggers here, and oar folks didn't want 'em and grumbled 
 like sin about it, but that don't make no difference. The 
 wrong's here however it's brought about, and it's our busi- 
 ness somehow to set it right." 
 
 " Well, if Miss Nelly marries this gentleman and goes 
 down South with him she's sure to do good there as well 
 as anywhere's else. She won't make things there no worse 
 any way, and I guess she can make him do most anything 
 she likes." 
 
 " Yes, there's no mistake, he's awful sweet on her ; but 
 I tell you, Aunt Massy, it aint the right thing for our 
 Northern women to go down there aidin' and abettin' to 
 perpetooate slavery. The feelin' of the world's agen it, 
 and goodpeople everywhere are gettin' more'n more sot 
 agen it every day. It'll have to go under soon or else 
 this country will, — and I don't think it's goin' to be the 
 country." 
 
 " May be you're right. Uncle Dave, but I think people 
 ought to marry them they take a liking to, young or 
 old. We allers agreed on that, didn't we ?" 
 
 " Well, as a gineral rule, but then there's exceptions. 
 Arter all, you don't even know that Miss Nelly'll have him 
 when he asks her." 
 
 " I wouldn't say I knew for sartain, that's a fact. She's 
 dreadful quiet-like, and don't talk much about what she's 
 a thinking on. But I know she likes him putty well, even 
 if she aint fur gone." 
 
 " How d'ye know, Aunt Massy ?" 
 
 " Oh ! by things you'd never think of noticin', Uncle 
 Dave, cute as you are. If she comes into a room where 
 she thinks he is and he aint, there's jest a shade of disap- 
 pintment in her eye ; and her face kinder lights up when 
 he's talkin' to her in a way I never saw when she talked 
 to other folks at home or abroad. Then, when his back's 
 turned (never when he's lookin' toward her) her glance fol- 
 lers him about in a curious studyin' kind of way." 
 
 "Is them the things folks do when they're kind o' 
 hankerin' arter one another ?"
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 153 
 
 " They're signs, I reckon. Most folks acts in that way 
 more or less." 
 
 " Did you ever do any sech by any one you cottoned 
 to?" 
 
 "Present company's allers excepted. A little more tea, 
 Uncle Dave ? and more sugar than the other ? Dear me, how 
 comfortable it is to get back home again. I begin to feel 
 nateral-like now again." 
 
 " You didn't act quite nateral when you fust got back. 
 I thought you was kinder spiled with foreign airs and 
 graces ; but you're gitten round right agen now. How- 
 sumever I'm glad to get you back at any price. Things 
 was gettin' rather rusty in your department." 
 
 " You can say that safe enough. Sech shirts and sech 
 socks as yourn I never see in all my born days. I haint 
 got 'em right yet. And as to the house it was a sight 
 to be seen. Dust and dirt everywheres from kitchen to 
 garret. You could write your name with your finger on 
 every wall in the house, and as to the curtains, a shakin' 
 of 'em was like gitten under a land-slide !" 
 
 " Didn't last long arter you got here, Aunt Massy. Miss 
 Grace said you did the work of six the first week you got 
 home." 
 
 " Bless her heart ! Shell have a husband that even 
 you won't object to, Uncle David. And another thing, 
 it won't be takin' her away from poor Squire Vernon 
 altogether. They'll be neighbors all their lives." 
 
 "Mr. Stephen's a very fine young man, very, and I 
 don't see as there's anything to hender his marryin' Miss 
 Gracy. His father, though, old Mart. Dangerfield used to 
 be a queer one. He lived a riotous life of it up to 
 five and forty years. There's a chap visitin' there now 
 I used to see about in them days, and he's the only one on 
 'em that ever comes. There used to be a houseful, month 
 in and month out." 
 
 "Well, folks change as they git older. I dare say if the 
 old gentleman had took a fancy to marry again he'd been 
 happier."
 
 154 dakgerfield's rest; or 
 
 *' Ne'er a time. Look at the Squire ; lie's happy enough, 
 ain't he ?" 
 
 " To be sure, but then he's always had Miss Grace. I 
 tell you, Uncle Dave, it makes a sight of difference when 
 there's always a bright smiling young face a lightin' up 
 the house as folks get stricken in years." 
 
 " That's a fact, aunty," said David, with something like 
 a sigh. " I'm afraid some folks don't know what a com- 
 fort they miss in cliildren till they git too old to have 'em. 
 Talkin' of children, how's that ere colored woman, little 
 Miss Ally's nurse ?" 
 
 " She's pooty bad," replied Aunt Mercy, shaking her 
 head. "She's never had her right mind, poor critter, 
 since they took her out of the wreck. Dr. Saunders doesn't 
 think she'll last long. He says she must have given the 
 little one all there was to eat — she was a mere skeleton 
 — she sacrificed herself, poor soul, that the charge trusted 
 to her might live." 
 
 " And yet they say the critters aint human beings," said 
 David reflectively. "Could a Christian ever so white have 
 done more ?" 
 
 We may say here that the fears as to the faithful Gerty 
 were soon to be sadly realized. She lingered yet a few 
 weeks, kept up by care and nursing ; but she sank ere the 
 family went to town for the winter, and her remains repose 
 among dust which is no whiter in the neighboring village 
 churchyard.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 « "IRREVOCABLE !" 
 
 X It was the last word he heard from her lips for many 
 a long day ; the final strain of that dear melody which he 
 had hoped to listen to for ever. That word, "the seal 
 upon the tomb of hope," ended with its breath the fairest 
 dream his imagination had ever conjured of an earthly 
 Heaven. He looked into the depths of her beautiful dark 
 eyes to see if caprice and wilfulness were not conspiring to 
 hide pity there, — but he could find ncr trace of such a 
 feeling. He lingered for a moment, knowing that reprieve 
 is sweeter for being tardy, and unwilling to believe that the 
 gentle face where he had read so much of real or fancied 
 encouragement and sympathy should remain hardened into 
 that marble resolution, — but there came no change. Then 
 Cuthbert slowly departed, leaving Elinor in sole possession 
 of the shady nook which had witnessed his ill-starred 
 declaration. Slowly he walked toward the mansion, pon- 
 dering as he went on the propriety of at once taking leave 
 of Uplands, and, — though he snatched up a tiny lilac glove, 
 and pressed a hasty kiss upon it, and thrust it in his bosom, 
 — he never looked behind 
 
 And Elinor listened anxiously, — cautiously holding her 
 breath to make sure of hearing the last faint sound of the 
 retreating footsteps, — and then there came what she had not 
 known since the death of her unhappy father — a torrent of 
 bitter tears. 
 
 "Irrevocable!" 
 
 Has the word sounded for you, Reader, and has it been 
 the knell of such a hope ? Philosophers tell us that such 
 crtishing miseries are the lights and guide-posts which are 
 to bring us to true wisdom and to the highest happiness, 
 and perhaps they are right ; but we draw, most of us, 
 slender consolation from such truths in the first bitter 
 hours of affliction. Cuthbert did not, although he attained, 
 let us hope, the average standard of philosophical equa-
 
 156 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 nimitj in course of time. She sat there that day in a sort 
 of bower looking forth on the distant mountains, and she 
 ■was musing on her own future whose outlines were as 
 misty and indistinct as their own. Deeply absorbed was 
 she, so that Cuthbert came upon her unperceived. He 
 had not quite resolved upon then and there declaring his 
 cherished passion ; yet a less impressible heart would 
 have grown weak and yielding in viewing such a 
 vision. 
 
 She was dressed in white that day, with a simple chip 
 bat and a lace mantilla hanging carelessly across her arms. 
 Her lovely gold-brown hair gleamed through the net which 
 confined, while yielding to,. its weight. The oval face, with 
 its features so pure and delicate, was upturned, the dark 
 thoughtful eyes bent, as we have said, upon the far-off 
 hills. The young man gazed in silent admiration, and, as 
 he gazed, he felt impelled, all but irresistibly, to throw 
 himself at Elinor's feet and, without preamble, declare his 
 love, and beseech that it might be returned. A bird sud- 
 denly flashed across her line of sight, crossing, as it flew, 
 the angle between that line and the point where Cuthbert 
 stood. Her eyes followed mechanically, and fell on the 
 intruder's figure. He raised his hat and advanced. 
 
 " I would not willingly have broken the spell, but being 
 discovered, you won't refuse to let me crave pardon for 
 disturbing your reverie." 
 
 " My brown study scarcely deserves even that name, Mr. 
 Boynton ; mere idleness, almost inanity. If I had a 
 thought, it was of yonder lovely blue hills, and coupling 
 the dimness of their outlines in this hazy atmosphere, with 
 that of our own future." 
 
 "I am just about to form a clear idea of my own — that 
 is, of my immediate future. My stay in the North has be'en 
 more extended than I proposed ; indeed, duty rather calls 
 me homeward. I fear the expiration of this week must 
 find me on the wing." 
 
 " We shall be sorry to lose you so soon. But why fear 
 going home ? I found it such a relief — such a pleasure —
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 157 
 
 to return here after our long sojourn abroad, that I can only 
 fancy people turning homewards with joy." 
 
 " Nor' should I have a different feeling if there were 
 those whom I loved — ^.or who loved me — to welcome the 
 journey's end. Life is rather dull for a bachelor on a cot- 
 ton plantation." 
 
 " But your people — the black people, I mean — are at- 
 tached to you, are they not? I am sure you cannot be 
 other than kind to them." 
 
 " Oh ! yes ; such attachment as they are capable of. But 
 you can readily believe that their society is not precisely 
 all-satisfying. To be sure, there's good hunting and fish- 
 ing, and all that sort of thing. And the gentry of the 
 neighborhood are up to the average. But there is some- 
 thing, or rather the absence of something, which makes 
 the old home wearisome and sad enough." 
 
 " And that something is " 
 
 " Can't you guess — a wife I" 
 
 An awkward and bungling way truly to usher in the 
 coming crisis, but people who are desperately in love 
 are extremely apt to be awkward and bungling. A flush 
 swept up to Elinor's brow, but she had abundance of 
 aplomb and self-possession, and she answered steadily — 
 
 "A deficiency, I should judge, which one in your posi- 
 tion might very easily supply." 
 
 "Alas ! I may not even estimate the difficulty. I have 
 a very strong case to make up, but the judge has not yet 
 heard the evidence." 
 
 "You speak enigmatically, Mr. Boynton," said Elinor 
 rising, " but I presume I may safely prophesy that you will 
 gain your cause." 
 
 " Heaven knows how happy it will make me to do so ; 
 but do not, do not leave me, Miss Grazebrook," for Elinor 
 whose dim suspicion of the drift of the interview began to 
 approach conviction, had turned to depart. " For Heaven's 
 sake do not go now^ after such a blissful prediction. You 
 say," he went on rapidly, and possessing himself of her 
 slender white hand, " that I am to gain my cause. Is it
 
 158 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 possible that you are ignorant that you are the judge who 
 is to decide it ?" 
 
 " I ? Mr. Boynton, I " 
 
 " Nay, hear me out. You must not, cannot refuse to 
 hear all that I have to say, now that I have said so much." 
 And the floodgates of his passion once opened, the torrent 
 rolled on, unrestrained and swift. 
 
 " I love you, dearly, fondly. Better than I have ever 
 loved in the past, better than I shall ever love in the future. 
 I have been seeking for you ; indeed I have, for years, half 
 hopeless, often, of ever finding you. No, not romance — 
 truth, God's truth, as I do earnestly believe. Don't turn 
 away — don't . say this love of mine cannot be returned. 
 You can't know how great, and strong, and fervent it is. 
 No one can ever love you as I love you. It could not be. 
 Don't, don't take your hand away — this little hand I've so 
 often longed to kiss ; don't take it from mine, or if you do 
 let it be to give it again, and say it may lie there forever !" 
 And the suppliant was at Elinor's feet, and covering her 
 hand with the coveted kisses. 
 
 " Pra}'^, pray stop ; I beg, I entreat, — or must I command 
 you, Mr. Boynton, to desist ? Indeed, indeed I had no 
 idea — this is so sudden " 
 
 " Not with me. It dates from the first moment I ever 
 saw you, and has only grown stronger with each that has 
 succeeded. There, I will release your hand ; only give me 
 a word — a single word of hope that it shall be restored 
 once more — some time — not to be again withdrawn." 
 
 " I am so taken by surprise — I " 
 
 " You hesitate ! Can you not speak that word ?" 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Boynton, with truth, I fear I cannot." 
 
 " Good Heavens, luhy ? You are not engaged — promised 
 — to another ; in a word, you love no one else ?" 
 
 "In your sense, I do not." And Elinor slowly reco- 
 vered her self possession. " I am truly grieved to give you 
 pain — but this has been so hasty — a step for which I am so 
 wholly unprepared " 
 
 " I see ! I see !" he interrupted, eagerly catching at the
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 159 
 
 most favorable implication. " You require time to re- 
 flect, to arrange your thoughts, to be reconciled to change, 
 but you don't positively reject '' 
 
 " 'Tis best to be explicit and candid from the outset, Mr. 
 Boynton," said Elinor, in a grave, sad voice. " That is the 
 precise construction you are to put upon my words." 
 
 " No, no, no ! For Heaven's sake do not say that. Say 
 that you cannot love me now as a wife should, and as you 
 can, but that you may do so hereafter. Say that there 
 are difficulties — family matters — whose importance you 
 exaggerate, but which my strong love may surmount. Say 
 that your guardian is bent upon some other union for you, 
 and you dislike running counter to his wishes. Say any- 
 thing but that you absolutely — hopelessly — reject me !" 
 
 " But none of these things would be true," said Elinor, 
 calmly. 
 
 "How!" 
 
 " It would be untrue," and her voice shook a little, " to 
 say that I cannot love you now, but may hereafter. It 
 would be untrue to say that there are reasons — family 
 or other — which would present insuperable objections to 
 any step of the kind I might contemplate. It would be 
 untrue to say that Mr. Vernon would desire any union for 
 me which was not in the fullest sense agreeable to myself. 
 But yet I cannot marry you." 
 
 " Am I then so distasteful to you ?" said the young 
 man bitterly. 
 
 Her face was averted at the moment he asked the ques- 
 tion, and had it not been it is probable Cuthbert would not 
 have seen the expression which would have made his heart 
 leap for joy to interpret. It was one of ineffable tender- 
 ness — a feeling of which she strove to suppress any trace in 
 her voice as she answered. 
 
 " To say so would be as untrue as the other." 
 
 Cuthbert gave an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, 
 and then reflected for a moment. He could think well 
 and rapidly enough on most subjects, why not on this 
 to him most important one ? Presently he spoke, and his
 
 160 dangerfield's eest; or 
 
 voice was musical with a hope which was mingled with 
 chivalrous deference and deprecation : — 
 
 " You will permit me to allude to a subject necessarily 
 rather a delicate one ?" 
 
 She bowed in acquiescence. " Go on. I listen." 
 
 "You are proud — I mean in a certain way — more so 
 than most of your sex perhaps. I can imagine that pride 
 as sometimes leading you to extremes — possibly in con- 
 nexion with social relations. You are not likely to relish 
 the acceptance of aught which, in the most fastidious sense, 
 you might conceive yourself unable to bestow. I am not 
 ignorant of— of the undeserved pain you have suffered 
 from certain family misfortunes. The attitude in which 
 I have placed myself precludes, I trust, the need of expla- 
 nation on such a subject so far as I am concerned; — 
 but you, may I ask if your decision is affected by such 
 considerations ?" 
 
 "I will answer that," said Elinor, with dignity, "and 
 frankly, although the discussion is perhaps unnecessary. 
 My reply is, distinctly not. It might be in the case of 
 a man in any sense my inferior, not in that of a man in 
 every sense my equal. I repudiate and despise the prac- 
 tical injustice of society which would visit the sin of the 
 parent upon the innocent child. Of course whatever 
 disabilities or contumely the world may choose to impose, 
 an individual cannot in his weakness escape ; but the soul 
 cannot be compelled to acquiesce in the decision or to cease 
 protesting against its injustice." 
 
 "I honor the sentiment, even if, in its utterance, the 
 slender hope I had cherished be shaken," said the young 
 man sadly. "But Miss Grazebrook, nay, — Elinor, — you 
 will forgive the name if it be for the last as well as the first 
 time, — do not say that you really meant to deprive me of 
 every hope. Leave me," he pursued with strong emotion 
 as he saw her growing agitation, "leave me the merest 
 shadow of doubt which shall save me from utter despair. 
 You may yet change your resolution !" 
 
 " I implore you not to — to press me further. I grieve,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 161 
 
 indeed — indeed I do ! To inflict the pain hurts me more 
 than you, — but it cannot, — can never be otherwise. My 
 resolution is — ^" 
 
 " No, no ! Do not say it! Do not — " 
 
 " Irrevocable .^" 
 
 And when she again looked up, he was gone. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CLIMAXES are contagious. The day which saw Cuth- 
 bert Boynton's departure from Uplands, saw Stephen 
 Dangerfield the happy and accepted suitor of fair Grace 
 Yernon. Stephen had brought himself to the duty point 
 at last, and in making out his case to Oliver Vernon, he 
 had unreservedly communicated the facts, so far as he 
 knew them, relating to the mortgage on his ancestral acres. 
 He narrated how he had at first determined, — feeling it im- 
 possible to be with Grace and not declare his attachment, 
 — to abstain altogether from visiting her home ; how that, 
 on reflection, he saw the expediency of taking the advice 
 of a calm and wise counsellor upon the question of Kirk- 
 wood's revelation, which, in fact, was his object in trans- 
 gressing his original resolution ; and how that, in the se- 
 quel, he had been so irresistibly impelled to behave as he 
 had done, etc., etc. Yernon looked very grave on hearing 
 of Kirkwood's connexion with the mortgage and of his 
 domiciliation at Dangerfield's Rest. 
 
 "As to money, my dear Stephen," he affirmed, " Grace 
 will have enough for both if need be, and where her hap- 
 piness is at stake the subject is one of the smallest consi- 
 deration. But that so fine a landed property, to which 3^our 
 family name has been so long attached, should pass from 
 your hands is more serious. It might perhaps be in my 
 power to purchase this mortgage, — not in your favor," con- 
 tinued he, smiling, as he saw Stephen's gesture of refusal,
 
 162 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 " but in that of Grace's children. To what does Mr. Dan- 
 geriield state the incumbrance to amount ?" 
 
 " Why, sir, I have had no discussion with my father on 
 the subject. The sole knowledge I possess is derived from 
 the holder, Mr. Kirkwood. I judged from my father's 
 manner at a time when he knew the information was given 
 me, and, indeed, ever since, that the story was correct. 
 The total, Kirkwood alleged to be in the neighborhood 
 of eighty thousand dollars." 
 
 " Have you seen the instrument yourself ?" 
 
 " Not as yet. I hardly thought it necessary." 
 
 " My dear fellow, you are scarcely qualified as a man of 
 business. You, at least, know whether it is properly re- 
 corded in the county office ?" 
 
 Stephen was obliged to confess his ignorance upon this 
 point also. 
 
 " In fine, then," said Yernon, laughing heartily, " you 
 have absolutely no evidence that such a bond was ever 
 executed, or that it exists at all, except the equivocal testi- 
 mony of Mr. James Kirkwood. I say ' equivocal,' advi- 
 sedly. I have known the man and his career for years, 
 and his relation to the business is of itself sufficient to jus- 
 tify suspicion." 
 
 " I perceive I have been very careless and neglectful," 
 said Stephen, with some confusion, " but you know my 
 excuse, sir." 
 
 " Aye, and how to make due allowances," replied Yer- 
 non, " but really these are points which should be cleared 
 up at once." 
 
 " I fear we shall find little comfort in investigation. My 
 poor father is weak and ill, but he certainly would never 
 allow me to be made the victim of so aimless a deception 
 as this would be." 
 
 " Has Kirkwood had any dealings with Mr. Dangerfield 
 for any length of time — I mean dealings of which you 
 were cognizant ?" 
 
 " I gathered previously that he had for a term of years 
 been in the receipt of considerable sums of money from
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 163 
 
 my father. Why, or wherefore, I could not divine. He 
 has been absent for several years from the Atlantic States." 
 
 "And now he comes here, takes up his abode under 
 your roof, and sets up the claim that he is the possessor 
 of a mortgage upon it to an extent nearly equalling its 
 entire value !" 
 
 "Precisely." 
 
 "jAnd did it never strike you that there might be some- 
 thing wrong in all this ?" 
 
 " Very forcibly. It was my expressed determination to 
 force an explanation, in fact, which elicited, for my satis- 
 faction, the statement about the mortgage." 
 , Vernon mused for a few moments. He did not believe 
 in the existence of a hona-fide mortgage on Dangerfield's 
 Eest at all ; but he was at a loss to penetrate the motive 
 which should induce Kirkwood to make the misrepresen- 
 tation, or that which led Martin Dangerfield himself to 
 acquiesce in it. 
 
 " Your first step is clear," he finally said ; "it is to ascer- 
 tain quietly whether such an instrument is on record in the 
 proper registry — and afterwards, whether it be recorded or 
 not, it will be well to ask to see the original paper, which, 
 of course, must be presumed to be in Kirkwood's posses- 
 sion. Once satisfied as to the fact, you can resolve what 
 course to pursue in the premises for the future." 
 
 The next morning Stephen rode forth as usual in the 
 direction of Uplands. But he struck off to the right 
 shortly before coming up with the familiar lodge, and gal- 
 loped some half-dozen miles to the town which contained 
 the County Buildings. "With little time and trouble he 
 was enabled to inspect the registers wherein mortgages on 
 real property are recorded, and to discover that Vernon's 
 suspicions were justified by the fact ; there was no incum- 
 brance whatever standing against the lands known as The 
 Rest, and a careful search failed to detect the slightest evi- 
 dence that there ever had been such. 
 
 The young man's indignation on making this discovery
 
 164 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 was by no means less because it was palpably owing to bis 
 own negligence that it had been a tardy one. He had 
 chafed impatiently under the protracted infliction of Kirk- 
 wood's presence, and barely restrained the outward expres- 
 sion of his annoyance in deference to his father. He was 
 now more anxious to be rid of the unwelcome guest than 
 ever. It was proper to acquaint his father with the fact 
 of his engagement to Grace Vernon, and family intercourse 
 would naturally and properly ensue, which, in all probabi- 
 lity, would bring each of the visitors at the two houses, 
 respectively, in contact with each other. Oliver Vernon 
 had foreseen this dilemma, as the reader is aware, but had 
 thought of it in relation to other embarrassing juxtaposi- 
 tions. His plan had been simple enough before his late 
 explanation with Stephen. Knowing Kirkwood to be 
 thoroughly mercenary, he had proposed to himself to make 
 it well worth the man's while to absent himself altogether 
 from that part of the country, and he then had no doubt 
 in succeeding, and at a moderate cost. Now, however, the 
 case was essentially different. Whether the claim set up 
 by Kirkwood was just or unjust, he had asserted and 
 obviously meant to adhere to and profit by it. He had a 
 hold of some sort upon Martin Dangerfield, the value of 
 which he rated at eighty thousand dollars, and no paltry 
 sum was likely, under such circumstances, to induce him 
 to forego any advantages, direct or collateral, which that 
 hold could enforce. 
 
 Stephen rode straight home, with his head full of the 
 significant discovery he had made. Yesterday at the same 
 hour he would scarcely have resisted going over to Up- 
 lands before returning, but there had been great changes 
 since yesterday. The sweet half-hour he had passed with 
 Grace, after bis interview with her father, had put the seal 
 upon his happiness, and, secure as to the future, Stephen 
 began to reflect that he had duties to perform in the world, 
 and that he might as well set about them. Not the least 
 was that which he owed to his father, that he should not 
 be made the dupe of a designing schemer, such as he was
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 165 
 
 now more fully persuaded than ever Kirkwood really was. 
 It was also a plain duty to the family with which he was to 
 ally himself, that his own future resources and expecta- 
 tions should be not only properly protected, but clearly and 
 unequivocally defined. 
 
 As to Kirkwood and his plans, the reader will have had 
 no difficulty in surmising that at the time the pretension 
 was put forward no such mortgage really existed. The 
 man had skilfully availed himself of accidental circum- 
 stances to commit Martin Dangerfield to the tacit acknow- 
 ledgment of an instrument which he proposed to draw up 
 thereafter, and, watching a favorable opportunity, to cajole 
 "or threaten the old man into signing. That Stephen would 
 one day take the step he had now adopted, Kirkwood fore- 
 saw was extremely probable. That such a step would be 
 followed by a fresh explosion, he was well aware. When 
 such a time arrived, it would be his cue to employ all his 
 weapons for the consummation of his main design. Ava- 
 rice had now become the strongest passion of his nature. 
 There were circumstances which might necessitate his hasty 
 departure from the country at any moment. Whether he 
 could altogether control those circumstances or not, he 
 resolved to put himself speedily in possession of the largest 
 possible sum in ready cash. A mortgage on so fine a pro- 
 perty as Dangerfield's Best could be easily disposed of in 
 New York, and the product invested in bills on Europe. 
 Thus armed and prepared, he could take flight whenever 
 events might make such a course prudent or desirable. 
 Au reste he would make himself comfortable in his present 
 quarters as long as possible. 
 
 It was high noon when Stephen arrived at the house, 
 and questioned the servant who took his horse as to the 
 whereabouts of his father and Mr. Kirkwood. They were 
 at luncheon in the breakfast room, and thither he repaired. 
 Kirkwood at once perceived something unusual in the 
 young man's presenting himself at this hour, and essayed 
 to forewarn his companion of the approaching edaircisse- 
 ment.
 
 166 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " You seldom honor us at luncheon, Mr. Stephen," he 
 . remarked, affablj, " and we should appreciate the excep- 
 tions like the angels' visits. The pleasure of a glass of 
 wine ? Capital Sherry, this !" 
 
 He poured out a glass for Stephen, and held his own up 
 lovingly in the sunlight. 
 
 Stephen waved aside the proffered courtesy, and plunged 
 abruptly into his subject. 
 
 " I have been at , the county town, and I have been 
 
 looking through the books at the Kegister's office. Per- 
 haps you will be good enough to inform me why it is that 
 the mortgage you claim to hold on this property is not pro- 
 perly and formally registered there ?" 
 
 "I could have spared you the trouble of your journey," 
 said Kirkwood, sipping his wine with calm enjoyment, 
 " had you given me the opportunity to do so. As it is, 
 your question had better be addressed to your father." 
 
 The old man looked at his tormentor imploringly, and 
 then turned to the inquiring face of his son. 
 
 •' You know you have never asked me in relation to this 
 business, Stephen," he went on, in a hesitating and embar- 
 rassed voice, " else I might have told you that as no mort- 
 gage yet existed, such an instrument would not of course 
 be registered." 
 
 "Yet!" cried Stephen impatiently, " 2/e< existed ? Your 
 friend here assured me that it did exist, and had for years 
 existed I" 
 
 " Morally, my dear Mr. Stephen — morally, if not abso- 
 lutely. I did not imagine that a man of your nice sense of 
 honor would feel disposed to claim any distinction, more 
 especially as it would make no difference if you did." 
 
 " Spare your sneers, sir. Am I to look to you for expla- 
 nation of this new mystery, or will my father vouchsafe 
 it?" 
 
 " Whichever you please," replied Kirkwood. "It cannot 
 possibly signify to mc, since whatever I have done or left 
 undone in the premises has been dictated solely by con- 
 sideration for- the dignity and honor of your family. Its
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 167 
 
 head can tell you, if he likes, that he executed a formal 
 undertaking to render me this mortgage whenever I should 
 exact it, and that I have been willing to postpone that 
 exaction for his credit and pride's sake. But when you 
 assume a belligerent attitude — an attitude which points to, 
 if it does not quite threaten the depriving me of my rights 
 — I am clearly obliged to declare and maintain them." 
 
 "I prefer, sir," said Stephen haughtily, "after what has 
 passed between us, to receive my information from my 
 father himself. Perhaps you will tell me, sir — " turning to 
 Mr. Dangerfield, " if what this gentleman says is true ?" 
 
 A flush came darkling over the face of Kirkwood such 
 as those who knew him best in old times had learned to 
 dread — but the old man was gazing tenderly at his boy. 
 
 "True?" he echoed feebly, "true? Oh, my son, how 
 can I — " he stared about as if looking for help and his 
 eye fell on Kirkwood's — " my son — my poor Stephen — 
 it — it is true /" and he poured some wine with shaking 
 hand into a tumbler, drained it off, and clasped his hands 
 again as if in utter helplessness. 
 
 Stephen gazed upon him with a strange blending of doubt 
 and dismay. " Father," he cried suddenly, " there is some 
 coercion here ; something troublesome — dangerous per- 
 haps — with which you do not trust me. Speak ! let there 
 be entire candor between us, and — " looking defiantly at 
 Kirkwood, "we will see who shall dare to threaten or 
 control you !" 
 
 "Tush, Stephen Dangerfield, don't try that tone with 
 me — don't take such pains, as 'Eichard' says, to curse 
 yourself Not but that candor has its value, or that it shall 
 be my fault if it be not employed to the full. Speak, my 
 old friend, and satisfy this incredulous son of yours — or 
 shall I do it for you? Shall I tell him of all the little 
 intricacies and mazes of our past history? Shall I tell 
 him that you — " 
 
 " No, no, no !" cried the old man. " For God's sake, 
 no. Anything but that. What do you want me to do? 
 In Heaven's name let us end this miserable scene."
 
 168 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 "I ask for nothing that is not reasonable and just," 
 answered Kirkwood sullenly. " If there is anything un- 
 pleasant it is not I who have brought it about. You concede 
 the justice of my demand. End discussion by complying 
 with it at once. This I have a distinct right to expect. 
 The mortgage is prepared — I will bring it here directly — 
 you can sign and a couple of the servants can witness 
 it. Do you agree?" 
 
 " I — I — do agree." 
 
 "No, Father!" burst forth passionately from Stephen. 
 
 "Be cautious," said Kirkwood, with a gloomy smile, 
 and with this admonition, which might have been intended 
 for either or both his companions, he left the room. 
 
 The old man looked on his son with an expression 
 of intense pain and solicitude. Stephen came up and took 
 his withered hand, and kissed his wrinkled forehead. 
 
 " Don't mind for me, father. I can stand it well enough 
 if it must be. It is for you I am anxious. I cannot tell 
 what horrible power it is which binds you to this man ; 
 but if—" 
 
 " Hush, my son," whispered the other, nervously, "you 
 must not anger him. Indeed, indeed, you must not. It is 
 hard you should be the sufferer — you who are so innocent. 
 Heaven help me — I would do all for the best — but what to 
 do I know not." 
 
 " Leave all to me," urged Stephen, eagerly, " let me 
 settle with him. I'll promise to be cool — not to lose 
 my temper. I will propose time for consideration, and 
 we can take advice as to the course — -the best course — to 
 pursue !" • 
 
 " No — no. There must be no others admitted into the 
 affair. Witnesses only testify to a signature. But how 
 can I do it? How can I do it?" 
 
 His words and manner almost indicated imbecility, and 
 his son grasped for a moment at the idea that he was really 
 not responsible, and that by some means Kirkwood was 
 making him the victim of a craftily constructed delusion. 
 
 " You are not well, father — not fit to transact business —
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 169 
 
 this is too much for you. At least postpone it until 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "We must do as he wishes — we must do as he wishes." 
 
 " Not with my will," said Stephen, indignantly, " I feel 
 convinced that this is an imposition ; — tell me, at all events 
 — did you receive fi'om this man the consideration he 
 alleges he furnished — the sum of money in question ?" 
 
 " You must not ask — hush — he is here." 
 
 The door re-opened, and Kirkwood returned. 
 
 " I have brought the mortgage. We will settle this 
 matter at once. The coachman and housekeeper will 
 be here presently to witness the signatures." 
 
 " One moment, sir," interposed Stephen, " my father is 
 manifestly very unwell. Whatever the merits of this 
 question, he is certainly unfit to enter upon them at present. 
 Let it be put off for a day, or until his mind and body are 
 in more suitable condition." 
 
 " Unwell ! stuff!" — the barbarous portion of Kirkwood's 
 nature always grew prominent with opposition, " he has 
 only to sign his name — no great physical or mental effort 
 required for that, I suppose." 
 
 "But for the consideration necessary to arrive at a con- 
 clusion — " 
 
 " That be d — d! He's had fifteen years — time enough 
 in all conscience — " 
 
 " The formality of the instrument — " 
 
 " I am a practising Attorney of the New York Courts 
 — not yet thrown over the bar — if the instrument satisfies 
 wie, you have no cause to complain. Here are pen and ink, 
 Dangerfield. Shall I call in the witnesses ?" 
 
 The old man took the mortgage and ran his eye over the 
 writing. He took up the pen and toyed with it mechani- 
 cally for a moment. Suddenly he looked up, and there 
 was a new though transient gleam of resolution in his eye. 
 
 "Look you, James Kirkwood, you have often threatened 
 to drive me to the wall, and now it appears you're deter- 
 mined to try it. Be it so. A man who has borne what I 
 have, can bear the rest. Do your worst. This place has 
 
 8
 
 170 DANGERFIELD'S rest ; OR 
 
 been ours more than two hundred years. I will not sign 
 away my poor boy's land. I will not sign away the 
 heritage of the last living Dangerfield !'' 
 
 " Oh ! you won't, won't you ?" roared Kirkwood, now 
 thoroughly enraged ; "you won't? By G — d I think you 
 will ! And you expect me to give up the hard earnings 
 of a lifetime — fifteen years waited for — because you choose 
 to try to play the cheat ! Think a moment — what will the 
 two hundred years of honorable name be worth when it 
 ends in such a one as yours ? Do you flatter yourself I'll 
 forbear '/ That I'll consent to give up all without a blow, 
 because you've become a foolish, swindling old dotard ? 
 I'll " 
 
 Possibly the speaker repented his last words as soon as 
 he uttered them, but he certainly did the moment after, for 
 Stephen caught up his untasted glass, and in a twinkling 
 dashed its contents full in his face. Kirkwood uttered a 
 yell like a wild animal, thrust his hand in his breast, and 
 made a quick step towards his assailant. Then with a pro- 
 digious effort he checked himself, and with his pocket- 
 handkerchief wiped the wine from his face. Martin Dan- 
 gerfield sat still, quite paralysed, apparently, with appre- 
 hension. Presently Kirkwood spoke — softly, but through 
 his set teeth : — 
 
 " I could throw you out of that window, if I liked — but 
 I won't. I could make you with a word crawl at my feet, 
 and beg my pardon — but I'll postpone that pleasure for the 
 present. Remember, I only postpone it. As for you, Mar- 
 tin Dangerfield, you see I can control myself to do you a 
 service; I shall expect you to be grateful to me, if for 
 nothing else, for sparing this quarrelsome cub of yours !" 
 
 Stephen, silent and pale, but with flashing eyes, made as 
 if to throw himself upon his insulter, but his father hastily 
 rose, and, drawing himself up to his full height, he spoke, 
 and this time his voice was firm and clear : — 
 
 " Hold, Stephen ! Hold, I request — I command you ! 
 This gentleman is my guest, whoever or whatever else he 
 may be. I will have no more violence. That which pro-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 171 
 
 yoked it rests henceforth between my guest and myself — 
 those whom it more immediately concerns. I demand that 
 you as my son shall interfere no further in any shape or 
 form with this business. Should you do so, it will pro- 
 voke a rupture between us, and do yourself only a greater 
 harm. You do well, Kirk wood, to speak of my name — 
 my honorable name — I had forgotten that, perhaps. Suf- 
 fice it you shall be satisfied in the fullest sense. No need 
 of further difference between us. Stephen, remember my 
 injunction." So saying, Martin Dangerfleld sank back 
 exhausted into his chair, 
 
 " Enough," said Stephen sadly. " Be it as you will, my 
 father. But I will not stay to witness or countenance by 
 my presence that which I believe to be a nefarious wrong. 
 For a time I leave you. As for this person," and he threw 
 upon Kirk wood a look of unutterable- scorn, " we may 
 meet again when he is neither armed with bug-a-boo threats, 
 nor protected by my father's commands. When this place 
 is relieved of his presence I shall be glad to return to it 
 once more." 
 
 He turned on his heel, heedless of Kirkwood's mocking 
 smile, and after a hasty direction to a servant, was in the 
 saddle again. Black Yixen well knew the road, and soon 
 bore him to that consolation which he prized as the sweeter, 
 inasmuch as he felt that for some time after it would not be 
 renewed. 
 
 A little week, and the happy circle which had crossed 
 the sea together to reunite at sunny Uplands, was scattered 
 far and wide, with rivers and mountains between those who 
 had composed it. 
 
 Cuthbert Boynton was seeking oblivion for the past, if 
 not enjoyment for the present, among his books, dogs, 
 guns, and slaves, on the far-off plantation. His head was 
 too clear and his nature too noble to permit him to under- 
 rate the calamity which had befallen him. In his love for 
 Elinor he was thoroughly in earnest. He was not one of 
 those men of whom you can predict in advance that if
 
 172 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 rejected by one woman they will straightway make love to 
 another. His grief was manly and sincere, and such a con- 
 solation was the last he was likely to seek for. Nor was he 
 vain enough to solace himself with the thought — which, 
 however, would have been well founded — that Elinor in 
 reality reciprocated his affection ; for, when he had gone as 
 far as his delicacy would allow in endeavoring to penetrate 
 the cause of his rejection, he did not permit himself to 
 believe that it was due to anything more occult than the 
 lady's inability to love him. 
 
 Kobert Eliot did not linger at Uplands after the depar- 
 ture of the Southerner. He had sketched out for himself 
 a considerable tour of observation and travel wherewith he 
 proposed to fill the time until his promised visit to Boyn- 
 ton at mid-winter. The main objects which led him to 
 cross the Atlantic were not likely to be much subserved by 
 a lengthy sojourn among scenes which, however attractive, 
 were yet so much like those of the English home he had 
 quitted as to present no features particularly novel or sugges- 
 tive. And it may be remarked, that the same observation, 
 he found, could be. truthfully applied to many places and 
 persons in a degree for which the perusal of most travels 
 in, and descriptions of America, by his countrymen, had by 
 no means prepared him. Nor was the circumstance alto- 
 gether to be regarded as due to a want of candor on the 
 part of those writers, notwithstanding so many have earned 
 and deserve plentiful credit for such a deficiency ; for the 
 changes ascribable to rapid increase of wealth and popula- 
 tion, and which have so marked a tendency to smoothe 
 rough angles and soften provincialisms in a new country, 
 were accumulating at a rate hitherto unprecedented. 
 
 Stephen Dangerfield accompanied Eliot to New- York, 
 the two young men agreeing to spend a few days together 
 prior to entering upon their new plans. Stephen's, it must 
 be confessed, were indefinite enough, but they included a 
 resolve not to return permanently to The Eest while Kirk- 
 wood remained an inmate there. Directly after his arrival 
 at the city, he received an affectionate letter from his father
 
 BEFORE THE STOEM. 173 
 
 wlierein the latter spoke vaguely of the difficulties sur- 
 rounding his path, and forcibly repeated his injunction that 
 his son should in no manner interfere with, or seek to 
 penetrate the mystery connected with his affairs with Kirk- 
 wood on pain of his serious displeasure, — adding that all 
 would be cleared up to Stephen's satisfaction in the 
 future. 
 
 Oliver Vernon, meanwhile, pursued his peaceful studies, 
 his alms-giving, and his improvements, happy in the soci- 
 ety of his books, and in the love of all who surrounded 
 or approached him. The little waif he had picked up on 
 the ocean engaged much of his care and attention. Her 
 infant nature was growing and expanding under the genial 
 influences at Uplands, and throwing out tendrils which 
 were daily clasping closer around the hearts of all the 
 household. The death of poor Gerty, her nurse, bitterly 
 mourned as it was, had severed the last link which con- 
 nected the child with the past — and she naturally sought 
 consolation and happiness of the new friends whom Provi- 
 dence had raised up around her. Yernon became more 
 anxious that the neighborhood should be rid of the pre- 
 sence of the father as the child became more dear to him, 
 and Stephen's recital of the scene which took place on the 
 day of his departure, gave him additional reason for re- 
 garding the future with solicitude. He was not yet clear, 
 however, as to the wisest course to pursue in the matter, 
 and pending this uncertainty, he contented himself with 
 watching cautiously to guard against whatever evil might 
 be threatened. 
 
 Alabama, too, while roaming up and down the fields 
 with Grace, plucking wild flowers and finding pretty views, 
 had once or twice, when close to the northern boundaries 
 of the estate, caught glimpses of a dark, sinister face peering 
 curiously at her through the bushes ; which fact having 
 been represented to Vernon, led to an interdict on the ram- 
 bles in that direction, and a suggestion as to the propriety 
 of confining voyages of discovery to the south and east- 
 ward thereafter. There could be no certainty as to what
 
 174 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 a man like that might venture to do, and while he haunted 
 the vicinity they could not be over cautious. 
 
 Old Martin Dangerfield returned to his dull, torpid man- 
 ner of life, speaking little, grieving much in secret, and 
 scarcely showing vitality save when watching or bickering 
 with the intruder who had made himself so galling an in- 
 cubus on his failing existence. Once or twice when yearn- 
 ing for the presence of his son, he strove to persuade Kirk- 
 wood to leave him in peace : but the latter always insisted 
 on the condition which the old man still managed to retain 
 obstinacy enough to refuse. Then would come a repetition 
 of the old threats, but their edge was somewhat dulled by 
 use, inasmuch as Dangerfield had grown to appreciate in 
 its full force the fact which Kirkwood had always shrewdly 
 understood, namely, that to ruin the victim might only 
 prove a barren vengeance which by no means would insure 
 the possession of the spoil. 
 
 Aunt Mercy and David Greenwood led on their smooth 
 unchequered lives, ending their daily toil with customary 
 gossip and speculations domestic and political, winding 
 slowly down their hill of earthly being, but apparently 
 approaching no nearer what is sometimes called the goal 
 of earthly happiness. They took small " note of time 
 even from its loss," and seemed to think that wedlock at 
 three score and ten was more likely to bring felicity than 
 at any less mature epoch of existence. 
 
 Not so thought Stephen and Grace, who regarded the 
 year which had been stipulated by Yernon to elapse be- 
 tween the date of their engagement and that of its con- 
 summation, as a chasm little short of eternity, and to be as 
 tediously bridged. Such a space Yernon thouglit desir- 
 able as confirming beyond mistake or caprice the existence 
 of an attachment which was to be life-long, and as being 
 likely to bring about a revolution in Stephen's affairs which 
 should define and establish his worldly position. 
 
 As for poor Elinor, her days were waxing very sad, for 
 they were darkened and embittered by a more than double 
 grief. She felt that approach of despair so familiar to those
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 175 
 
 who have learned to believe that their current of duty is 
 for ever destined to run counter to that of their happiness — 
 and who therefore see in. living on only a constant recur- 
 rence of pain and disappointment. Most women in her 
 place would surely have availed of the refuge so lately 
 offered her to be so firmly refused, and well she knew she 
 could love her rejected suitor as she should never love ano- 
 ther ; but here she had been met by the warning voice of 
 conscientious conviction, whose prohibition could not be 
 tampered with or gainsaid. 
 
 The epoch was approaching when, as her plan was, she 
 should cut loose from the dear ties of friendship and of love 
 which had proved so long her comfort, her happiness, and 
 more recently, her consolation. The family were to go to 
 town for a period during early winter, and she was to pay 
 a brief visit to one of her few relations — a sister of her late 
 father, residing in an adjacent suburb. None but Elinor 
 herself knew that from that visit she had resolved not to 
 return to the bosom of the little family which had so loved 
 and cherished her, but to go forth by a perilous stream, to 
 face the billows and buffet the storms of the rude ocean of 
 life — alone. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 STEPHEN DANGERFIELD and Robert Eliot strolled 
 into Broadway, and from thence diverged towards the 
 precincts lying riverwards, until they had entered upon 
 one of the fruitful and odorous vicinages known as " tene- 
 ment neighborhoods." The time was drawing nigh for 
 some municipal election, as was abundantly demonstrated 
 by the placarded walls. Gorgeous in yellow, green, and 
 red, appeared the names and claims of the rival candidates. 
 Here were they admonished to " Vote for O'Gorrill," there 
 directed to " Rally for Shaughnessy." On one hand, the
 
 176 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 merits of " Gustav Poppenbeimer " were profusely insisted 
 upon ; while upon the other, in periods equally copious, 
 were blazoned the praises of " Adolph Schwarzenbergen." 
 It was difficult indeed to find a name of Anglo-Saxon 
 origin, such was the avalanche of cognomens Milesian and 
 Teutonic, but an approach to one was discerned at last in a 
 flaming announcement that the '' Honorable Lysander 
 Kole " would speak at the Cooper Institute that evening. 
 Even this exception was explained by Dangerlicld, assur- 
 ing his wondering companion that " Lysander Kole," an 
 adroit but utterly unscrupulous demagogue, had so man- 
 aged as to attach to his interest nearly the whole Irish vote 
 of the town, chiefly, of course, by flattering its grossest 
 ignorance, and pampering its most ignoble prejudices. 
 This man in truth was the high priest, the Magnus Apollo 
 of the McSwindle faction, and perennially expounded the 
 sublime principles flowing from that worthy's cardinal and 
 cherished maxim — " Shtick to the Dimocratic Parthy, and 
 kape down the nagur." 
 
 " And here are the forces," said Eliot, " which control 
 and govern this great cit3^" 
 
 " Precisely," answered his companion ; " they gather here 
 and acquire force by concentration, which they would not 
 have if diffused over our Western territory. Thousands 
 can neither read nor write. Hundreds vote before they 
 have been a month in the countr3^ At such points as this, 
 where the suffrage should be most carefully guarded, it is 
 most shamefully abused ; on the other hand, there are 
 States where the suffrage might be unqualified and univer- 
 sal, and no harm done, but in which the opposite policy 
 still maintains itself Such a State is Rhode Island ; there, 
 the men who own the State govern the State." 
 
 " Such a condition as this," remarked Eliot, "cannot last 
 for ever. Your people have been so busy in acquiring pro- 
 perty as to ignore the necessity for protecting it. The 
 knowledge will come in time, and the same energy they 
 have devoted to acquisition will be given to conservanon 
 and protection."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 177 
 
 " I hope so," said Stephen ; " as an American, I hope so. 
 There isn't much to choose between mob law and despot- 
 ism ; but the latter, at least, is most orderly. The chil- 
 dren of these people learn to read, and there's some hope 
 in that." 
 
 " Even that may have its dangers, if they are to draw 
 their social and political pabulum from the ' Crier^ the 
 ' Yalioo^ and the ''Renegade's JournaV But do not the 
 better informed of these new-comers perceive the objec- 
 tions to throwing unaccustomed power and responsibility 
 into the hands of the least enlightened?" 
 
 " Of course they do. None know better than edticated 
 Irishmen that the lower class of their own countrymen are 
 utterly unfit to vote. But you see the temptation to stifle 
 that knowledge, and to avail themselves of the existing 
 order of things, is too great to be resisted." 
 
 " Still, the evil will ultimately cure itself. Your popula- 
 tion will speedily be developed, so that any possible immi- 
 gration must bear a small and constantly decreasing ratio 
 to the yearly average of persons born on the soil. This, 
 with your free schools, will modify matters in a marked 
 degree." 
 
 "Perhaps it may, and we count very much on those 
 chances. But the Irish, particularly, are a most stubborn, 
 clannish, and prejudiced race. The ideas which bad men 
 for vile purposes have impressed upon their ignorance may 
 remain in scarcely diminished force with their more enlight- 
 ened descendants. Thus they have been most sedulously 
 taught to hate and revile the Negro. It is believed by 
 many of the wisest among us that this feeling has acquired 
 ineradicable depth and bitterness. Now, if this postulate 
 be well found, it follows that, unless Slavery is to continue 
 for ever, there will be, some time or another, a terrible col- 
 lision." 
 
 "Why should there be? The country is surely large 
 enough for all, and the negroes, for the most part, are in one 
 section, the Irish in the other." 
 
 " Because no such comfortable view of the future is per- 
 
 8*
 
 178 dangerfield's rest • or 
 
 mitted by the Lysander Koles and McSwindles, who do 
 the dirty work for the Southern oligarchs. No, the Irish 
 have been trained to believe that the emancipation of the 
 blacks would be instantly followed by a rush to the North 
 on their part in such numbers as to glut the labor market, 
 and to take the bread from the mouths of white men. 
 Nothing can persuade them that climate, organization, 
 preference, or legislative prohibition even, would prevent 
 such an incredible exodus. Therefore they hate the colored 
 people in advance as prospective rivals and depredators 
 of wages. This hatred absolutely takes the form of a 
 burnmg passion. The Irish laborer hates the negro better 
 than he loves liberty. I firmly believe he would rather 
 be himself disfranchised than see the black men free. 
 Listen !" 
 
 The gentlemen had overtaken two sons of the Emerald 
 Isle who preceded them on the pave^ and Stephen Danger- 
 field had lowered his voice as they were in the act of 
 passing. The men had the flinty shelving brows, pro- 
 truding, gorilla-like lower face, low stature, and brawny 
 shoulders, common to their type, and naturally enough, 
 were discussing politics. One had apparently been in the 
 country for some time, and the other was obviously a late 
 arrival. The latter was questioning his more experienced 
 friend as to the distinction between the principal political 
 parties : — 
 
 " Jimmy, what's the difference atwixt 'em onyhow ?" 
 
 " Begad," quoth the Mentor, " sure one of 'em wants to 
 kape the nagurs as they are^ and the other wants to make 
 them aqual to the likes of us /" 
 
 The hearty execration which followed this singular 
 elucidation, and which was shared by both speakers, was 
 unequivocal as demonstrating the horror they entertained 
 of a levelling process so monstrous and so unjustifiable. 
 
 " Strange," mused Eobert Eliot, " strange ; that the 
 descendants of men who have made Europe ring with 
 groans and cries of oppression ever since their banner fell 
 at Athlone, at Galway, and at Limerick, should be
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 179 
 
 staunchest in persecuting and holding down a race no less 
 innocent than their own, and certainly more inoflfensive." 
 
 The two friends quickened their pace, for, as they 
 penetrated further into the region of tenements, the sights 
 and sounds were even less attractive than at its outskirts. 
 Piles of garbage in the sun offended the senses on 
 every side, and the squalor of the myriads who swarmed 
 in and out of the houses was even more distressing. 
 Stephen began to be quite ashamed of the great city as 
 he marked the effect which this portion of it produced 
 on his companion, and was not sorry when a lumbering 
 omnibus — albeit neither so cleanly nor so fleet as a Hansom 
 cab — enabled them to quit this Slough of Despond rather 
 more rapidly than they had entered it. They soon returned 
 to their hotel to dress, for after several days of anxious 
 expectancy, Stephen had received a little note which made 
 him flush with gratification, and Eliot had no difficulty in 
 guessing a portion of its contents, when his friend advised 
 him that they were by no means to omit repairing that 
 night to the Opera. 
 
 There needs no profound theorizing in the doctrine of 
 correspondences to show the relation which exists between 
 political and physical corruption. Show a philosopher 
 fair specimens of the classes who dominate the great 
 city of New York, and he would scarcely need other 
 demonstration to acquaint him that the bulk of its 
 streets and purlieus are as foul and noisome as the rabble 
 who rule them. It is not alone that they suffer less 
 from filth, or that the men they put in office filch the ap- 
 propriations which should remove it, but that they would 
 be positively unhappy if deprived of its atmosphere. Ig- 
 norance and crime seek dirt as they do darkness, and light 
 and cleanliness are equally unlovely in their eyes. They, 
 therefore, insist on consummating the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number by devoting the city to a chronic 
 reek of foulness and abomination. Their little children 
 would grow up to forsake the political creed of their
 
 181) dangerfield's rest ; gr 
 
 fathers if too much of what they saw about them were 
 clean and undefiled ; it becomes, therefore, a political 
 necessity, in a manner, to avert such a positive cala- 
 mity. 
 
 The same social conditions and proclivities which encou- 
 rage pigs in cabins encourage muck heaps in crowded 
 streets. It is too much to expect complete revolution in 
 such a taste as the work of a day. No doubt the effect of 
 association in sights and smells it is, which strikes tenderly 
 on the imagination of the immigrant, and prompts him to 
 prefer the city to the prairie. As the numbers increase, 
 the evil becomes more hopeless ; for who can expect these 
 cultivated and benevolent beings to vote against that which 
 they love so well ? 
 
 New York, a water-shed of an island, flanked by two 
 broad rivers, and washed on all sides by tide-water, — New 
 York a dozen miles long, and scarce a sixth of the distance 
 in mean width,— New York, with a supply of fresh water 
 unequalled by any city of either liemisphere, — New York, 
 with facilities, in a word, for drainage and cleanliness un- 
 surpassed and unsurpassable, — is yet, by shameless mis- 
 government and peculation, the filthiest city in the civil- 
 ized world. 
 
 Of what use are mere names if we are never to get any 
 of the substances ? Are we freemen here in New York 
 because we habitually submit to the despotic sway of an 
 illiterate and unscrupulous mob ? Do we show our love 
 of country by giving it up to the rule of the unclean, the 
 vicious, the off-scouring of nations, whose fathers, so far 
 from striking a blow in aid of our independence, were 
 never yet able to achieve their own ? 
 
 Open your gates, O men of America, to the oppressed, the 
 poor, and the heart-stricken of all races and climes. Give 
 them of your plenty, crown them with your abundance. 
 Let them fill your illimitable plains, and raise cattle 
 and corn in your boundless prairies. Build for them pub- 
 lic schools without number, that their little ones may come 
 in and be instructed, without money and without price.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 181 
 
 Grant them liberty to ^t up their churches and colleges 
 that they may worship and instruct as they list. Concede 
 all this and more, without stint ; but do not let them wrest 
 altogether from you the government of the high places 
 your ancestors shed so much blood and tears to the end 
 that you might preserve them pure, virtuous, and free. Do 
 not let them, to your own misery, and their own demorali- 
 zation, usurp privileges which neither they nor any belong- 
 ing to them ever took a single step to earn. Do not, when 
 they come to your shores all raw, ignorant, inexperienced, 
 permit them to assume control over you, before they have 
 demonstrated, in any practical manner, their ability to 
 control themselves. Give them the chance to think, the 
 opportunity to learn, send them to the teeming West ; 
 give them, each and all, fields and meadows in plenty, so 
 that in a reasonable space they may be cultured up to a 
 higher level, and become really worthy of being incorpo- 
 rated with a Nation of Freemen. 
 
 For it is not present inconvenience and mortification 
 alone, but future woe which your present system of sloth 
 and unreason are doing so much to nourish and develope. 
 Political and physical corruptions, like all other evils, will 
 surely, if slowly, bring their own penalties, — penalties 
 which all your arts and your inventions, your ingenuity 
 and your enterprise may not avert unless backed by the 
 vigorous purification to be wrought by your own deter- 
 mined wills. Each abuse has its Nemesis ; the name of 
 the first is Eevolution, and that of the second is Pestilence. 
 
 Note by the Author. — It is only an act of justice to remark thai 
 the last chapter was written before the accession to office of the 
 gentleman who became City Inspector in the latter part of 1863 ; 
 since which event much improvement has been effected in that 
 department. Unusual energy has been exhibited, some salutary 
 reforms introduced, and altogether, such a change for the better 
 brought about as to lead to the hope that the new system may be as 
 permanent as it is unprecedented.
 
 182 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 IT wsB the first niglit of the operatic season. The 
 watering places were empty, and the great town hotels 
 were full. The scorching heat which, despite its two great 
 flanking rivers, blisters New York from June to October, 
 was softened by autumnal breezes. The up-town squares 
 had begun to exhibit their customary regiments of well 
 dressed children and their attendant bonnes. The preten- 
 tious carriages whose coroneted panels attest the audacity 
 if not the descent of so many flourishing traders were 
 once more rolling up and down Fifth Avenue. With the 
 returning tide, therefore, the Janus Gates of the Academy 
 were once more thrown open to make war on the purses — 
 or ears of the fashionables. To believe the affiches was, 
 as usual, to believe that no snch " array of talent" had 
 ever been brought together as was destined this year to 
 take captive the refined appreciation, the matured and 
 critical judgment of Manhattan. Who could doubt it, 
 who would take the trouble to look at the names ? Was 
 not Furini for successive seasons the idol of La Scala? 
 Were not the horses rendered unnecessary to the carriage 
 of Lazzarino by the enthusiastic population of Rome? 
 Was not Picaroni the great grand-daughter of the Doge of 
 Venice, and had not a tiara of diamonds been presented 
 her by Francis Joseph at Wien? Were not the walls 
 of Naples plastered with the praises of Greasiani, who 
 after his pyramidal success in Rigohtlo rivalled Garibaldi 
 in the affections of that volatile people? Who should 
 doubt the effulgence of a galaxy whereof these glittering 
 celebrities were the constituent stars? Plainly, no one, 
 whose judgment was worth the having, and surely none of 
 the scribbling fraternity whose secured seats for the season 
 had been so eligibly and comfortably " located" by the 
 adroit Impresario. 
 
 Moreover, the Press of the city had been sagaciously 
 " worked" in advance, especially through its most venal
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 183 
 
 and vulgar representatives. And Furini and Picaroni had 
 been chaperoned bj the active Slymer to the " palatial 
 mansion" of a virtuous Editor, where more than a taste of 
 their quality had been discussed in anticipatory style by 
 the elect thus permitted to steal a march on the public. 
 For, in view of the slipperiness of his social standing, that 
 particular functionary was apt to strengthen himself by 
 such props in the way of artistic or political celebrity 
 as were willing to lend their talents for such a purpose, 
 taking in exchange good dinners and such public endorse- 
 ment in time of need as he was able to bestow. Lyrical 
 matters having a closer affiliation with the higher classes 
 than those of the less fashionable theatre, he was wont to 
 take their professors under his special protection ; and the 
 attractions of his house were enhanced, as a rule, by the 
 cream of all new-come warblers ere the Inxury had dete- 
 riorated through common participation. 
 
 However, it must be confessed that there were others 
 in the house besides the Vernons, and Elinor Grrazebrook, 
 and Robert Eliot, who read the names of Furini and 
 Picaroni with somewhat of misgiving. As to Furini, they 
 could certainly recal his name at La Scala, and in connex- 
 ion with Ernani and Lucia; but the recollection by no 
 means associated him with the heroes of those works, 
 identifying him, on the contrary, with an otherwise reticent 
 individual who became very vigorous and demonstrative in 
 the choruses and concerted pieces. Moreover, while no one 
 could recollect having had the pleasure of seeing Signor 
 Greasiani as Carlo Quinto^ there were several who cherished 
 a vivid impression that he, Greasiani, was no other than 
 the obliging a.vant courier who precedes and announces the 
 advent of that sonorous monarch. These must be set 
 down as of the number of misfortunes inseparable from 
 an age of steam ; for even enterprising impresarios cannot 
 put a protecting embargo on travel, or cut off the facilities 
 which bring and take their exotics for the use of the dear 
 public which pays for them. And, albeit the calamities 
 and losses of operatic managers are proverbial when the
 
 184 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 gates of their temples arc open, it would seem they must 
 have some mysterious mode of recovery when they are 
 shut, inasmuch as they are for ever returning to the seduc- 
 tive paths which they assure the world have led them to 
 " cureless ruin." So that, after all, the encouragement of 
 rising (if not risen) genius may be regarded as indirectly 
 remunerative as it is unquestionably benevolent. 
 
 Notwithstanding imputations on the possible calibre of 
 the principals, there was a very fine house. And Robert 
 Eliot remarked that although the methods of subdividing 
 the auditorium did not conduce to the comparative privacy 
 most esteemed by his countrymen, and common to Euro- 
 pean opera-houses, yet that the effect produced was deci- 
 dedly lighter and more imposing. 
 
 There were people of all sorts and degrees. Deputations 
 from the Deddingstones, the Skuyduncks, and the Von 
 Quoits ; relays of the very latest nouveaux riches^ looked 
 through or over by the former with placid contempt. The 
 entire family of Von Donk were there in a most conspicu- 
 ous box, over against the De Bugginses. You can hear 
 Violctta squeal, clear into the parquette — at intervals, when 
 the brazen clangor will permit. There are Slymer and 
 Sprigg going into the Orwr box, and there is Elias P. bow- 
 ing and scraping to its occupants from his orchestra stall. 
 Yonder sits Lysander Kole, the demagogue, who divides 
 his useful life between out-witting his partners and stimulat- 
 ing the passions of the rabble ; whose leading principle 
 apparently is, that by being the propagator of unbridled 
 democracy leading to mob-rule, he will stand the best 
 chance for the foremost place and the gratification of his 
 avowed ambition, when the mob-rule brings its infallible 
 corrector and consequent — irresponsible despotism. There 
 are also divers of his following about the lobbies — those of 
 the well-to-do class — of which there are always some few 
 in every faction — with red eyes and fierce moustaches, 
 chiefly, and an affectation of the Gallic in the cut of their 
 clothes. Sporting-men here and there — whom Eliot would 
 have called " legs " — scrupulously dressed, and deluding
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. , 185 
 
 themselves with the idea that every man of the world who 
 claps his eyes upon them does not instantly know their 
 calling. A perfect sea of fair faces inside, radiant with 
 light and color. Gallants innumerable, some unexception- 
 able in evening costume, some in frock coats, colored 
 cravats, and white kid-gloves, and so on through the vari- 
 ous phases of taste and ignorance. Outside and overflow- 
 ing the coulisses^ with piercing eyes, aquiline noses, oily 
 locks, and eager but appreciative expressions— a heavy cor- 
 don of the never-failing operatic body-guard in New York, 
 or elsewhere — the deputation from the children of Israel. 
 
 The Opera was tolerably sung, after all. It is by no 
 means certain that an artist who has never sung a rofe 
 before, will therefore sing it ill. Excitement, ambition, 
 and responsibility are potent agencies, and, after all, there 
 must be a first time for everything. 
 
 The tenor was both sweet and sympathetic, and, in the 
 favorite romanza of the opera, created quite ii furore. The 
 air was one which Elinor had played on the last day before 
 the departure of Cuthbert Boynton, and she remembered 
 how greatly he admired it, and with what marked earnest- 
 ness he had alluded to the sentiment it conveyed. We are 
 apt in our selfishness to absorb and apply to our own petty 
 cases all the mystery, the passion, the poetry, our ears and 
 imaginations enable us severally to extract from beautiful 
 music ; and although some may grow wise and withered 
 enough to smile at this in later life, there are few to whom 
 the memory of the days when they could feel thus does 
 not bring a soft if chastened pleasure. It might have been, 
 the thought of him who had told her of his love, and who 
 was now far away, that made Elinor's eyes fill with tears, 
 as she listened. She looked very beautiful that night, and 
 it would be idle to say she was not conscious of attracting 
 a good deal of attention. Her thought at the moment 
 implied as much, for she was just congratulating herself 
 that the universal regard was attracted to the stage where 
 the tenor was acknowledging a tumultuous encore^ so that 
 her own agitation might escape notice. Just then, a bustle
 
 186 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 behind, and a glance at blushing Grace told her whom to 
 expect. Stephen Dangerfield and Eliot entered the box ; 
 and Oliver Vernon said he had something to say to an old 
 friend he espied among the audience, and, after heartily 
 greeting the young men, departed on that mission. Ste- 
 phen and Grace were speedily absorbed, and the act-drop 
 coming down directly after, threw upon Elinor the task 
 of entertaining the Englishman. There was an interchange 
 of customary compliment and criticism for a space, and 
 then a lull. Eliot thought for a moment, and then, low- 
 ering his voice, and leaning over to be slightly nearer to 
 Elinor, said : — 
 
 " I shall shortly go Southward, and, as you may have 
 heard us arrange, pay a visit to Boynton. Can I be the 
 bearer of any message or — " 
 
 He paused abruptly, for he observed that her eyes were 
 suffused with tears, and her bosom violently agitated. 
 
 " Good Heavens ! Miss Grazebrook ! Ten thousand par- 
 dons ! What have I done ? Shall I—" 
 
 " Hush !" whispered EHnor ; " don't let it be seen. It will 
 be over in a moment. Yes," she went on more steadily 
 but quickly, as if urged by an impulse she could not con- 
 trol. " Yes, you may. Tell him how much — how very 
 much — I hope he may be happy — and that I pray unceas- 
 ingly that he may — deserve to be so." 
 
 The instant after, she reflected that she had gone too far, 
 that her message might be misconstrued, and she would 
 fain have retracted or modified it. Eliot, too, seemed 
 rather surprised at its purport. 
 
 " I thought," he said, " that is—" 
 
 "Eliot, just lend me your lorgnette, will you?" said 
 Stephen Dangerfield interrupting ; " I can't make out 
 across this huge abyss whether there's somebody vis-a-vis 
 I should bow to or not." And while Stephen was making 
 his observations, Grace turned upon Eliot with a volley of 
 her playful badinage, and his colloquy with Elinor was 
 broken off. 
 
 Stephen's brow darkened as he gazed.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 187 
 
 " I see," lie muttered half to himself, "some one I know, 
 but whether to recognise him or not is quite a dift'erent 
 thing." For directly opposite, and looking steadily at the 
 box, he descried the handsome but dark and ironical coun- 
 tenance of Kirkwood. " What brings him to New York, 
 I wonder," thought Stephen ; " no good, I may be sure." 
 
 As Kirkwood detected his scrutiny, he rose with a shrug 
 of his square shoulders, and made for the lobby. Stephen 
 excused himself hastily to his companions, and, saying he 
 would return in a moment, quitted the box. Threading 
 the motley crowd which was pushing vaguely about the 
 huge circle behind the auditorium, and barely answering 
 with a bow the melancholy salute of Gossamer Von Donk, 
 he quickly gained the opposite side of the house. ELirk- 
 wood met him with a bland smile : — 
 
 " I rejoice to see that although you have exiled yourself 
 from The Rest, you are not without resources in the way 
 of amusement." 
 
 "None, I trust, that meet with your disapprobation," re- 
 turned Stephen sarcastically. "As to my exile, you will 
 not be surprised to hear that its duration depends some- 
 what on yourself May I ask, without presumption, if 
 you have terminated your visit at my father's house ?" 
 
 " For a day or two only," answered Kirkwood affably. 
 "Like yourself, I don't object to a little variety. You do 
 wrong to absent yourself on my account. We got on very 
 pleasantly before." 
 
 " I choose my own associates," said Stephen with hau- 
 teur, " and in the selection usually prefer them to be gen- 
 tlemen." 
 
 The color came slowly up to Kirkwood's swarthy cheek. 
 
 " You will find it unwise to persist in affronting me. 
 Better make me what I am not unwilling to remain — your 
 friend." 
 
 " Do you mean that as a threat, sir ?" 
 
 " Not a threat — simply a warning." 
 
 "A distinction without a difference, after what has passed 
 between us."
 
 188 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " You will realize the difference in good time. For old 
 acquaintance' sake, I can wish no harm to your father's 
 son." 
 
 "Always in riddles," answered Stephen contemptuously. 
 *' The secret of your miserable connexion with my father I 
 know not, and am enjoined by him not to seek to unravel 
 it. But over me, at least, you have no power. The exam- 
 ple would suffice, if any were needed, to induce me to take 
 care that you never shall have." 
 
 A strange smile flitted over Kirkwood's face, and for a 
 moment there was something like a trace of compassion 
 there. 
 
 " We cannot always control our fate, however strong our 
 will." He paused an instant, and then, with an interest 
 which he strove not to dash with malice, inquired, " apropos^ 
 may I ask if Mr. Dangerfield is aware of the direction of 
 his son's matrimonial projects ?" 
 
 " By what right do you ask, and to whom do you 
 refer V 
 
 " By the right merely of friendly solicitude ; and I refer 
 to what all the world is talking about — your proposed alli- 
 ance with Miss Vernon." 
 
 " The right is questionable, and the subject unnecessary 
 to discuss. Yet, so far as your question is concerned, the 
 answer is immaterial, and you are welcome to it ; he is not. 
 I will add that the scene wherein you bore so conspicuous 
 a part, and my subsequent departure, led me to postpone a 
 natural confidence which there exists not the slightest rea- 
 son to withhold. What have you to say to this?" 
 
 " Nothing," rejoined Kirkwood, with his unpleasant 
 smile ; " unless to congratulate, and counsel you to enjoy 
 yourself while you may." 
 
 " Your inference is offensive, sir. Neither your congra 
 tulations nor advice are asked or desired in such a con- 
 nexion. Perhaps 3'ou'd like me to ask your consent or 
 endorsement in the matter !" 
 
 "You might do worse," replied the other drily. "I 
 meant no indiscretion, as you some time may learn. When
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 189 
 
 that time comes, you may possibly be willing to solicit one 
 or both." 
 
 " Till then," retorted Stephen, " let the subject be dis- 
 missed between us. It's one, be sure, in which I brook no 
 meddling, and in which no father's injunction will tie my 
 hands for the interloper." 
 
 " The exception might prove to your disadvantage. 
 But enough. I mean you kindly. I have borne more 
 from you than is my custom to endure in the common 
 intercourse of man and man. Yet a little while and you 
 will see more than one reason to be grateful for my for- 
 bearance." 
 
 He raised his hat as he concluded, with the show of 
 courtliness he was fond of affecting, and passed on. 
 
 Stephen reflected. It was impossible not to believe that 
 beneath this man's assumj)tions of friendliness there ran an 
 undertone of hostility and menace. Men of his stamp 
 were unlikely to forget or forgive the slights which may be 
 cast upon them, and Stephen knew that an affront to the 
 person was of the bitterest character in their esteem. 
 Hence, he reasoned, Kirkwood must have strong reasons 
 to induce him to play the conciliatory, and to strive so 
 hard to preserve the semblance, at least, of friendly rela- 
 tions with himself What were these motives ? Here 
 Stephen's penetration was completely at fault, and the only 
 course to be taken, consistently with the various exigencies 
 of his position, appeared to be that which Vernon advised 
 — to watch the enemy carefully, and await with patience 
 the developments of time. 
 
 Slymer and Sprigg came round to the Yon Donk box. 
 Both these gentry were of consequence to the Von Donks. 
 The former, albeit credited as rather a raauvais sujet^ yet 
 always contrived to have the aroma of fashion or power 
 about him, and so became, to that extent, a proper subject 
 for conciliation. He was constantly going back and forth 
 from Washington, where in point of fact he had nothing 
 whatever to do, except to gather gossip or coin scandal for
 
 190 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 the grimy pages of the Crier. But he always pretended to 
 be engaged in some ver}'- mysterious and momentous busi- 
 ness, and the Von Donks were not the only ones who 
 believed it. Slymer was very proud of the recognition or 
 endorsement of all persons of note, of whatever profession 
 or calling. Success was his idol, and no matter what the 
 avenue if A. or B. reached the goal. His principle was to 
 employ his utmost sagacity in the selection of people to- 
 day of little importance, but who to-morrow may achieve 
 distinction. To fasten himself on the skirts of such per- 
 sons, to perform little offices which should insure a title to 
 their gratitude, became for the time the leading passion 
 of his life ; and he generally succeeded. 
 
 There was scarcely a man of note in Europe or America 
 that Slymer did not know, or with whom he had not at 
 some time established personal relations. When at a loss 
 for other means he would write absurd notes to his pro- 
 posed victims, on all manner of subjects which might or 
 might not be of general interest, but whereupon there 
 certainly could be no peculiar interest in common between 
 the party addressed and himself These missives would 
 generally elicit replies, often brief and frigid enough, but 
 which answered Slymer's purpose. He had become the 
 acquaintance — the possible prospective friend of the great 
 man. His letter was carefully pasted in a book, which the 
 tactician always travelled with, and always showed to every 
 new acquaintance as a sort of guarantee of his own per- 
 sonal dignity and importance. It was impossible to 
 look into the book and not perceive that Slymer had cor- 
 responded with many highly distinguished personages ; 
 therefore he must, to some extent, be accepted as a distin- 
 guished person himself Another of Slymer's devices con- 
 sisted in the writing of newspaper or pamphlet " letters " 
 to people of high position, on any favorable political or 
 literary provocation, and whereby, without directly »saying 
 as much, he implied, with great art, that he was on terms 
 of cordial intimacy with the parties addressed. As the 
 people of high position would usually, from good-nature or
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 191 
 
 indifference, omit the invidious task of refuting his implica- 
 tion, Slymer would for the most part carry off his booty 
 of consideration in triumph. 
 
 He was adroit in the management of petty intrigues even 
 down into the lower strata of every-day life. By becoming 
 the patron of certain photographic artists and music-sellers, 
 he could always work the small machinery which would 
 make any given person conspicuous if not exactly the 
 fashion. This, by having very large and glaring pictures 
 of the individual to be glorified in the most conspicuous 
 places in shop or gallery ; or by having showy pieces of 
 music dedicated to him or her, and making much outcry 
 and doing much advertising over them. 
 
 Especially with the ladies did Slymer strive to obtain 
 influence and establish position. He knew the value of 
 social recognition, inasmuch as in learlier life he had outrun 
 discretion and forfeited such as he might normally have 
 claimed. 
 
 Recovery was slow, but with perseverance and an. unri- 
 valled epidermis it could not ultimately be other than sure. 
 That is, with certain circles. There are others which will 
 not be appeased ; but he accounts for this on the assumption 
 that it was only because his obnoxious escapade terminated in 
 a miscarriage instead of a success ; and this sounds so plausible 
 that most people believe him, — including the Von Donks. 
 
 Personally, Slymer was rather fortunate, for although 
 neither young nor handsome, he was affable, and engaging 
 in address ; well informed and cosmopolitan in ideas ; and 
 on the whole, only needed to be a trifle less loud, to be 
 unexceptionable as an outside man of breeding. 
 
 Sprigg had none of these latter qualities. He was not 
 well bred, and seldom clean. There was the bouquet of the 
 unwashed, the Celtic flavor of the Pewter-Mug about him 
 as there is about most of the Crier people, for all it sells 
 so many copies. It may be assumed that these drawbacks 
 were not regarded as such by the majority of those with 
 whom he came in contact, and that the exceptions were 
 fain to put up with them for policy's sake. The Yon
 
 192 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Donks did. There would be an election very soon, and 
 the General expected to be a candidate. 
 
 The entrance of these worthies was, therefore, hailed by 
 the Von Donk femily with as much enthusiasm as fashion 
 permitted them to exhibit, seated en evidence as they were 
 in view of what Sprigg described the next morning in print 
 as " the beauty, the learning, and the haut-ton of our proud 
 city." 
 
 " And what do you think of the new artists, Mr. 
 Sprigg ?" queried Mrs. General, after the entrance greetings 
 had subsided. 
 
 " Something better than a succes d^estime^'' quoth Sprigg, 
 oracularly, " we must see them in something else before we 
 can quite place them.'" 
 
 " Oh, I think Furini a perfect pet," piped Zerlina, " he 
 sings beautifully, and he acts as well as he sings." 
 
 " Eare praise to be deserved by a tenor, Miss Von Donk," 
 said Slymer. " The two qualities are seldom united. In- 
 deed so far as my experience goes, there's no one now but 
 Mario who can be said to have combined them in perfec- 
 tion, and his voice is going." 
 
 " What d'ye think of Heydensucker's speech, Mr. Sprigg?" 
 asked the General, suddenly rousing from a stupor the effect 
 of so much " drumming and tooting" as he privately assured 
 Mrs. General, and that of brandy and water unwisely pro- 
 portioned as she was really persuaded. 
 
 " Oh, I've had no time to read it attentively as yet. 
 Very witty, isn't it? Job always has something funny 
 to say. What do you think of it. General ?" 
 
 " Well, sir, I don't see no fun in ratting all the time, 
 and our folks none of 'em don't either. He's allers trying 
 to make himself conspicuous, no matter what harm he 
 does the party. He thinks he's throwin' himself forward 
 on the wave of popular ideas, but it's all wrong. The 
 only way is to stick to your party whatever it does and 
 wherever it goes. Them's my sentiments." 
 
 "To be sure, to be sure, and highly creditable and 
 original ones," put in Slymer. " By the by. General, is our
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, 193 
 
 compagnon de voyage, Mr. Yernon, to run against you in 
 the— th District?" 
 
 " I calculate he will — I hope so, anyhow. There's a kind 
 of doubt between him and Amos K. Tucker, and the 
 convention hain't decided yet. I'd rather have him of the 
 two. Amos K.'s dreadful popular with our laboring feller 
 citizens, and '11 poll a strong no-party vote." 
 
 " Let's see — heavy Irish constituency isn't there. Suppose 
 now the Crier and the Yahoo come out good and strong on 
 Amos K. for being an Abolitionist, that may help to throw 
 him out of the convention, eh?" 
 
 " Well, praps — 'twould have weight certainly. Suppose 
 you two gentlemen come home with us after the Opera. 
 Our carriage will be here. We'll have a quiet little supper. 
 Staggers is coming too. You know Elias P. ? Oh, of 
 course, he came over with you in the Assyria.^^ 
 
 This pleasant little arrangement being carried without 
 dissent, the conversation turned on their quondam fellow 
 travellers. 
 
 " There they are," said Mrs. General, indicating the 
 Yernon box, "sweet girl, Grace Yernon — that's she in 
 white, and the one in purple that's Nelly Grazebrook. Her 
 father drank himself to death, and her mother ran away 
 with somebody. One would think she was a Deddingstone 
 or a Yon Quoit, by the way she carries herself It's always 
 the way with these low people." 
 
 " Oh, ma," cried Yioletta, " Nelly Grazebrook can't be 
 called low, for she's a very fine mind, and every one says 
 she's so accomplished." 
 
 " She hasn't blood, my dear," said Mrs. General decidedly. 
 " That makes the difference between her and certain other 
 people. Only to think of her trying to inveigle young 
 Boynton into a match before he'd been at Uplands a week ?" 
 
 " Did she though ?" asked Slymer, with interest. 
 
 "To be sure," affirmed Mrs. General. "That's the 
 reason he went off South so quick. He meant to stay 
 till the Opera came. He told us so at Newport; and 
 he would—;/©?' certain reasoni'' — with a sly glance at her 
 
 9
 
 194 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 daughters, " but that this set was made at him, and he 
 couldn't exactly avoid joining them in town when they 
 came." 
 
 "But surely the Vernons are perfectly comme il faut as 
 respects family, and certainly abundantly rich !" 
 
 "No doubt; but she's no relation, you know — only a 
 kind of poor hanger-on. Of course Grace Vernon is a 
 totally different person. Perhaps you don't know what 
 a great fancy she took for our Gossy ? Quite marked, I 
 assure you. But Gossy, dear fellow, who's discretion 
 itself, saw it wouldn't answer, considering politics and all." 
 
 " They say she's engaged to Stephen Dangerfield." 
 
 " Dear me ! I thought if to any of the party it would be 
 to Eliot, that young Englishman you know. He came to 
 Newport with us. Nice man very, and thought our 
 society quite as good as Lords and Dooks which he'd 
 always mixed with. Sec, there he is now ! Behind Grace. 
 That looks rather like flirtation, doesn't it ?'" 
 
 " Oh, he's not a marrying man. Came here to see the 
 country, and write a book about it, and so on. I saw 
 
 some friends of his at Lord 's in London — promised 
 
 to use my influence for him and all that." 
 
 " He's very agreeable. I don't like that young Danger- 
 field. He's too free and easy, and acts as if he thought 
 people in trade not good enough to speak to. Shouldn't 
 you think her father would rather have the Englishman — 
 his own countryman ?" 
 
 " Oh, Yernon is a thorough American, you know. Been 
 here a great many years, and made most of his money 
 here. The worst of him is he's a radical — an abolitionist. 
 But he has no feelings which are not national ones, although 
 he censures so much what he calls our abuses." 
 
 The General here proposed to go out to get a drink, 
 and obstinately ignoring the frowns and winks of dis- 
 couragement indulged in by Mrs. General, he proceeded 
 to put his proposition into practice accompanied by Slymer 
 and the willing Sprigg. 
 
 " I don't like driukin' in bars," remarked the General,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 195 
 
 parenthetically, on the stairs, " but a public man in my 
 position can't very well get rid of it." 
 
 His companions endorsed the necessity and condoled 
 with the General on the sacrifices which it entailed ; but 
 whether he, they, or both intended a double entendre or 
 to accept the speech of the other as such, was manifestly 
 uncertain. By the time they got to- the bar — a long, 
 smoky den in the cellar of the huge building — the General's 
 party had been joined by a motley train of political adher- 
 ents, or those who it was supposed might become such. 
 Stephen Dangerfield met the procession in the passage, and 
 would have taken no notice except to touch his hat to the 
 two or three men in the van who were known to him. But 
 his attention was attracted as they passed by seeing among 
 its number — walking arm-in-arm with Elias P. Staggers, 
 and laughing and talking in high good-humor — Mr. Kirk- 
 wood. 
 
 GHAPTER XXin. 
 
 THE Yernons had a small but elegant house near Madison 
 Square, which they occupied during occasional visits, 
 so saving the necessity for repairing to the, to them, unin- 
 viting Hotels. Hither they sometimes came when attracted 
 by a new opera, a celebrated artist, or some other object 
 of interest: hither came Oliver Yernon when business or 
 politics at intervals might call him to town : and hither 
 the family usually resorted to pass the severer part of the 
 winter. 
 
 Stephen and Eliot were invited to dinner a week from 
 the day after their visit to the Opera, the latter proposing 
 to set out for the South shortly after by way of Niagara 
 and the Lakes, and the former hesitating whether or not 
 to accompany him. Grace and Elinor were both rather 
 anxious that the young Englishman should find something '
 
 196 DANGERFIELDS REST; OR 
 
 more worthy of admiration than they suspected he had 
 found in New York. For, said Grace : — 
 
 " You'll remember that although Paris is France, New 
 York is not America." 
 
 "Still," remarked Eliot, "New York is the capital of 
 your country." 
 
 "Not so," interposed Oliver Yernon, " save in a partial 
 and incomplete sense. For, while Washington is the 
 political, Boston is certainly the literary or scholastic capital, 
 and New York can only be considered the cojyimercial capital 
 of the Union. And even this, only in virtue of having 
 more wharves and ships than other towns, which have, 
 except in these and the number of their populations, an 
 equal title to the consideration." 
 
 " I'm sure," cried Stephen, " New York is the most 
 un-American city in the country. At least it is the only 
 one which permits itself to be exclusively ruled by 
 foreigners, and those of the lowest and most ignorant sort." 
 
 "But," said Eliot, smiling, "is not this your own 
 fault?" 
 
 " Unhappily it is to a great extent," answered Vernon 
 gravely. " Although numbers certainly must continue to 
 have great sway so long as universal suffrage is tolerated. 
 It is the vice of our system that, under it, minorities are pre- 
 sumed to have no rights which the majorities are bound to 
 respect. The evil reaches its culmination here where the 
 immigrant class is in such excess. Thus property-holders 
 are numerically in a minority, and, therefore, their rights are 
 set at naught by the majority. They pay heavy taxes, 
 which are dissipated and swallowed up by the bad men the 
 majority votes into power. The educated and refined 
 are in a minority, and therefore their rights arc ignored 
 and themselves set aside in favor of the ignorant and 
 the debased. However, the evil is not altogether unal- 
 loyed, for it is our hope that there may be education and 
 sense enough, as well as numbers enough in the country 
 districts, to counterbalance, in a general sense, the per- 
 versions of the town."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 197 
 
 " Still you adhere to the system, and the people at large 
 do not seem disposed to change it." 
 
 " We shall he forced to change it ere long, in some respects, 
 or the wisest and most for-seeing men of the nation are 
 much deceived. In the mean time, we consider it has 
 already achieved a great dfeal of good. From a lofty and 
 generous point of view, a nation no more than an indivi- 
 dual lives, or should live, for itself alone. Our example in 
 modifying and ameliorating the condition of the masses we 
 believe to have a favorable effect on the whole civilized 
 world, which effect, of course, must be gauged by our suc- 
 cess. Where we fail or go too far, even the necessary reme- 
 dies or retrogression will prove to have value of their own 
 through the same force of example." 
 
 "I don't know how far the parallel between nations 
 and individuals would be sound as put to the practical test. 
 You know, however, that in England, where there certainly 
 has been no lack of experience, most people are disposed 
 to accept for both, the maxim, quieta non movere. Your 
 theory is unquestionably magnanimous, but does it not 
 savor too much of optimism as applied to perpetual 
 change ?" 
 
 " Any people which accepts as guiding principles a 
 set of ideas which imply a constant progression towards right 
 must be, in that sense, a nation of optimists. Its history 
 will be made up of advances and recessions. We hope to 
 make the former always somewhat greater than the latter : 
 so that the general drift will always be toward that which is 
 higher and better : and we propose to educate all men that 
 the number may constantly be on a relative increase whose 
 feelings and interests will prompt them to act in the right 
 direction." 
 
 " Such a policy, however noble in the abstract, is not 
 likely to be viewed with favor by those whose privileges 
 and security depend on the preservation of the existing 
 order of things. It cannot obtain for America the sympa- 
 thies of other great governments," 
 
 " Of other governments, no ; of the peoples, yes ; and
 
 198 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 if, as we believe, the policy be good, the beneficial end will 
 be attained, for good peoples will ultimately make good 
 governments. I do not think the founders of the Eepub- 
 lic were of opinion, any more than I am, that the best inter- 
 ests of their countrymen were attainable in ultra demo- 
 cracy ; yet, perhaps, neither they nor mankind would have 
 been satisfied until the experiment was made, and our 
 great hope now is that it may not cost us too dear." 
 
 " We shall certainly have to bring about reforms in our 
 great sea-coast towns," said Stephen, " to keep the respect 
 of the world, as well as to set right mere local grievances. 
 Critics abroad can't understand until they see for them- 
 selves how much the nation at large has been libelled and 
 misrepresented by what goes on at the great points of im- 
 migration. Why, even Eliot, here, believed before he 
 came, that the Crier was, as it claims to be, a fair exponent 
 of American character and manners, instead of being what 
 it is, the rowdy organ of the worst class of foreign popu- 
 lation. The fact is, that almost everything which is most 
 repugnant to good taste and good morals as viewed from 
 the European standpoint, — such as the vulgarity and black- 
 guardism of the Press, the Crier being the lowest type — 
 the selfish and cruel pro-slavery fanaticism, — the outra- 
 geous boasting, — the truculent arrogance toward other 
 nations — all these and more,' are largely due to foreign 
 renegades among us in a direct sense, or indirectly to the 
 propitiation and delectation of the masses of foreign voters 
 thronging the great cities, who enjoy political power how- 
 ever low their intelligence, or deficient their education." 
 
 " Such a state of things should be counteracted," re- 
 marked Eliot ; " your most eminent and cultivated men, 
 perceiving the evil, should labor to neutralize or remove 
 
 it." 
 
 " That of course must be the ultimate result," responded 
 Yernon, "but hitherto such persons have been criminally 
 negligent. When they discover, as sooner or later they 
 will discover, that the rights of property are never perma- 
 nently respected when its duties are unfulfilled, we shall
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 199 
 
 have a change ^or the better. A society cannot long re- 
 main civilized wherein the very judges are elected by the 
 classes from whose ranks come the criminals it is their duty 
 to punish." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Eliot spoke of his proposed tour, and his intended visit 
 to Cuthbert Boynton. His time was rather limited, and it 
 was not probable he would again see Elinor alone. At 
 the same time he was anxious, not to say curious, respect- 
 ing the true state of her feelings in relation to the young 
 Southerner. He had watched the undisguised admiration 
 of the latter for the beautiful girl with unselfish interest, 
 and seeing so much in each suitable and congenial to the 
 other, he had hoped for the successful consummation of a 
 match. He was surprised, as others were, by Cuthbert's 
 sudden departure, but reflection led him to believe that the 
 young people, each of whom was so conspicuously fastidi- 
 ous, had had some trifling quarrel, which was unnecessarily 
 magnified into a reason for separation. If such were the 
 case, he resolved that his friendly ofiices should not be 
 wanting to eflfect, if possible, a reconciliation. The scene 
 at the opera had rather confirmed his opinion that a real 
 attachment existed, but he wished to obtain from Elinor 
 some additional corroboration. She understood his object, 
 and blushed scarlet at his allusions to the absent one, but 
 she evaded being drawn out further, and, thinking that at 
 the opera she had been already betrayed into going too far, 
 she avoided during the evening giving Eliot any opportu- 
 nity to pursue his investigations. 
 
 Vernon favored Eliot with some advice, the prominent 
 feature whereof lay in the repeated injunction, by all means 
 to include New England and the North-west in his future 
 plans of travel. 
 
 " The country cannot be judged," he said, " except by 
 an examination of all its parts, any more than it could be 
 a nation without them all. Many tourists from Europe 
 think when they have seen New York and Washington, 
 Niagara and the Mississippi, that they have ' done ' the
 
 200 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 United States. Never was a greater blunder. To judge 
 the country by its cities we have seen to be fallacious. To 
 estimate the body of the nation without examining its head 
 and right arm is even worse. Those are precisely the parts 
 which make all the difference between these travellers' 
 prognostications and actual events as they occur, and as 
 they will occur in the future." 
 
 Eliot promised to be as exhaustive as possible in his re- 
 searches, and the conversation turned to lighter themes. 
 Stephen and Grace became rather unsocial on the former 
 getting to the drawing-room, and engaged in negotiations 
 of an apparently exclusive character, in a far-off corner. 
 Stephen had determined to escort his friend at least as far 
 as Niagara, and the separation of a week clearly called for 
 elaborate explanations and agreements between the lovers. 
 Then little Ally, looking charmingly fresh and bright in 
 white muslin and pink ribbons, renewed her acquaintance 
 with her favorite ]\Ir. Eliot. For Oliver Vernon was so 
 old-fashioned as to think that adults of a family or its 
 guests were, as a rule, more comfortable when dining with- 
 out its olive-branches. It was one of his remaining Enghsh 
 prejudices— and, sooth to say, many of his American ac- 
 quaintances counted it one — that the conversation of chil- 
 dren, however sprightly, or the rektion of their adven- 
 tures, however wonderful, are better enjoyed and appreci- 
 ated at any other than the dinner hour, and his prejudices, 
 such as they were, had to be respected. 
 
 After a time, Grace and Stephen came out of their soli- 
 tude. He had told her all about his apprehensions respect- 
 ing Kirkwood, and how he anticipated losing his patrimony, 
 and had been half provoked by the wonder in her great 
 blue eyes, which asked if that was all he was making him- 
 self wretched about. And then there was music, and 
 Elinor sang again. And none there knew except herself 
 how many a day would come and pass before her voice was 
 again to be raised in that happy family circle. 
 
 " You have no other message — no word ?" half whis- 
 pered Eliot to the singer, as he turned over her music.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 201 
 
 " Nothing," she answered in the same voice, through the 
 symphony ; " nothing but what you already have," 
 
 The little party broke up at last. Eliot had promised to 
 write to Vernon, giving his impressions as they came of 
 what he saw and heard in his journeyings. And little 
 Ally had gravely declined his proposition to take her 
 " down South " again. And Stephen was to write to Grace 
 every day, and she was only to answer when she saw fit. 
 And the same quiet stars which they all gazed up towards 
 and reverently admired when they parted on the stoop, 
 shone down on them all four-and-twenty hours after, but to 
 find them far apart. The Yernons and their protegee had 
 returned to their country home, to enjoy the gorgeous 
 coloring of autumn ; Elinor had gone to pay her promised 
 visit to her aunt ; Mrs. Maberly and the two young men 
 were flying over Western New York, and fast coming 
 within ear-shot of the Mighty Cataract. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIY. 
 
 ME. Staggers was in his snug and well appointed office 
 situate close by Wall street. Whatever might be 
 the merits or demerits of Elias P. — whatever the obfusca- 
 tion of his average idea as regards meum and iuum, he 
 was in his habits, dress, and surroundings, the pink of neat- 
 ness, punctuality, and order. There was not a speck of 
 dust on the desks, the chairs, the carpet, the oil-cloths. 
 Not a scrap of paper or a pen but was tidily arranged 
 in its place. Moreover, the appointments of the two rooms 
 were altogether appropriate and comfortable. The most 
 fastidious could find no worse fault than consisted in, 
 perhaps, a rather too generous supply of spittoons ; and 
 this was a fault which most habitues would be apt to consider 
 a merit. 
 
 Mr. James Kirkwood had just come in. When he made 
 
 9*
 
 202 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 his entrance at the door of the front room Hon. Job Hej- 
 densucker made his exit at the door of the back room. 
 The distinguished politician had been arranging for a trifling 
 loan anent an impending election, and which, after much 
 demur and haggling on the part of Elias P., he had suc- 
 ceeded in negotiating. To do the Honorable Job justice, 
 he was always large and generous enough in bargaining 
 for accommodations of the kind. The chronic difficulty 
 with him recurred when the time arrived for repaying them. 
 
 Kirkwood's business was very simple, and of a character 
 which the Broker had often transacted for him before. He 
 wanted a small bill of Martin Dangerfield's discounted, as 
 he briefly explained. 
 
 " Only a thousand to-day, eh, Mr. Kirkwood. Glad to 
 oblige you, whether for one or ten. Old chap's good 
 for it, alius, I reckon. Take a seat, sir, and sit down, and 
 we'll fix this for you in no time." 
 
 Kirkwood accepted the invitation so far as to walk into 
 the innet ofiice, while Staggers handed the note to a clerk 
 directing him to draw a check for him to sign covering the 
 sum minus the usual discount. 
 
 " People say young Mr. Dangerfield's engaged to Miss 
 Yernon," suggested Elias P. inquiringly. 
 
 » So I've heard." 
 
 " She'll have quite a mine I expect. How much d'ye 
 spose old Yernon's wuth ?" 
 
 Kirkwood explained that he had as yet made no precise 
 calculations on the subject. 
 
 " Well, it's a very good thing for both on 'em, I dare 
 say. Though I, for one, would rather it weren't so." 
 
 Kirkwood pricked up his ears, and expressed a desire to 
 know the cause of the other's objection. 
 
 "Fact is our youngf riend Yon Donk — dashing young 
 feller we' were with at the Opera, you know — he's been 
 a good deal smashed there, and as he's a fine feller and 
 a friend, I'd like to have seen him succeed, that's all." 
 
 " The Yon Donks are very rich, aren't they ?" 
 
 "Guess the General's got a cool million — rich enough
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 208 
 
 any way to make his son a better match than Steve 
 Dangerfield!" 
 
 " Dangerfield's likely to be pretty well off," said Kirk- 
 wood carelessly. " The Eest is an uncommonly fine pro- 
 perty." 
 
 " Oh, well off, p'raps," replied the Broker, " but sumthin' 
 depends on whether the estate's clear or not, don't it ?" 
 
 " Do you know whether it is or not?" 
 
 "Don't know nothing about it. But if it was dipped at 
 all," added Elias P., slowly, and looking steadily on his 
 interlocutor, " I know it wouldn't be hard to find a pur- 
 chaser for the incumbrance." 
 
 Kirkwood reflected. We have said the two men had had 
 business relations before. They had, in fact, known each 
 other for many years. It did not, therefore, require so 
 long a time, or take so many words for a mutual under- 
 standing as it otherwise might have done. There was 
 only a moment's pause then, before Kirkwood spoke : — 
 
 " You're not over fond of Stephen Dangerfield, I take it ?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't say that," answered Staggers, cautiously, 
 " Anyhow, not to a friend of his father's and p'raps of his. 
 It's nateral for us all to like our friends before strangers. 
 I don't cotton to these here landed folks much, that's a fact ; 
 however, I hain't got no prejudices. It takes all kinds 
 o' people to make a world. But Goss Von Donk he's 
 got some reason to feel riled at Steve, and I guess he 
 does." . 
 
 " Oliver Yernon cares little for money," said Kirkwood, 
 in a deliberating tone and as if talking to himself, " but he 
 cares a great deal for landed property and a clear name. I 
 believe he'd rather give his daughter to a man whose 
 family own the soil they live on, than to one who owned 
 twice its value in ships and stocks." 
 
 "Money'll buy everything," said Elias P., with reve- 
 rence, " and every man has his price. Some cost more, 
 some less. Goss Yon Donk'U be able to command a good 
 deal, I calculate," he added, reflectively, as the clerk 
 brought in the check.
 
 204 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Thank you," said Kirkwood, as he received and placed 
 it in his pocket-book, "Landed securities are rather in 
 demand now, are they not ?" he queried, looking at his 
 watch. 
 
 " Allers good, sir, allers good," replied Staggers, " pro- 
 vided folks don't make too large a mouth on 'em. How 
 much land did you say there was up there ?" 
 
 " Up where ?" 
 
 " Why, of Dangerdeld's ;— Dangerfield's Kest?" 
 
 " Oh, about three hundred acres, I believe." 
 
 "Old man's pooty feeble now-a-days, aint he?" 
 
 " His health is a good deal broken." 
 
 " Steve don't gamble nor nuthin' does he ?^' 
 
 " I know little of his habits — I should say, decidedly 
 not." 
 
 " Well, since you're making investments for Mr. Dan- 
 gerfield" — 
 
 " I'm doing nothing of the sort." 
 
 " Oh, I beg pardon, I'm sure. But you see these different 
 bills of his"— 
 
 " Are simply in liquidation of an interest account be- 
 tween us." 
 
 " Oh, ah, yes, I see, I did not mean to ask the question, 
 you know, Mr. Kirkwood. Ask me no questions and I'll 
 tell you no lies, eh ? All is, if you want anything done 
 in my line, I hope you'll give me the chance ?" 
 
 " Thanks. I'll not forget. For the present I'll wish 
 you good morning as I've an appointment on the Stock 
 Exchange." 
 
 Each of these worthies had a point to carry, but Kirk- 
 wood had the advantage as he saw the whole drift and aim 
 of the broker's, while to the latter, his own was as a sealed 
 book. Clearly, a very strong engine could be made ser- 
 viceable by offering an infatuated and rejected lover the 
 opportunity of obtaining a ruinous hold over his rival, 
 and ut the same time propitiating the loved one's father 
 in a manner promising to be conclusive. Kirkwood knew 
 perfectly the weak portions of so plausible a scheme, but
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 205 
 
 of course it was not his cue to blazon them. If he could 
 make any use of Staggers, and, through him, of young Von 
 Donk, he cared little what became of them or their specu- 
 lation afterward. He had said just as much as was requi- 
 site to keep the broker on the qui vive to take a hand in a 
 profitable intrigue, and just as little as would readily allow 
 him to throw the thing over if his safety or convenience 
 required. His main object was to place himself in such 
 a position that he could at the shortest notice cut his cable 
 and sail away with the largest possible quantity of spoil, 
 and he was merely buoying out the channel in advance. 
 
 CHAPTER XXY. 
 
 ELINOR sat in her aunt's little parior, which, vastly 
 different as it was from the large drawing-rooms at 
 Uplands, was decidedly comfortable and religiously clean. 
 There were books, few in number but not amiss in quality, 
 a few good prints on the walls, a piano-forte, old and worn, 
 but in good preservation, and from the windows could be 
 seen the sea. 
 
 Mrs. Maberly was a slight, lady-like woman of fifty, 
 with pale blue eyes, a patient brow, and brown hair 
 thickly strewn with grey. She had seen much trouble 
 in e^rly life, but her later years had been quiet and peace- 
 ful. Left a widow some ten years before with a slender 
 income and no children, she had rented the cottage she 
 occupied, having as her sole companion a woman of about 
 her own age who ofiiciated as servant of all work. EHnor 
 had been in the habit of visiting her aunt at intervals, and 
 the latter had often been urged by the hospitable Vernon 
 to return these visits at Uplands. These invitations had 
 been gratefully but steadfastly declined. She was not 
 accustomed to the sphere in which they moved, and would 
 only be uncomfortable should she enter it even temporarily.
 
 206 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 Her conviction was that people were better and happier in 
 the position wherein it had pleased Heaven to place them. 
 She would gladly go anywhere when by going she could 
 do good, but preferred not to visit great houses for merely 
 social purposes. So time wore on, and the old arrange- 
 ment was always adhered to. 
 
 As has been hinted, Elinor had a scheme, and it was 
 a scheme in which the co-operation of her aunt was highly 
 desirable if it was not absolutely essential. When she had 
 cautiously unfolded her design of quitting Uplands, and 
 the motives whereby she was actuated in taking such a 
 step, Mrs, Maberly, although she expressed great regret 
 and concern, and begged Elinor to give the subject very 
 serious consideration, could not but admire the conscientious 
 spirit which dictated it, or help acknowledging that, under 
 such circumstances, she recognised its propriety. She had 
 immediately resolved to press upon her niece the accept- 
 ance of an asylum in her own humble abode, nothing 
 doubting but that the young lady had contemplated re- 
 ceiving such a proffer. But Elinor proceeded to relate the 
 remaining and most important features of her plan. She 
 proposed, she said, not only to be independent of Vernon 
 but of every one else. Not only to spare Grace any 
 further social detriment which her presence might involve, 
 but to put a gulf between them which would thereafter be 
 impassable. We may remark that Elinor was aware of 
 her friend's engagement to Stephen Dangcrfield ; but her 
 resolution was rather confirmed than shaken by what she 
 had seen of that gentleman. For, by a species of blunder 
 which very clear-sighted people sometimes commit, she 
 imagined Stephen to be of an exclusive, not to say haughty 
 nature, and a man intensely scrupulous as to the con- 
 venances of social position, and largely endowed with 
 family pride. It is scarcely necessary to say that, with the 
 exception of the latter clause, she was quite at fault. 
 
 Elinor had just detailed her programme and was con- 
 cluding a speech in its defence : — 
 
 " After all, dear aunt," she said, " there is nothing dis-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. ^ 207 
 
 graceful about it. It is unquestionably honest, and cer- 
 tainly laborious. What if there are narrow-minded people 
 who despise and condemn it ? There are bigots in the world 
 who condemn everything they don't clearly understand." 
 
 " Indeed, Elinor," said Mrs. Maberly, with a sigh, "I 
 could wish you had chosen almost any other profession. 
 I know that in theory it is unexceptionable enough, but I 
 fear 'tis sadly different in. practice. No doubt, there are 
 good people connected with it, but don't we always hear 
 them spoken of as exceptions ; — as if to prove the general 
 rule which runs the other way ?" 
 
 "The malice and injustice of the world," replied Elinor 
 decidedl3^ " When people are posted en evidence in the 
 public view, of course there are ten to repeat and exaggerate 
 what is bad of them, to one who will appreciate and extol 
 what is good. This is the fact with all public callings as 
 well as with that of the Stage." 
 
 " I'm afraid, my dear, that the acquittal such a generality 
 implies would be more generous than just as applied to the 
 Theatre. Your dear father was very fond of the society 
 of Theatrical people, and his friends always thought it 
 induced or confirmed his unhappy failings." 
 
 " Surely, aunt, you don't mean to infer that you think all 
 actors and actresses are monsters, who corrupt every one 
 who comes within their reach?" 
 
 " Certainly, not all ; and probably scarcely any with evil 
 intent. But their habits and pursuits have a tendency to 
 demoralize, to some extent, those who mix habitually in 
 their society." 
 
 "As how, pray?" 
 
 " Well, I cannot help thinking that the constant habit 
 of simulation — pretending to be what you're not — must, 
 after a time, dispose people to take unsound views of life, 
 if not to become deceitful and untru'thful. Then there is 
 such a constant pampering of egotism in the applause which 
 is so immediately and personally expected and received, 
 that it really seems to me it must have the effect to weaken 
 self-control."
 
 208 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Each of these causes," said Elinor thoughtfully, " may, 
 to be sure, have an injurious effect on persons of weak or 
 ill-balanced minds; but such persons are liable to injuri- 
 ous effects in any other walk of life." 
 
 " Not in the same degree. The temptations are rarely 
 brought so closely and constantly before them, and they 
 are not so frequently brought into the enfeebled condition 
 which favors yielding to their fascination. You must 
 remember that the life is one of constantly alternated ex- 
 citement and reaction. Nervous excitement of an exag- 
 gerated character, nervous depression following in propor- 
 tion." 
 
 " But there are those in the profession who exhibit dis- 
 cretion and self-control ; who lead, in a word, worthy and 
 reputable lives." 
 
 " Undoubtedly ; and, in my opinion, they deserve higher 
 credit than other people, who have only average tempta- 
 tions to resist, and average obstacles to surmount. I only 
 mean to say that the dangers in their case are so much 
 greater than ordinary, that it would be very strange — not 
 to say improbable — if their weaknesses and defects should 
 not also be greater than ordinary." 
 
 " The life is not least glorious which has to face great 
 hazards." 
 
 " Perhaps, but it is often the most unwise one to follow. 
 Besides, people are so very apt to deceive themselves re- 
 specting the possession of dramatic ability. If you make 
 a book, or statue, or painting, you can look at it all your 
 life, and compare the criticism of your own matured judg- 
 ment with that of the world. You can never see your 
 own representation of a stage character. You know what 
 you think and feel, but you don't know that you make 
 your audience see what you think and feci. Here, indeed, 
 a coarse, superficial nature will always have the advantage 
 over a subtle and refined one. The latter has a poor chance 
 with the vox populi. Facts as they exist prove it. Popu- 
 lar and successful actors are very rarely highly intellectual 
 or refined persons. They may have a pretence of culture, a
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 209 
 
 certain lacquer of refinement, but it is seldom indeed that 
 they are either thorough or profound. Nor is there a 
 demand that they should be ; the bulk of their audiences 
 would neither know nor care about it, if they were so. 
 The mass looks only to gratify its eye and ear ; therefore 
 the qualities in demand are those of person and voic^e. 
 Let these be good, and their possessor will outstrip the 
 closest and most conscientious student ; fine perception, 
 scholarly taste, thorough analysis have no chance with them. 
 It is the knowledge of this which has made the theatre lose 
 ground with the educated classes. They cease to respect 
 an institution which, whether it be through choice or neces- 
 sity, habitually appeals to an order of intelligence so far 
 beneath their own." 
 
 " They have the remedy in their own hands." 
 
 " Not until their numbers bear a different ratio to those 
 of the masses. That is to say, not until with the spread 
 of education there shall be created a higher and purer 
 taste." 
 
 Mrs. Maberly's objections were often urged in a similar 
 strain, but she found Elinor so bent upon the experiment 
 she had long secretly contemplated, that the good lady 
 finally concluded that it were wiser to endeavor to guide 
 her niece than to thwart her. She therefore consented to 
 assist in a trial being made in the manner which we have 
 now to describe. Among the many persons of the profes- 
 sion Elinor's generous but improvident father had befriend- 
 ed, there was one who, as Mrs. Maberly discovered by the 
 newspapers, had attained to the dignity of managing a 
 
 small dramatic company, in the town of P , not far 
 
 from the metropolis. 
 
 Isaiah Grinder had been almost everything by turns. He 
 set out in life an unfriended boy, and adopted as a calling 
 what he facetiously termed the lumber business — selling 
 matches. From this he gradually acquired the capital and 
 financial ability requisite for the conducting of a pedlar's 
 wagon, which was in turn abandoned for " keeping tavern," 
 on one of the old post roads leading into Boston. A few
 
 210 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 years of increasing railways brought decreasing profits in 
 this formerly lucrative walk of life, and Isaiah took advan- 
 tage of the springing up of a taste for what were known 
 as "great moral and domestic dramas " in New England to 
 become the director of a travelling company, which devoted 
 i^ histrionic abilities to illustrating the evils of intempe- 
 rance, gaming, slavery, and the like pleasant vices, in 
 localities where less virtuous representations would scarcely 
 have been tolerated. By degrees he had increased in 
 substance to become the proprietor of a fixed establishment 
 
 in the thriving town of P , as described. His name 
 
 affixed to an advertisement, setting forth that he would be 
 in New York at the present date, when " stars and ladies 
 and gentlemen of acknowledged ability might apply for 
 
 engagements at the P Lyceum," had caught Mrs. 
 
 Maberly's eye, and reminded her of some unpaid for pro- 
 fessional service rendered the man by her brother, the 
 recollection of which might suggest a willingness on his 
 part to afford Elinor an eligible opportunit}'- for making 
 the experiment she was so determined upon. A note re- 
 questing him to call upon her had brought a ready response, 
 and on the following day the manager presented himself 
 in person. He was a long, weedy-looking Yankee, with a 
 shrewd face and a tearful eye, which latter, however, was 
 the product of a natural affection rather than that of 
 excessive sympathetic development. He listened to the 
 case at first with some apprehension, which subsided as 
 he was gradually brought to understand that Elinor's 
 views included the sensible one of beginning at the bottom 
 of the ladder, and eschewed any extravagant notion of 
 pecuniary remuneration. 
 
 " There's a heap of highly edoocated young ladies comin' 
 forward into the purfession now. Miss Maberly," he remark- 
 ed, " but the wust of it is they all expect to be Eayshells 
 and Kimbles right off in a minute. It's a very good pint 
 that your niece is willin' to learn the business in the ardoo- 
 us career she's sot on enterin' into. I'm willin' and dis- 
 posed to give her an openin' not forgettin' her good father's
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 211 
 
 kindness to me. I don't pretend to be able to teach her 
 myself much, tho' I do know somethin' about most things 
 I take hold on ; but I've got the best stage manager in 
 the States; Mugford, ma'am, the husband of our leading 
 lady, Miss Adeline de Vere. He was at Covent Gardin, 
 Mugford was, years ago. Carried a banner when John Kim- 
 ble took the part of King John, and Charles his brother 
 took Fork-and-Bridge. Miss Siddons was there and taught 
 Miss de Yere, then an infant, the role of Alonzer's child. 
 He knows it all, he does, and he can put Miss here through 
 in good shape." 
 
 This promising interview terminated with the under- 
 standing that Elinor should have the chance to make an 
 appearance at an early day, and Grinder mentioned several 
 minor characters of an " interesting" description from 
 which it would be well for her to make a selection. He 
 proposed to defer any permanent arrangement until the 
 degree of the debutante's success should supply the basis for 
 negotiation, — a suggestion which seemed reasonable enough, 
 — and took his departure with many expressions of interest 
 and encouragement. Elinor was more than satisfied with 
 this adjustment, and looked forward with eagerness to 
 taking through its means the first step in the avenue, 
 which, as she fondly hoped, was to conduct her to inde- 
 pendence and artistic renown. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYL 
 
 SO it was determined that Mrs. Maberly should accom- 
 pany her niece to P . She closed her little house 
 
 or rather its front shutters and blinds, leaving the premises 
 in the care of her faithful Margery. Mr. Grinder had pro- 
 mised to procure a suitable and respectable lodging for the 
 two ladies, which should offer the two other requisites of 
 cheapness and proximity to the P Lyceum.
 
 212 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Mrs. Maberly, on tlie whole, rather liked the arrange- 
 ment. Since Elinor was positively determined on her rash 
 experiment, it was better that it were made in a quiet out- 
 of-the-way place like P , than in either of the great 
 
 cities. In case of foilure there was far less chance of her 
 being identified, and Miss Ellen Grey could return to Miss 
 Elinor Grazebrook, with tolerable certainty that the fashion- 
 able world would not be shocked by the discovery that she 
 had turned play-actress in the interim. 
 
 Moreover, it must be confessed that Mrs. Maberly shared 
 in a curious prejudice which, apparently, must be common 
 to great numbers of people in America ; she liked any 
 name to designate a place devoted to theatrical perform- 
 ances better than that of a theatre. Plain-spoken enough 
 as a rule, this was the one spade she rather preferred to 
 hear called out of its name. " Garden," " Lyceum," " Mu- 
 seum," " Academy," "Atheneum," and a host of other 
 ingenious aliases, were more grateful to her ear than the 
 obnoxious '' Theatre." Mr. Grinder harmonized with the 
 worthy lady on this point quite unreservedly : — 
 
 " Our folks don't kinder like," he remarked, " talkin' 
 about goin' to the theatre. Some thinks it sounds ungodly, 
 and some thinks it ain't genteel. Church-folks '11 go to my 
 place and see the same drayma they play to all the theatres 
 in the country, as bold as sheep, jist cause it's a Lyceum. 
 Study in' popular prejudices pays now-a-days, marm, I tell 
 
 you. Look at that ere Aaron Scrimpall, in B . He's 
 
 one o' the meanest white men in the States ; a kinder cross 
 'tween a Jew and a Yankee, with the good pints of both left 
 
 out. He's made a reg'lar smashing fortune up to B , 
 
 by callin' his show-shop an Atheneum. Go there and you'll 
 see the white chokers all in a row, strung along like onions 
 on a rope. They'd think they was bound down stairs, 
 sure, if they went to a place called a theatre, and half the 
 rest of the folks either think so too, or think their business 
 will suffer by real theatre-going in the eyes of them as do. 
 Everybody knows Aaron's a narrow-souled, skin-flinted, 
 hypocritical cuss. Everybody knows he grinds down all
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 213 
 
 his people, givin' 'em dimes where they've earned dollars, 
 and cents where they've earned dimes. But then he 
 calls his shop an ' Atheneum,' and he goes to church every 
 Sunday." 
 
 Whether Mrs. Maberly sympathized with the moral 
 deterioration which appeared to arise from calling a theatre 
 by a wrong name or not, she was at all events persuaded 
 that it would reflect a shade less discredit on the family for 
 EHnor to come out at a "Lyceum," and took comfort 
 accordingly. 
 
 The understanding was that Elinor should play, in the 
 first instance, a single character of moderate length and 
 importance, and then be "left out of the bill" for a few 
 nights. This was ostensibly to permit her to rest, and 
 to " look about her" as regarded the preparation of ward- 
 robe, etc., but in reality the experienced Grinder was well 
 aware that any novice might make a complete fiasco and 
 the hiatus would enable bim to get rid of her quickly, 
 without the inconvenience and explanation which would 
 be needful if her name were sent to the printers for the 
 performances next succeeding those of her dehut. The 
 character determined upon was Maria in The School for 
 Scandal, a role which, as the Stage Manager assured the 
 aspirant, was a capital one to enable her to acquire " stage 
 ease." 
 
 " There's very little to say," said he, " and she's a good 
 deal on. Then she has all the interest — always stands 
 well with the audience — and the dress is very becoming — 
 will be especially so to you, my dear — you don't wear 
 powder, you know, and all the rest do." 
 
 Elinor was at first somewhat inclined to resent the 
 peculiar phrases of endearment and familiarity which she 
 found to be in vogue at the rehearsals; but she soon 
 perceived they proceeded from habit, being only employed 
 in a highly conventional sense, and her annoyance abated. 
 
 The company, it must be confessed, was rather a shabby 
 one, both as respects the brilliancy of its talent and the 
 condition of its personal effects. The most noticeable artist
 
 214 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 was the " hearty old man," a Mr. Radcliffe, who had the 
 manner of a gentleman, although sadly worn and be-sodden. 
 He was an elderly man — past sixty- — and always appeared 
 to be in the act of recovering from a fit of drinking. His 
 eyes were mellow and watery from the combined effect, 
 it might be supposed, of spirits and gas-light. His poor, 
 wan face was handsome in outline, although crossed and 
 wrinkled, and his hands showed unmistakable signs of 
 blood. His dress was mean and almost threadbare, but 
 the linen was always scrupulously clean; and the thin 
 brown locks seamed with grey, were brought toward his 
 temples with air almost jaunty in its neatness and pre- 
 cision, Mr. Radcliffe was the " Sir Oliver" of the comedy. 
 Elinor rernarked that Mr. Kadcliffe's manner in raising 
 his hat when she came upon the stage of a morning was 
 utterly different from that of any other member of the 
 conipany, and that his mode of speaking, albeit rather 
 uncertain at times, was free from the marvellous rotundity 
 and finical exactness which she found to be the favorite 
 affectations with most of these disciples of the sock and 
 buskin. 
 
 Mrs. Mugford was the Stage Manager's wife, and played 
 most of the juvenile business. She was a large-sized 
 woman, with a hooked nose, an impaired complexion, 
 and had probably seen some fifty summers. She was 
 " up" in a great number of characters, a great stickler for 
 "position," and insisted upon being known in the play- 
 bills as " Miss Adeline De Vere." This was the personator 
 of " Lady Teazle." 
 
 ".Sir Peter" was a small, irascible man, whom Elinor 
 had seen enact " Peter" in the Stranger and some farce 
 parts from Mr. Grinder's box — kindly lent on one or two 
 occasions prior to her first appearance. He ought to have 
 played "Crabtree," if anything, but he was a favorite 
 with the audience, an indispensable man, and he evinced his 
 appreciation of his own value by regularly refusing to act any 
 but the most effective part in a given piece. " Crabtree," 
 therefore, fell to a poor forlorn-looking man, in a faded
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 215 
 
 suit of snuff-colored tweed, and who usually enacted the 
 " fathers" in farces and melodramas. 
 
 Joseph and Charles Surface were to be represented 
 respectively by a long young man with a bass voice and 
 black hair, and a long young man with a tenor voice and 
 light hair. Both looked rather dissipated, and both were 
 apparently eUves of the yard-stick and counter. The re- 
 maining characters were cast among various mysterious- 
 looking people in different stages of dinginess and discon- 
 tent, scarcely one of whom, down to " Sir Harry's servant," 
 but thought himself mightily aggrieved in not playing one 
 of the principals. 
 
 In the fortnight that elapsed between the arrival of 
 
 Elinor and her aunt at P , and the momentous "first 
 
 appearance of Miss Ellen Grey " at the Lyceum, the latter 
 passed her time in studying, and otherwise preparing for 
 the arduous duties before her. They were tolerably com- 
 fortable in the house of one Mrs. Dawkins, whom after get- 
 ting over her first horror and suspicion of the character of 
 "theatre folks," they found to be an amiable and kindly 
 person. Elinor had no idea of devoting her best powers 
 in the way of study and analysis to the " walking ladies " 
 she expected to portray during her novitiate. She had the 
 sense to understand, as has been indicated, that a practical 
 acquaintance with technical details was an essential preli- 
 minary to maintaining a high position in the art, and she 
 was determined firmly to go through the course she had 
 prescribed to herself She conceived, however, that this 
 mechanical part of the profession was distinct from the 
 original or creative portion, which latter she believed her- 
 self to possess in as great a degree as if she had already 
 passed through the season of probation. She perceived 
 that if the ladies and gentlemen constituting the " stock " 
 
 of the P Lyceum had the advantage of her in point 
 
 of technical knowledge, she had decidedly the advantage 
 of them in those of education, refinement, and attrition 
 with good society. "What she proposed to do was, first to 
 acquire the minutiae, and then to avail of the advantages
 
 216 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 she possessed in a wider field. To go on playing Marias 
 would never do for her. Elinor made the mistake which 
 has often been made before and since her time. Because 
 the people she was thrown among were, for the most part 
 and in a social sense, unfit to sit down with her in a draw- 
 ing-room, she imagined that her future success with mixed 
 audiences was to be gauged by a similar ratio of difl'erence. 
 She had, like most of us, to gain her knowledge by expe- 
 rience, and for the common reason — the refusal to profit by 
 that of others. 
 
 The eventful night came at last. The night which, as 
 Mugford jocularly observed, was " big with the fate of 
 Cato and of Rome." Mrs. Mugford " my che-y-ld"-ed 
 Elinor perpetually, and advised a careful observation of 
 her own (Mrs. M.'s) manner, as an eligible study for 
 grounding in a good "school of high comedy." Grinder 
 
 had managed the two papers, the P Eagle and Daily 
 
 Bassoon, very well. He would have one good house out 
 of his prize at all events. The Eagle had hinted mysteri- 
 ously at a young lady moving in the very highest circles, 
 and who was incontestably " the glass of fashion and mould 
 of form," having been secured in the teeth of rival metro- 
 politan managers by the superior enterprise and strategy 
 of the gifted Grinder ; and the Bassoon had followed suit in 
 an elaborate eulogy on the modesty and good sense of the 
 new candidate for histrionic honors, who, although amply 
 qualified by nature and education for the highest roles 
 of the drama, and, indeed, to "grasp with one bound 
 the diadem of the tragic muse," had yet resolved to 
 
 appeal to the well known critical intelligence of a P 
 
 audience, in the humbler and subordinate character, etc^ 
 etc. 
 
 " You disarm hostile criticism by this course," said Mug- 
 ford, " for K of the Eagle, especially, is very fond of 
 
 showing his ignorance by affecting the censorious. You 
 should have seen what he scribbled about my Hamlet,^'' con- 
 tinued the actor, with a bitter smile ; " my Hamlet, which for 
 ten long years stood the ordeal of a York circuit, and was
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 217 
 
 only kept out of London by malignant envy, and the 
 artist's blight — bronchitis." 
 
 The various potent arts employed, added to the fame of 
 Elinor's beauty, which spread rapidly in the small provin- 
 cial town, brought a house quite respectable, both in num- 
 bers and character, and Elinor got through her task with 
 great credit and eclat. It is true that if she had been a 
 cook, as Mr. EadcliJffe observed, with an odd mixture of 
 cynicism and compliment, her good looks and " make up " 
 would have carried her through ; and, as she did not hap- 
 pen to clash with the interest, real or imaginary, of any of 
 the Dramatis Personse, she happily escaped any of those lit- 
 tle annoyances and embarrassments with which veteran ex- 
 perts are fond of strewing the path of the hapless beginner. 
 The only exception to so fortunate a rule being found in 
 Miss Adeline De Vere, who, in her enthusiasm for the good 
 of the establishment, and in her willingness to gain credit 
 for generosity, occasionally informed Elinor that "she 
 would do," and " not to be afraid," in stage whispers 
 quite as audible to the. audience as to the young lady her- 
 self 
 
 The result of this auspicious commencement appeared 
 the next morning, first in laudatory notices from the press 
 — including a long communication from "A Friend of the 
 Drama," who was in fact an old Englishman, who kept a 
 drygoods' shop in the same street, and to whom Grinder had 
 graciously condescended to get rather deeply in debt — and, 
 secondly, in the shape of a business communication from 
 Grinder himself, wherein, after congratulating Miss Grey 
 on her brilliant dehut^ he proposed for her acceptance an 
 engagement for the season to play " First Walking Ladies, * 
 and a portion of the light comedy," in consideration of ten 
 dollars per week, and a clear third benefit, to take place in 
 the last month of the season ; very fine terms, as he added, 
 for a novice. Elinor thought this was not precisely the 
 form in which she would have described them, but as her 
 resolution had been taken to accept them whatever they 
 might be, she acquiesced, and became that day a regularly 
 
 10
 
 218 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 enrolled member of tlie " Powerful Stock Company " of 
 the P Lyceum. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYII. 
 
 MID-WINTER came and Elinor was still drudging 
 patiently on in the laborious station to which she 
 had bound herself She had first thought when resolving 
 to quit Vernon's protection, that, by leaving no clue 
 behind, and by changing her name, she might elude pur- 
 suit until such a time as she might be able to judge of the 
 success of her experiment. Mrs. Maberly had exerted 
 herself to induce a deviation from her scheme in this 
 respect. She pointed out to Ehnor the distress she would 
 inflict upon those who had been such kind friends, should 
 she leave them in ignorance of either her projects or where- 
 abouts. Such a course, too, would, be open to misconstruc- 
 tion in other ways. Better state to Mr. Vernon fairly and 
 candidly her motives for the step she had taken and what 
 she hoped to achieve thereby. Better to let him under- 
 stand, also, that her aunt was to accompany and watch 
 over her. Otherwise, in his anxiety, he would be institut- 
 ing researches which, whether successful or not, would be 
 equally distressing and embarrassing. 
 
 Mrs. Maberly's policy was adopted, and with the result 
 she anticipated. For, while Oliver Vernon deprecated her 
 course, and indulged in much tender reproach that she had 
 not at first taken him into her confidence, he had too much 
 sagacity not to perceive that having gone so far as it had, it 
 would be wise, for her own satisfaction, that Elinor should 
 push her experiment to a definite conclusion. It was there- 
 fore agreed that Grace and himself should correspond with 
 her, and that she should keep them advised of all that befel, 
 with a general understanding that if her project were 
 not, after a reasonable time, crowned with a success which
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 219 
 
 might justify its future prosecution, she should consent to 
 abandon it. Elinor's plan, in which Grinder expressed a 
 willingness to assist her, was to endeavor, after a few months 
 of practice, to make an appearance in the metropolis ; 
 a scheme, which Mrs. Maberly approved, because she 
 believed it would bring matters to a more speedy conclu- 
 sion. The worthy lady, while she believed her niece to 
 possess unusual talents, had little faith in her making any 
 great success as an actress : and anything short of this she 
 believed would not satisfy Elinor's ambition. She there- 
 fore thought it desirable that the point might be demon- 
 strated pro or con with as little delay as possible. 
 
 Without anticipating as to whether Mrs. Maberly was right 
 or wrong, we may say that Elinor exhibited many quali- 
 ties such as are generally supposed to contribute to histri- 
 onic success. Setting aside her physical advantages of voice 
 and person, she had uncommon self-possession, a great deal 
 of tact, and a very retentive memory. On the other hand, 
 her nature was rather too positive to be readily merged or 
 sunk in artificial character, and although it contained a 
 well of real enthusiasm and a genuine love and apprecia- 
 tion of art, there was a something either of self-respect or 
 hauteur unfavorable to that abandon which has so much effect 
 in shaping and captivating the popular taste. " All you 
 want, Miss Grrey, is to shove on steam," advised Grinder, 
 " The folks likes them as keeps up a thunderin' excitement. 
 It's all very well to come the statooesque and quiet dodge 
 for the boxes, after you've knocked the pit and gallery by 
 tearin' round and a hollerin'. Didn't you hear Mugford 
 yell the other night in that ere Tent Scene in Richard ? — 
 and didn't you hear 'em yellin' and screechin' back at him ? ' 
 — That's what takes 'em. Why ? Cos they think the 
 more noise you make, the more earnest you air." 
 
 "All stuff and nonsense, Miss Grey," said Radcliflfe pri- 
 vately to her. "These people know nothing of acting 
 either before or behind the curtain. The only proper thing 
 to do would be to get a season or two of practice in some 
 first class English theatre. Even then, if you came back
 
 220 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 they'd say your style was affected, or that you spoke with 
 what they call an ' English accent,' because you didn't talk 
 through your nose." 
 
 " People do, however, get money and reputation by 
 the stage in this countrj^," said Elinor rather despondingly. 
 
 " Oh, yes," replied Kadcliffe, with acrimony, " sometimes 
 they do. If a man has the lungs of a bull and knows how 
 to use them like one, he can get both. Or if he can dance 
 jigs and sing comic songs handily, and knock people about 
 with stuffed sticks, and ' gag' with good grace, he's safe to 
 get them. But any one who imagines that the education 
 and manners of a lady or a gentleman are of any use for 
 the purpose is sadly mistaken. Oh, very good people get 
 on, too, occasionally," he added more gently, "but after all, 
 success is hardly worth having in a calling wherein such as 
 those who do, get the highest prizes." 
 
 " Perhaps the audience here is not of the most intelligent 
 character," suggested Elinor. 
 
 " Verv often as o-ood in the small towns as the averas:e in 
 the large ones," answered the actor. " The real truth is 
 that the best classes of the community avoid the theatre 
 now-a-days." 
 
 Various conversations such as these did not tend to im- 
 press Elinor with the idea that Mr. Radcliffe took a very 
 cheerful view of the calling he had adopted, and one 
 day when the acquaintance was somewhat riper she ven- 
 tured to say as much. 
 
 "I entered the profession. Miss Grey, from necessity," 
 he replied, gloomily, " not from choice." 
 
 She begged his pardon. She did not suppose he had 
 been bred to it. 
 
 " Nor was I. As you may have guessed, I have seen 
 better days. Not that I mean to disparage the stage, which 
 is as elevated, theoretically at least, as any other pursuit. 
 But until past middle life I never dreamed of having 
 recourse to it. I commenced indeed, when almost an old 
 man — quite so in experience if not in years ; — as it was, I 
 was past five-and-forty."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 221 
 
 Elinor was silent, and EadclifFe did not appear disposed 
 to extend his confidences further than to remark that 
 he had been rather successful in youth as an amateur, 
 which had led him to turn to the theatre for a livelihood 
 when the necessity had unexpectedly arisen. 
 
 As time wore on, he took more and more interest in. 
 Elinor, often giving her useful advice and instruction in 
 regard to her characters and the business of the stage. 
 The old man drank rather freely at times, but although 
 crusty and irritable with others, he was never churlish 
 with her. He never lost, indeed, the manner of gentle- 
 manly deference which his early associations taught him 
 to observe toward one who was so unmistakably a gentle- 
 woman. He excused his habits, the effect of which was 
 occasionally too obvious, on the score of his health. 
 
 " I used to drink for excitement, or to drown care. Miss 
 Grey," he said apologetically. "There's no less need on 
 the latter score now; — but I lack strength sometimes to 
 get through my work." 
 
 Elinor thought with a shudder of her fathers case, and 
 partly for the sake of his memory, partly because of her 
 liking for the lonely old player, she bethought herself 
 of trying to make his situation more comfortable. She 
 gathered from^ what he said, that he was ill at ease in his 
 lodging, and finding one day that there was a vacant upper 
 room at Mrs. Dawkins, she proposed, after consultation 
 with her aunt, that he should take it. He might use their 
 little parlor, which was always warm, and in some sort 
 cheerful, for writing and study. Kadcliffe gratefully as- 
 sented to the suggestion, and the more readily because 
 he thought he might be of greater professional service 
 to Elinor through such an arrangement. He was an adept 
 in histrionic mysteries and devices, and took pleasure in 
 imparting them to one so quick and eager in availing 
 of his teachings. He taught her much that was new in 
 the art of modulation, and in that of the natural relation 
 of action to passion. He taught her how to make exits 
 and entrances, and how to handle and manage her train
 
 222 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 when the character called for such an appendage. He 
 taught her the science of " making up," and its intricate 
 relation to lights and distances. All these and other 
 similar instructions were valuable to Elinor, who grew 
 more anxious to make rapid advance in the mechanism of 
 her art, as the time grew shorter and shorter which sepa- 
 rated her from the period of her proposed debut in the 
 great city. 
 
 William Radclifife was a man whose character was the 
 legitimate product of a peculiar experience. What it might 
 bo in original constituents — what it might have become, if 
 subjected through life to opposite vicissitudes — we may 
 surmise, and hereafter have better opportunity to judge. 
 In early years he had been the victim of two most potent 
 breeders of selfishness — the law of entail and misdirected 
 parental affection. He grew to be an old man before he 
 quite realized the mischief which, in his particular case, 
 these teachers had inflicted on his character ; and when he 
 did realize it, the effect seemed ineradicable. Formerly he 
 had accepted the theory that the interests and comfort of 
 all those with whom he came in contact ought of right to 
 give way to his own. As a child, he had permitted others 
 to be punished for his own misdeeds ; as a man, he had 
 even conspired that they should be. This moral obliquity 
 had colored his whole career, and even now he murmured 
 ceaselessly at the hardness of fortune which had brought 
 him to a position which was strictly the natural fruit of 
 the seed he had sown. Providence, not he, was to blame 
 that he found himself going down to the grave a miserable 
 and dishonored man. He was unable to perceive the jus- 
 tice of a power which had launched him into life with 
 wealth, health, and every element of material prosperity, 
 to condemn him at its close to be stripped of each and all 
 those advantages he had learned to regard as inalienable 
 rights. 
 
 The persons and motives which bad surrounded the later 
 years of his life had rather tended to confirm than to
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 223 
 
 weaken his convictions as to flie selfishness of his race. 
 The miserable bickerings and jealousies of the petty cir- 
 cles in which he had moved, although they excited his 
 contempt, only did so because of the minuteness of their 
 causes and objects. It was but the world in little. Life 
 was but a battle in which every man's arm was for ever 
 raised against all others he encountered, to strike or to 
 defend. 
 
 When he encountered Elinor Grazebrook, his liking 
 sprang from affinity of manners and, in some sort, culture, 
 rather than from any moral sympathy or appreciation ; and 
 this sentiment was naturally, at the outset, a reciprocal one. 
 After a time, however, as each got to see and know more 
 of the inner life of the other, their mutual estimates be- 
 came of a more complicated character. The old man, so 
 far as he practised any scheme of life, was the slave of a 
 mere bald expediency ; the young woman was the willing 
 and devout disciple of a pure, self-sacrificing duty. It was 
 not strange that each came to regard the other as, in a man- 
 ner, a natural curiosity, 
 
 Eadcliffe came to discover — although names were scru- 
 pulously concealed — that Elinor had left a luxurious home 
 and a comparatively high social position ; that such a step 
 was not dictated by necessity, but, whether mistaken or 
 otherwise, by an absolute conviction of right ; that, 
 although filled with the ambition of youth and enthusiasm, 
 she would yet elect, if it must be so, to remain in the hum- 
 bler ranks of a wearing and contemned profession rather 
 than forego that conviction. Then he came to reflect on 
 the circumstances and motives which led to his own situa- 
 tion, and the contrast brought to his cheek something like 
 a flush of shame. Had he lived all these years to derive 
 his first lessons in the great principle of sacrifice from the 
 example of a simple, inexperienced girl ? 
 
 As the season wore on, he fell ill — very ill, and was 
 obliged for a time to forego his duties at the theatre. And 
 Elinor and good Mrs. Maberly — who had not fancied him 
 over much at first, but who came to forget all prejudice in
 
 224 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 her compassion for tlie lonely, friendless old man — watched 
 and tended him, and dispensed with much of their daily 
 comfort for his sake, until he gradually became convales- 
 cent. There could be no quid 'pro quo about this, he re- 
 flected, for what could they hope from such as he ? Elinor 
 would trudge through the snow to rehearsal, leaving Mrs. 
 Maberly to attend to the wants of the invalid ; and on 
 these occasions the good lady would speak, in the warmth 
 of her honest, straightforward nature, of the courage and 
 nobleness which her niece had displayed in feeing this hard 
 life, after the ease and luxury to which she had been accus- 
 tomed ; and say that while she did not quite like her choice 
 of a profession, yet that its very drawbacks and difficulties 
 enhanced the heroism of the course Elinor had pursued. 
 
 Slowly and by degrees — for it took months to bring 
 about the change — a new light seemed to dawn upon Rad- 
 cliflfe's darkened nature. The gentle and awakening influ- 
 ences to which he was now exposed gradually wrought in 
 his breast a perception of truth — a reverence for good, to 
 which its previous history had been a stranger. The con- 
 stant reference to the idea of duty which ran through all 
 the intercourse between these two women, and which at 
 first had only excited in him a sort of half incredulous 
 curiosity, came in time to arouse his reasoning feculties, 
 and finally to enforce his assent. Where he had before 
 been bitter and cynical, he grew to be mild and charitable. 
 Where he had before attributed to all about him the most 
 selfish and corrupted motives, he now strove to interpret 
 generous and kindly ones. lie became more exact and 
 conscientious in the performance of his professional duties; 
 and he curbed in a manner which surprised all who knew 
 him, his propensity for strong drink. His health was 
 indeed broken ; but the peevishness wherewith he had 
 been wont to bewail his ailments, now all but disappeared, 
 and he bore their load with a new-born meekness and 
 resignation. 
 
 Elinor would sometimes speaks— without mentioning his 
 name — of the lofty character of her former guardian, and
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 225 
 
 of the happiness and comfort his philanthropic hand had 
 scattered in every direction around him. 
 
 " Would," said EadclifFe one day, " would that I too 
 might do some good before I die." 
 
 " To wish it earnestly," Elinor replied, " I have heard 
 him say, is to gain, sooner or later, the power to do it."" 
 
 Radcliffe shook his head with a sigh. "I fear in my case 
 it is too late." 
 
 Elinor and her aunt often talked together with surprise 
 and gratification of the change which seemed to be work- 
 ing in Radcliffe's character. 
 
 " Out of Evil cometh Good," said Mrs. Maberly solemn- 
 ly. " This man has been, perhaps, the instrument of much 
 wrong. God has sent us here to awaken his conscience 
 while he is yet on earth." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 GRINDER, who sometimes surprised people by unex- 
 pected glimpses of good feeling, had proposed that, 
 in view of his health, it might be of service to Mr. -Rad- 
 cliffe to take a trip to New York. It was past mid-winter, 
 and it was necessary if Elinor was to have an appearance 
 in the spring, to settle about the time, before, as he said, 
 " all the nights should be filled up." 
 
 Radcliffe gladly accepted the proffered furlough, and 
 undertook the negotiation for Elinor with great willing- 
 ness, although he anticipated difficulty in bringing it to a 
 successful issue. However, he thought he could make out 
 a better case for the managerial ear than Grinder was likely 
 to do. Elinor possessed qualities which escaped the appre- 
 ciation of that gentleman, but which would recommend 
 her, if properly represented, to the more discerning director 
 of the Metropolis. Besides, Radcliffe had some acquaint- 
 
 10*
 
 226 dangerfield's eest; or 
 
 ance with the latter, to whom the old actor was known as 
 a person of taste and education. 
 
 As Radcliffe foresaw, he had great trouble in making an 
 arrangement. Mr. Badger, the manager of the the- 
 atre, Broadway, had really no time open. He was filled 
 with stars and new plays clear up to June. His company 
 was very strong, and the principals objected to supporting 
 any but artists of recognised position. He had been much 
 abused by the press for giving openings to novices. It had 
 injured his establishment very much. He really couldn't 
 afford to be always at loggerheads with the critics. Ead- 
 cliffe persisted with an earnestness he would certainly have 
 exhibited for no one else than Elinor. He assured the 
 reluctant Badger that Miss Grrey was no amateur : she had 
 been hard at work for months, had perfect ease, great per- 
 sonal advantages, and was a lady of cultivation and refine- 
 ment. Badger at this point softened so far as to say that 
 he miglit possibly find the young lady a night or so if she 
 could guarantee the dead expenses,— naming a sum equal 
 to about three times the actual ones. To this Radcliife 
 demurred, but proposed she should " share" after a stated 
 sum. After a deal of sparring and discussion this diffi- 
 culty appeared on the point of adjustment, whereupon a 
 new one promptly presented. It was quite out of the ques- 
 tion,, the manager declared, to allow the debutante to appear 
 in either of the old pieces ; Juliet or Pauline was impossi- 
 ble ; either would kill the lady's success before she appear- 
 ed. The public were perfectly sick of all the old plays ; 
 besides, how could she stand comparison with Miss Heavy- 
 port in tragedy, or with Mrs. Furbelow in comedy ? 
 
 Finally, and with infinite pains and pertinacity, it was 
 agreed that Elinor should attempt the heroine of a new 
 drama which was to be brought out in a brief interval which 
 might be made between two star engagements, and which 
 had been written chiefly with an eye to the talents of Mr. 
 Howlfort, the leading man. There was reason in Badger's 
 assertion that by this plan there need be no invidious 
 comparisons, and this was positively the very best he could
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 227 
 
 do. On the night the bargain was concluded, Radcliflfe 
 
 started for P , with EHuor's new part in his pocket, 
 
 and after having concluded every necessary arrangement. 
 
 The old actor had more than one reason for hastening 
 his departure from town. It was not alone that he had 
 accomplished the object of his visit — not alone that the 
 noise of the great city distracted and disgusted him — there 
 was a stronger incentive and one that would brook no 
 delay. In coming from the box-office of the theatre for 
 the last time, he saw just for a moment a female face which, 
 notwithstanding the lapse of many years since he saw it 
 last, he instantly recognised. He trembled with anxiety 
 lest this recognition had been mutual. If such were indeed 
 the case, he would have a motive for quitting, not only 
 Kew York, but even the country itself. All that night he 
 pondered and reasoned with himself as to the best course 
 to be pursued. He was not sure that he had been seen — 
 but if he were ? The change that had recently come over 
 his character bore its fruit here, and when he arrived at 
 
 P , he had resolved to remain there and to confront 
 
 whatever might betide. 
 
 A few days after, Elinor and Mrs. Maberly left for New 
 York. All had been settled by E-adcliffe, even to the secur- 
 ing of apartments for the term of their stay. The old 
 man did his utmost in the brief interim toward preparing 
 his pupil for her ordeal, and wrote her a long letter filled 
 with fresh advice and injunctions after her departure. The 
 new piece had already been some time in preparation, and 
 after two or three additional rehearsals would be ready for 
 production. The anxious study of her part, and the 
 arrangement of her dresses, completely engrossed the time 
 of both Elinor and her aunt, and the critical day for the 
 final rehearsal quickly arrived. 
 
 Wherever the English language is spoken, there are 
 periodical complaints about "the Decline of the Drama." 
 There can be little doubt but that the complaints are based 
 on a substantial ground-work of facts, and friends of the
 
 228 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Stage are more ready to admit their existence because it is 
 their fashion to maintain as an axiom that this declension 
 will never sink so far as to desuetude ; that is to say, that 
 the Stage possesses an inhefcnt vitality which must always 
 prevent its extinction, however it may appear, from time 
 to time, to be in a state of decay. A candid examination 
 of evidence certainly establishes this conclusion ; — that, 
 whether as regards the current grade of its literature, 
 the character and education of its professors, or the average 
 intelligence and critical acumen of its patrons, the insti- 
 tution has been, for many years past, slowly but surely 
 tending downwards. In England the initial date of this 
 movement is generally considered to be that which ter- 
 minated the privilege of the Patent Theatres. It is every- 
 where supposed to be accelerated by the increasing taste 
 for Italian Opera, together with that for Concerts, Lectures, 
 Minstrelsy, and the heterogeneous mass of "Entertain- 
 ments" which of late have become so numerous and so 
 popular. Some think the Stage is the natural enemy of 
 the Press, as Theology is declared to be that of Science ; 
 and deduce that, as in all such contests, the weaker must 
 eventually go down. Others maintain that in a day of 
 railroads, all theatres except the great metropolitan ones in 
 each country, must, in the nature of things, sink first into 
 insignificance, and finally into oblivion. No doubt, there is 
 a certain amount of logical truth in each of these assumptions, 
 more especially as applied to England and her colonies. 
 
 But in America, where the complaint of the Decline of 
 the Drama has been as loud as anywhere — and to say 
 the least, where it has been equally well founded — there 
 are, and have been, peculiar causes at work which are not 
 so generally taken into account as their relative importance 
 deserves. The causes enumerated have had their weight 
 on both sides the Atlantic, but on this, others are to 
 be superadded. Dramatic literature, artistic culture, the 
 quality of audiences, are clearly matters which act upon 
 and reciprocally produce each other. Any one can under- 
 stand how the practised and fastidious judgment of
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 229 
 
 audiences of whom Johnson, Goldsmith, Swift, were the 
 exponents, produced different results from such as arise in 
 our day through the critical fiat of the frequenters of the 
 Surrey, the Britannia, or the City of London. It is clear 
 enough that our American Stage would gain in dignity 
 should such classes as are represented by the names of 
 Everett, Bryant, Irving, support its honors and adjudge 
 its meeds in lieu of the b'hoys of the Bowery, or even 
 the shopmen of Broadway. Neither does it require de- 
 monstration to show how the seductive strains of the 
 Italians have robbed the theatre of much of its old-time 
 support from the wealthy and refined ; or that the other 
 forces assigned have had their weight and potency. Yet   
 such is the love for public diversions in America, and 
 such the passion for pictorial illustration — one fruit perhaps 
 of the ultra simplicity which characterizes our govern- 
 mental forms and usages — that these drawbacks might 
 have been overcome, or their influence to a great extent 
 neutralized, but for the agency which remains to be sug- 
 gested. 
 
 This agency — or rather this deficiency — consists in the 
 absence of almost everything in the shape of standa7-ds or 
 examples, which, until supplied, will inevitably keep the 
 American Theatres in a crude and transitional condition. 
 There is no school, and there is not the species of critical 
 education which could foster and nourish the germs of 
 such a thing even if they existed. That which takes 
 the place of a school is the well known mosaic, com- 
 pounded of the traditions and conventionalities of the 
 English stage, whose artistic memories receive occasional 
 leaven and reinforcement from actors of English birth, 
 which latter are (for the most part) the only ones tolerated 
 in our larger theatres to sustain principal lines of character. 
 It follows that the side of the drama which teaches — the 
 side which is especially presumed " to hold as 'twere the 
 mirror up to nature — " that is to say, comedy of the first- 
 rate stamp — is seldom in rapport with the audience, although 
 the latter will, sometimes for fashion's sake, sometimes to
 
 230 DANGERFIliLD S REST; OR 
 
 affect discernment, pretend that it is so. There is nothing 
 national about such a stage, because, to the real eye of 
 the audience, there is nothing natural. • Now the stage is 
 respectable, most especially in utilitarian times, just in pro- 
 portion as its simulation re-produces types with elegance 
 and accuracy with which the spectator is sufficiently 
 familiar to endorse their fidelity. [This, of course, refers 
 to Comedy, the qualities of Tragedy being chiefly heroic 
 and ideal, not human and social.] How does this rule 
 apply to the acting of " Standard English Comedies" in 
 our theatres? The actor who comes here, having been 
 well taught, and who if he has not had the opportunity 
 of mingling at home in the highest society has enjoyed the 
 next privilege, perhaps, of mingling freely with many 
 who Aave, commences with conscientiousness to bestow his 
 copy of Lord This or Sir Harry That upon an American 
 public. He finds, to his disgust and dismay, that the more 
 faithful his picture, the less it is relished by his audience. 
 He learns, by degrees, that he must give them something 
 like the types with which they are familiar, and so from 
 the necessity which exists for those " who live to please" 
 to " please to live," his Courtly and his Surface become, 
 curiously enough, fast young American gentlemen, if indeed 
 they are fortunate enough to escape running into the 
 modern stamp of swell counterjumpers. The metamor- 
 phosis is interesting in a scientific sense, but must be 
 admitted to be rather debauching in an artistic one. For, 
 while it is true that the bulk of American theatre-goers 
 would be unable to verify the truthfulness of a representa- 
 tion of ancient or modern " high life" which constitutes so 
 much of the substance of " Standard Comedy," it is evident 
 that only such a capacity is competent to keep the stage in 
 a healthful condition. 
 
 We are not yet, as a nation, quite mature enough to have 
 our types or standards of breeding and usage sufficiently 
 crystallized to serve the dramatic purpose ; we therefore 
 employ for the nonce those of another nation, with which 
 (fortunately for us in some respects if not in this) we have
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, 281 
 
 a language and a literature in common. But the differ- 
 ences in our social life and political institutions are such as 
 to render the peculiarities and distinctions of a foreign 
 drama distasteful, and therefore, in the absence of a native 
 one, is produced the anomalous hybrid described — Ameri- 
 canized English comedy. 
 
 The truth is, that, all affectation and absurdity aside, 
 English comedy has no hold whatever upon American 
 sympathies. It is interesting as a relic — valuable to the 
 scholar and the antiquary — suggestive in the closet — but 
 can retain no abiding possession of our stage. Such a 
 tenure is reserved for a really National Drama, when the 
 time for such an institution shall have arrived ; and until 
 then our theatre will continue, as previously observed, in a 
 transition state. 
 
 It is, however, fair to remark that, meagre as are the indi- 
 cations, the Tragic Muse seems to have a better chance for 
 early and dignified establishment in America than her 
 lighter sister. Tragedy is of course less dependent upon 
 that which is merely artificial and conventional in manner 
 — does not demand from its votaries that attrition with, or 
 close observation of, the distinctive classes illustrated. It 
 is of yesterday rather than of to-day. A man of average 
 intelligence may reasonably assume to have as just an idea 
 of the speech and action of antique heroes, if he dwells on 
 the banks of the Mississippi, as if he mingled with the pol- 
 ished circles of St. James's. Indeed, when considering the 
 expanding influences of vast area, grand natural scenery, 
 the absence of the cramping and belittling tendencies of 
 close populations and sophisticated modes of thought, we 
 may even assume that his ideal would be larger and nobler 
 in the first than in the second case. This may furnish a 
 striking reason to strengthen other accidental ones why 
 the tragic development promises better with us than the 
 comic. Here, indeed, are rudimental traces of a school ; 
 defaced by vulgarisms and marred by inelegant excres- 
 cences, if you will — but if sometimes crude, usually manly 
 — if often gross, always strong. Chasteness and polish in
 
 232 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 art aie not inherent, but come rather through the slow per- 
 suasions of toil and growth. If the basis be broad, and the 
 material ample, time will bring the subtilizing and refining. 
 
 That Melpomene is in advance in the instincts or pro- 
 gress of the American mind is singularly illustrated by 
 the habit of those who are necessary reflexes of the popu- 
 lar taste, the most popular of whom do her frequent hom- 
 age by playing comedy as if it were melodrama. Those 
 who have seen much French acting can appreciate the effect 
 of a precisely opposite tendency. 
 
 The paucity of examples — in the way of professional 
 excellence — is certainly a sad drawback to dramatic pros- 
 perity, yet it is more to be regretted than marvelled at. 
 When a stage is rising, its leading professors are found to 
 elevate their audience ; when it is sinking, they are tolera- 
 bly sure to degrade them. The latter is not a gracious 
 office, nor one likely to be attractive for people capable of 
 success in anything else. The absence of self-respect which 
 is promoted by "playing down" to the intelligence — or 
 below it — of a mixed public, is not usually found com- 
 bined with conscientious study or creative abilitj^. The 
 exaltation of the same quality, which is a consequent when 
 the stage assumes the dignity of a teacher, is legitimately 
 found associated with both. Such is the case in the history 
 of a stage when men like John Philip Kemble, and his 
 fellows, are found at its head, but such is not the case now. 
 Talent for this, as for any other use, is always lying dor- 
 mant in every community, but it does not appear in such 
 walks unless the public taste demands and requires it. In 
 the latter event it is forthcoming at the exigency, as un- 
 heard of generals spring up in war, but not otherwise. 
 The increase of education, the development of social refine- 
 ment and amenities, the progress of letters, and the attend- 
 ant culture of higher and purer standards of criticism and 
 appreciation, can alone bring about for the stage the condi- 
 tions which may terminate its debased or transitorial state, 
 and prepare the way for a reputable and dignified national 
 drama.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 « pLEAR the stage !" 
 
 \J This was from the prompter, who had been looking 
 at his watch every thirty seconds for the last ten minutes. 
 The stage was dark enough, and not until the eye became 
 accustomed to the gloom could it discern whether it was 
 " clear" or not, Down in the right-hand corner, by the pro- 
 scenium, was a table on which a mass of papers, books, and 
 play-bills was illuminated by a single yellow jet of gas, 
 springing from a metallic upright, and fed by a piece of 
 flexible tubing. Here sat the Stage Manager, a peaked- 
 looking man, with black clothes and red eyes, scratching 
 away at to-morrow night's bill. Clear over in the front, a 
 great black void, with glass pendants shimmering here and 
 there, and a profusion of drapery in brown-holland — for 
 the theatre in the day-time is like your town-house furni- 
 ture in summer, or your railway traveller, and puts on its 
 duster to save the frippery beneath. There is a queer, dank 
 smell, curiously compounded. An odor of earth from 
 under the stage — of orange peel and peanut dust from the 
 front — of glue, and size, and paint from the property and 
 painting rooms — of shavings from the domain of the car- 
 penter — and, permeating all, and to complete the agreeable 
 amalgam, the flavor of gas stealing out of tiny and unstop- 
 pable crevices from everywhere. Then there are shadowy 
 forms stalking up and down, and across from wing to wing, 
 holding paper "parts" mostly, over which they are anx- 
 iously conning and whispering. ISTearly all are pale and 
 jaded, so far as can be seen in the dim light. They have 
 that look which betrays irritation and exhaustion, the 
 avengers sent by outraged nature in the morning, to expiate 
 the excessive strain on the nervous system of the night 
 before. Not all, however. There are some young people 
 — men and women — with apparent freshness, color, and 
 vitality. These are generally " utility " people ; aspirants 
 full of ambition, who, not having the money, or perchance
 
 234 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 the education to enforce that hearing at the top round of 
 the ladder from which those who have both usually so 
 disastrously tumble, are content perforce to begin at the 
 bottom. Then there are two or three grimy-looking men, 
 with paper caps and brawny arms, standing about in the 
 entrances; and one man with spectacles and Teutonic face, 
 who has emerged from a mysterious hole under the stage, 
 and, after stumbling about a little among chairs and music 
 stands, has established himself in the conductor's seat in 
 the orchestra. He has just lighted another jet of gas at 
 his desk, with the flame from half a twisted play-bill, 
 brought from the manager's table by the call-boy, and is 
 now torturing and screwing up his violin. 
 
 " Clear the stage !" 
 
 "What's the time, Mr. Huntley?" from the manager. 
 
 " Ten minutes past, sir, and thirty seconds to boot. We 
 ought to commence sharp to-day, for we must run through 
 the burlesque afterwards. You know, sir, Sadkyn and 
 Eutgers will never begin to study their parts until they've 
 got their situations; and we ought to have the scenery and 
 properties by Wednesday." 
 
 "To be sure, to be sure. Holla!" looking up; " oh ! I 
 say! this won't do. Where's Bloxer? Come, Bloxer, you 
 must give us this scene in Three !" 
 
 The principal grimy-looking man, with paper cap and 
 brawny arms, explained : — 
 
 " We must fit the traps, sir, some time. Mr. Monkini 
 swears he won't jump through the Enchanted Grot, unless 
 the Vampire can be on the opposite side from the parallel. 
 He'll break his head agen the braces, he says." 
 
 " Oh ! nonsense. He'll never hurt. Besides, we won't 
 take long. Come, take off this corridor, and give us the 
 palace flats in Three. It isn't fair," continued the mana- 
 ger, in a lower voice to the prompter, " it isn't fair to a 
 novice. The poor thing '11 hardly know where she is 
 at night. Where's the Property-man, where's Planet ?" 
 
 " He's in his room, sir, a-gildin' of the magic steeds," 
 reported the call-boy.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 235 
 
 " Just go and tell him I want these properties 7iow, and 
 in every scene. What is there on now, Mr. Huntley ?" 
 
 " Table and chairs, centre. An escritoire at Left Upper 
 Entrance. Scroll for Montford. Purse of gold and dag- 
 ger for De Eoseville. Thunder ready right. Lightning 
 box, ditto," said Huntlej^ 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! yes. Forgot to put that in the headings," 
 said the manager, bustling back to his table. " Let's see. 
 'Appalling Effect of the Storm Scene.' That'll do, I guess. 
 She must take us through the three nights, anyhow. Um, 
 um !" running over what he had written, — " ' Triumph- 
 ant Debut of Miss Ellen Grey, America's Fair Daughter, 
 who has quitted the home of Opulence and Pomp, for 
 genuine love of Art, to bow submissive to the Tragic 
 Muse. Glorious Vindication of |^^ Youth, Beauty, and 
 Genius. ,^^| How many seats did Levi say were taken, 
 Huntley ?" 
 
 " Only nineteen, I think," replied the Prompter. 
 
 " By a house packed from floor to dome with the wit, 
 fashion, and intelligence of this great metropolis. Um, 
 um, — Get on, now do, Mr. Huntley." 
 
 " Everybody for the First Act," roared that functionary. 
 " Now, then. Ladies and Gentlemen, pay attention, I beg 
 of you. ' Montford and De Eoseville seated.' Mont- 
 ford and De Eoseville ! Come, now, this is too bad !" 
 
 "Who is it?" inquired the manager. 
 
 " Montford and De Eoseville, sir — Mr. Howlfort and 
 Mr. Grater. They're always late." 
 
 " Put 'em down — put 'em down, Mr. Huntley. We're 
 paying full salaries now — no excuse for these liberties. 
 Half past eleven is it ? All right. Pass on to Solomon's 
 scene. Who's Solomon ?" 
 
 " Solomon, Mr. Sadkyn. Call Mr. Sadkyn, Joe !" 
 
 Mr. Sadkyn, a stuffy, elderly Englishman, appeared in 
 obedience to the shrill summons of Joe, who took every 
 opportunity of screaming at the utmost power of his lungs 
 as a practical preparative for future histrionic distinction. 
 M.V. Sadkyn was, however, not in the best of humors.
 
 236 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 " Why am I bellowed after in this manner ? I am 
 usually late, I presume, and inattentive to my business. It 
 is my custom to omit that regard to detail, which, how- 
 ever, constitutes the chief characteristic of the younger 
 members of the profession 1" 
 
 "I beg your pardon, I'm sure, Mr. Sadkyn. I'd no 
 idea you were close by. Here's Mr. Howlfort and Mi. 
 Grater both late again, and Mr. Badger says to go on with 
 your scene," explained the Prompter in a conciliatory man- 
 ner, well knowing by bitter experience the sort of morning 
 he was likely to pass if the stout and irate person he 
 addressed were unduly displeased. 
 
 " Very good, sir," said Mr. Sadkyn, sternly, " we loill go 
 on with my scene. Where, may I ask, is Agatha? Is she 
 prepared to rush into my arms at the cue ? I see nothing 
 of Mrs. Mortimer." 
 
 " Call Two, Joe — Solomon, Agatha. Now, if you 
 please, Mr. Sadkyn, we'll come to your cue," — ' and deep 
 damnation deepens with his smile.' " 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Sadkyn in a highly 
 sarcastic tone, " that, perchance, may be some one else's 
 cue, but it is not mine — at least in this instance. My cue 
 is ' Exit Montford, Left, De Roseville, Right. — {Thunder.y " 
 
 " Oh, come, do get on," from the manager's table. 
 
 " I shall have much pleasure in getting on," said Mr. Sad- 
 kyn, loftily, " whenever we can approximate with reason- 
 able accuracy the text and the business of the scene." 
 
 " For G — d's sake fix it as Mr. Sadkyn desires, then, 
 Huntley," cried the manager, " or we shall stay here all 
 day." 
 
 An adjustment was effected, and the scene proceeded 
 with the assistance of Mrs. Mortimer, a rather pretty woman 
 much over-dressed, and with a face plastered with eau de 
 heaute. 
 
 "You find your own snuffbox, I suppose, Mr. Sad- 
 kyn," hazarded the Prompter, at a point where such an 
 article was required in the " business." 
 
 " Ah, indeed, sir ? You may remember the last occasion
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 287 
 
 when I obliged the Establishment by such a concession — 
 you may also recal the consequence. No, sir. Upon that 
 occasion I registered a solemn oath to furnish no proper- 
 ties henceforth, not called for from the artist by the most 
 rigid usages of the Profession. Have the goodness to 
 enter distinctly upon the Property List ' Snuff-box for 
 Solomon.' " 
 
 " As you please, sir," submitted Huntley. " Ah, good 
 morning, Mr. Howlfort — good morning, sir. You've kept 
 the stage waiting some time, sir." 
 
 " Yes, and Mr, Grater," ejaculated the Manager. " Upon 
 my soul, gentlemen, it's very hard. I don't know for my 
 part what the profession is coming to. No wonder it falls 
 into contempt when there's such a want of business-like 
 attention in trifles. You've no right to keep fifty people 
 dancing attendance upon your caprice in this manner !" 
 
 Mr. Howlfort walked down the stage with an air in- 
 tended to represent quiet majesty. A rather handsome 
 dark man with an aquiline nose, and masses of glossy black 
 hair heavily oiled. He wore trowsers of a large check in 
 pattern, a neckcloth of bright colors, and a black cloak 
 or " Talma," faced with velvet. The principal object of 
 his life appeared to be that of striking a deeper key or 
 pitch in using his voice to that of his interlocutor, whoever 
 that might be. Badger had rather a resonant organ, the 
 product in some degree of vast melodramatic practice in 
 early life, but it was altogether eclipsed and put in the 
 wrong both in sound and substance by the reply which his 
 exordium elicited: — 
 
 " Mark me," was the sepulchral response. " 'Tis now 
 some sixteen years that Pve been chained to the oar of 
 the Histrion's drudgery, and never did I know — except 
 myself — a man who could study 20 lengths from night to 
 night and then come perfect and punctual in the morning." 
 
 "It's true," said the Manager, somewhat subdued, "you 
 have had work, but then you know, my dear fellow, we've 
 had to rather put the steam on this season. So much 
 opposition, you know. There's been the Hippodrome and 
 
 15
 
 238 dangerfield's rest 
 
 OR 
 
 the Coliseum, and Zampillaerostation, and the Prestidigi- 
 tateur, and the lectures on the Megatherium. And it's 
 certainly been easier for you lately. You had only the 
 Stranger for Friday and Master Walter for Saturday." 
 
 " At any rate," said Huntley, "Mr. Grater has no such 
 excuse — there's been very little study for him. Nothing 
 bat the father in The Phantorros Legacy for over three 
 weeks." 
 
 Mr. Grater was a hard-featured man with a high color 
 and watery eyes, and about whom there was a mingled 
 aroma of onions and — something more suspicious. He 
 was the " heavy father," of the company, as Howlfort 
 was the "leading man," and Sadkyn the "first low 
 comedian." Whatever his emotions at the reproaches 
 wherewith he was assailed, he evidently did not think 
 it wise to give them utterance, for he merely smiled a 
 bitter and derisive smile, and fell to poring over his torn 
 and spotted " part." 
 
 The rehearsal now proceeded with few or no interrup- 
 tions until a point toward the end of the first act whereat 
 everybody called out " Yes, yes. The Dance ! The Dance !" 
 when an altercation occurred between Badger and sundry 
 delinquent musicians who had lingered overmuch at their 
 beer in the neighborino- saloon. 
 
 " Lenore!'' did not " come on" until the second act, a 
 circumstance which was dwelt upon with much earnest- 
 ness by the Manager, as affording the opportunity for so 
 fine a " reception." " You see, my dear Miss Grey, it gives 
 the audience time to get settled in their places, and to grow 
 into a wholesome curiosity for the advent of the heroine. 
 People have got into the way of dining so late, too, that 
 numbers don't come in till the first act is well on. Be 
 sure and recollect to count ten, slowly and deliberately, 
 after you make your entrance, and then curtsey first to 
 the right, then to the left, and finally to the centre of the 
 house. We usually play a farce before an old piece, but 
 Sadkyn won't do it when he has a new part, and to come 
 on in the second act is j ust as good for you."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 289 
 
 When the momentous period arrived, the Manager went 
 to the front for the purpose, as he said, of hearing " how 
 her voice carried." At the same time, Mrs. Furbelow, the 
 leading actress of the establishment, posted herself in a 
 chair in the left corner of the stage bj the prompter's 
 table, from which coigne of vantage she watched the 
 progress of events with such close attention as was com- 
 patible with carrying on a whispered flow of badinage and 
 criticism with Mr. Gayfield Eushton, the light comedian, 
 who, notwithstanding his name and his undeniable good 
 looks, presented an unmistakably Judean appearance and 
 physiognomy. 
 
 " Dress the stage now, ladies and gentlemen ! Dress the 
 stage now, do P'' expostulated the prompter, as the unhappy 
 heroine appeared at centre doors, supported on either hand 
 by the three seedy men, and the three meretricious-looking 
 coryphees^ who represented the " nobles and ladies," sup- 
 posed to be visitors at the aristocratic Chateau de Eoseville. 
 The heroine could have remonstrated at the remarkable 
 disposition which followed, consisting in spreading the cha- 
 racters at equal distances of four feet apart on the arc 
 of a circle, of which the prosceniums supported the ends, 
 and whereof she was the centre. She was quite certain 
 that such an adjustment was by no means likely to occur 
 in real life ; but remonstrance was useless against the 
 weight of tradition and usage, which maintained that this 
 was the most easy and natural relation possible for people 
 so circumstanced, and she held her peace. 
 
 Then there followed a vast deal of bickering and much 
 censure, chiefly bestowed on the derelict Grater, who com- 
 menced his speech opening with — "So please you, gracious 
 lady," in a bewildered manner, reading it painfully from 
 his tattered MS. 
 
 " Oh ! yes," said Huntley, with the cutting irony he 
 was wont to employ when he dared, "you'll be 'all right 
 at night,' of course ; you always are. How was it with 
 Gonsalvo in the ' Legacy ' ?" 
 
 ' I never missed a cue," growled the artist, " and I won't
 
 2-iO dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 to-night. I've had a severe cold — quite unable to study. 
 Miss Grey may be sure I won't trouble her at night. I've 
 long waits, and I can easily ' wing ' the later scenes." 
 
 " 1 think you'd better," retorted Huntley, " or you'll 
 catch it from the papers worse than you did before." 
 
 " Come, get on, get on !" bawled Badger from the boxes. 
 " It's quite eleven o'clock, and we shan't get through by 
 daylight, at this rate." 
 
 So the performers " got on," after a fashion, most of 
 the principals being tolerably perfect in the words, and the 
 action finally getting settled and determined by going twice 
 through the more difficult scenes. Poor Elinor was almost 
 ready to faint at the conclusion with the unusual labor and 
 responsibility. The most exacting portions of the piece 
 rested upon her own exertions, and her previous expe- 
 rience had ill fitted her for such arduous and protracted 
 effort. She got through at last, though scarcely giving 
 sufficient heed to the friendly suggestions of Badger, not 
 to wear herself out, and to save herself, above all things, 
 at night for the fourth and fifth acts. The manager, in 
 point of fact, relied rather upon her youth and beauty to 
 "carry her through" with the audience, than upon any 
 great indications of dramatic force and ability. He had 
 seen too many of these amateur exhibitions. They usually 
 ended in one of two ways, even with the cleverest. The 
 public liked " first appearances " of young and handsome 
 women, but they wouldn't stand them afterwards without 
 the requisite hard training only to be got by practice and 
 experience. The aspirants usually abandoned the stage 
 in disgust after a few essays, or retired into the ranks — 
 generally in the provinces — to struggle up by the legiti- 
 mate gradations. 
 
 Elinor had no such thoughts, and indeed no suspicion of 
 what was passing in the minds of others who surrounded 
 her. To her the future was a bright succession of artistic 
 struggles and triumphs, not to be gained without great 
 effort indeed, but effort which, she reasoned, her education 
 and her self-reliance would endow her with peculiar facilities
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 241 
 
 for grappling and conquering. She was so absorbed in 
 her task that she did not see, or, at all events, did not 
 understand, the ill-concealed pitj of even those who were 
 most amiable among her co-laborers. Mrs. Furbelow, who 
 professed the most tender interest in her success, came up 
 after rehearsal, gorgeous in her brocade, her lace, and her 
 French hat, to offer advice and congratulations in advance 
 on the " hit " her dear young friend was to make. She 
 even proposed to direct and superintend Elinor's toilette 
 for the night, but the young lady had fixed ideas on that 
 subject as well as most others, and saved herself from the 
 most dangerous of the Furbelow pitfalls, by gratefully but 
 firmly declining the suggested service. So she went home 
 to her humble lodging — so different, alas ! from the happy 
 home she had left — and passed the intervening hours be- 
 tween the present and the impending ordeal, in those alter- 
 nations of hope and anxiety which generals feel on the eve 
 of the battle which is to make or mar them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXL 
 
 ELIISTOR failed. We cannot as faithful chroniclers essay 
 to gloss over or color the fact, nor should we have 
 any disposition to do so. For, setting aside any more vir- 
 tuous reasons for candor, there is a sufficient one in our 
 conviction that she failed because she deserved too well to 
 succeed. Let us examine the seeming paradox. 
 
 Not the wisest among men can tell the rational cause for 
 all his sympathies or all his antipathies ; but many even 
 among the foolish learn by experience the policy of striv- 
 ing to enlist the one and to assuage the other ; that is, by 
 living, talking, acting down to, or up to, the sympathetic 
 or intelligent level of those they would propitiate. In this 
 country, from divers causes, the former process is most in 
 vogue The politician striving to carry his election, the 
 
 11
 
 242 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 priest striving to arrest a mob, the newspaper scribbler 
 striving to write " popular " paragraphs, will proceed upon 
 the principle of' arguing at the sympathetic or intelligent 
 level of the mass of their audience. This is politic, per- 
 haps (in a limited and temporary sense), but it is not hon- 
 est, if the politician, the priest, and the scribbler are above 
 that level ; for their influence should be used to elevate 
 and not to degrade. It is their business especially to strive 
 to set up high standards, not to acquiesce in low ones. 
 Otherwise they are nntrue to themselves and to others, and 
 this is what Elinor could not be. 
 
 Her intellect and her perceptions were above the average 
 level of those of her audience. As a consequence, she did 
 not obtain their average sympathy. Her performance, not- 
 withstanding some crudities, which were incident to com- 
 parative inexperience, was full of subtleties of apprecia- 
 tion, studded with bits of nice discrimination, which had 
 cost her much thought and study, but which were utterly 
 lost upon the majority of her audience. She could not, on 
 the other hand, in a given situation exhibit the gross ex- 
 aggeration and vicious style which that audience would 
 have accepted as highly natural and appropriate to the 
 situation in question. Had she come with a great name, 
 such reticences would have been hailed as the indications 
 of genius ; as it was, tbey were considered to be those of 
 inaptability and want of spirit. It is only truthful to add 
 that those necessary and therefore pardonable amplifica- 
 tions, which give force to style and breadth to action, and 
 whose use is essential to effort in a large house, Elinor's 
 experience was not quite capable of grasping or coping 
 with. Kadcliffe had labored to make her realize such pro- 
 bable deficiencies, and to induce her to struggle to over- 
 come them; but, although she placed much reliance on 
 his judgment, she yet thought that even he was tainted by 
 the current exaggeration of the day, and that to follow his 
 advice in that direction might lead her too far. In this she 
 was partly right, but she did not perceive that the low 
 standards of the audiences compelled such a course as in-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 243 
 
 dispensable to success, however it might violate a true 
 artistic propriety. , 
 
 In the days when the boxes gave the law to the galleries 
 instead of the galleries to the boxes, Elinor's essay would 
 have been pronounced a success. But she found to her 
 dismay that we have changed all that. When Mr. Howl- 
 fort in the action * of the play worked himself into a phrensj'- 
 of maniacal passion — or what was meant to represent it — 
 on what appeared to her very inadequate premises so far as 
 they were suggested by the exigencies of the scene, Elinor 
 felt sure that no human being surrounded by natural con- 
 ditions would ever have done the like. But the audience, 
 accustomed to see such tremendous demonstrations arise 
 from similar trifling incitements, were clearly of a different 
 opinion, and applauded his bursting veins and hoarse yells 
 to the very echo. Thereupon the poor girl began to des- 
 pair ; for she felt certain that she could never outrage her 
 own sense of truth — her clear-sighted estimate of the fitness 
 of things — so far as to bid for suffrages by a similar process. 
 
 A few persons there were who understood and rated 
 at something like its true value such talent as the debutante 
 possessed ; and her personal beauty certainly attracted an 
 admiration only unshared by the other ladies of the 
 dramatic company; yet these considerations were insuffi- 
 cient to weigh against the general verdict that she had 
 attempted too much, and that she certainly would never be 
 able to shine as a star of any notable magnitude. The more 
 good-natured were willing to rate her attempt as a succes 
 d^estime, the actors whispered "no go" as they brushed 
 past each other behind the flats and wings, the newspaper 
 critics stayed in the drinking saloons during the fourth act, 
 and the Manager at the same time penned a hasty despatch 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Phelim O'Grig (the Hibernian artists), 
 begging them to commence their engagement a week 
 earlier than had been arranged. Elinor was occasionally 
 honored by a little scanty encouragement from a few 
 refined looking people in the boxes, but when the curtain 
 fell, the stentorian shouts for "Howlfort," and the very
 
 244 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 feeble and scattering ones for herself, told too plainly 
 which way the popular current ran. 
 
 Then the players who had been so full of compliment 
 and of favorable augury at the preliminary rehearsals, 
 were all out of the way as poor Lenore passed through the 
 green-room on her way to change her dress, and the tram- 
 pling carpenters and the blaring orchestra went crashing 
 through their scene-shifting and their waltzes of Straus^, 
 all heedless that they were sounding the knell of the poor 
 heroine's hopes. 
 
 Next day — despite the kindly persuasions of Mrs. Ma- 
 berly, who hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry for 
 the turn things had taken — Elinor saw the papers, and 
 therein read her doom in various periods of flippancy and 
 affected slang. One was " surprised that Manager Badger 
 had intrusted so responsible a chara<?ter of juvenile tragedy 
 to a mere novice, while Miss Heavyport — " a highly finished 
 and experienced artiste of forty-five who usually opened in 
 Juliet — " was within his reach and unemployed." The 
 writer, moreover, " with every desire to make allowances 
 for the nervousness incident to a first appearance before so 
 critical an audience, could not encourage the lady with 
 false hopes of an established position on the Metropolitan 
 Stage." Another advanced similar deprecation in the 
 interests of a second meteoric expert who " added to her 
 recognised genius the attraction of an entirely new French 
 drama of startling interest and power." (This great work 
 — translated and adapted by the critic in question — has 
 since created an immense furore by its sensation scenes and 
 delightfully immoral tendency.) Still another mature and 
 practised censor — a youth of twenty-three who came last 
 year from a New England country town — damned un- 
 reservedly both the play and the actress, but admitted a 
 point in favor of Mr. Howlfort, " whose terrific energy 
 and appalling exhibitions of passion stamped his rendition 
 as for ever famous, and worthy of the very highest niche in 
 the Temple of Dramatic Art." 
 
 Badger came after breakfast, and remarking Elinor's
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 245 
 
 pallid face and weary brow, spoke a few words of consola- 
 tion. She might easily be indisposed that night, he observ- 
 ed, and he could change the small bills and put Ilowlfort 
 up for Ricliard — a customary and satisfactory resource in a 
 dilemma. Elinor gratefully snatched at the chance. She 
 could not bear the idea of facing the same audience again 
 just at present. And Badger, after a remark or two about 
 the weather, and that she mus'n't mind those " beastly 
 papers," and a suggestion of the advantages, for a time, of 
 " provincial practice," bowed himself, rather relieved, out 
 of the room. 
 
 Then Grinder put in an appearance, and was very kind 
 and reassuring. George Frederick Cooke hadn't acted in 
 London until he was past forty, and how many times did 
 she think Charles Kean had failed before he made his posi- 
 tion there ? — not to speak of several native luminaries to his 
 mind of far superior effulgence. The newspapers were all 
 " truck," — not nearly such good judges of the drama as 
 
 the local prints of P . The shrewd fellow knew that 
 
 Elinor was a pretty face and a great favorite with his 
 audience, and ten dollars a week to go on for almost any- 
 thing was a different thing from being " put up as a star." 
 Finally, he advised her trying the summer season with him 
 for additional experience. He wouldn't mind a dollar or 
 two more salary, and she might return directly. 
 
 Mrs. Maberly rather demurred at first, for she had con- 
 sidered that this experiment was to be a conclusive one. 
 But Elinor would not hear of returning to the Vernons 
 directly on the heels of this her first defeat, nor would she 
 go to her aunt's humble home to be a burden upon her. 
 Since matters had fallen out as they had, she felt too, that 
 in some as yet unknown way, she was to be of service to 
 Mr. Eadcliffe ; and this consideration had weight with her 
 aunt as well as herself, as she well knew : so that finally, 
 the good lady consented, consoling herself with the reflec- 
 tion that it might be for her niece's ultimate advantage to 
 see as much of this life as possible, that she might become 
 th.e more radically disenchanted with it.
 
 246 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 And Elinor meekly returned with her views of fame and 
 profit sadly dashed, but with her convictions of duty in 
 no wise changed by her discomfiture. Her heart sank 
 within her as she contrasted what she had achieved, with 
 what in the first flush of youth and resolution she had so 
 sanguinely anticipated. She had taken her course, how- 
 ever, she said, and she must abide by it. If the stage seemed 
 no more promising after another six months, she might 
 become a music teacher — or a governess, perhaps, — but 
 her pride revolted at any prospective step which should 
 not at least be self-supporting. With these thoughts and 
 
 resolves she returned to P , and resumed the laborious 
 
 and thankless life she had borne so patiently before, but 
 which she had hoped so fervently when she departed to 
 have left behind her for ever. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXn. 
 
 GRACE VERNON TO ELINOR GRAZEBROOK. 
 
 Uplands, April 20th, 185-. 
 
 Dearest Nelly : — You have been nearly six months 
 away from us, and we all miss you as much or more than 
 we did at first. / miss you more, for the early spring is 
 coming — the first at home for three years — and the grass 
 is springing, and soon the flowers will be here, and the 
 place looks so beautiful ! but indeed, darling, Uplands 
 isn't Uplands without you. 
 
 You have kept your promise, as papa and I can see, in 
 telling the unvarnished truth about the people and the 
 scenes which surround you. How much you must have 
 suffered, you who used to be so fastidious, to be biwught in 
 daily contact with so many mean and petty natures ! And 
 although you say that queer old gentleman, Mr. Radcliffe, 
 has been such an aid and comfort and that, for all his cyni- 
 cism he is a man of feeling and refinement, it is easy to see
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 247 
 
 that one sucli person is but slender relief among the mass 
 of disagreeables and detrimentals. How is it that people 
 like that get into and remain in such ungenial positions ? 
 It seems to me that he must have committed some fault — 
 some imprudence — in early life, which exiled him from his 
 family and friends ; but whatever he is, or may have been, 
 I love him for his kindness to you. 
 
 Stephen is still on his travels. He has been a great deal 
 in the South with Mr. Eliot, and they have been on a visit 
 to Cuthbert Boynton. Do you know, dear — but you know 
 your own business best, at least in such matters, if not in 
 any others. That horrid man whom Eliot likened to Ingo — 
 Mr. Kirkwood, I mean — spends much of his time at Dan- 
 gerfield's Eest ; and David Greenwood says that old Mr. 
 Dangerfield is looking very ill, and cannot last long. I 
 wanted so much to call on and try to comfort him, but papa 
 says no — at least, not for the present. I don't know what 
 it all means, but sometimes I feel as if something dreadful 
 was going to happen. Aunt Mercy says The Rest is haunt- 
 ed, and that Kirkwood and old Dangerfield have dealings 
 with spirits ; you know how superstitious she is. 
 
 Dear little Ally is growing fast, and continually inquires 
 for sister Nelly — and when she is coming home. She is 
 not as shy as formerly, and is sweetly pretty. Papa is so 
 fond of her as sometimes to make me quite jealous ; and 
 he says you are to come back, and keep the peace between 
 us. 
 
 Now, dearest, forgive me, but I really think you have 
 tried your wild experiment long enough. Indeed, papa 
 suffers very much from your long absence. He looks older, 
 for all his healthy life and even temper ; and he thinks it 
 his duty to enter one of those dreadful political campaigns 
 again — and talks of his home being made desolate when I 
 am taken from him — for you know Stephen expects tliat in 
 early autumn. I think that papa's home ought to be made 
 as happy and comfortable as possible, and am quite sure 
 you could do more good here than where you are ; you 
 can't refuse to liften to such an argument, 1 know full well.
 
 248 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 It is true tliat papa acquiesced in your earnestly ex- 
 pressed desire not to seek to dissuade or impede you in 
 your resolution, and that be says what he always said, that, 
 with a person whose character is formed as yours is, it is 
 "better to allow any determined line of action to have its 
 course, for that if it results in failure even, it is sure to be 
 the means of some indirect good. But now, dear, you 
 have certainly given the matter a fair trial, and are in a 
 position to rightly estimate your future, and the claims 
 which the happiness of others may have upon it. So do, 
 do, come home again ! and make happy the hearts of all 
 who love you so well, most especially that of your affec- 
 tionate Grace. 
 
 P. S. Stephen — who only knows of your absence, but 
 not of its motive — writes that you must be here in Septem- 
 ber — for a certain purpose — whatever happens to the con- 
 trary. Gr, V. 
 
 FROM MARTIN TO STEPHEN DANGERFIELD. 
 
 Danqeefield's Rest, April \Qth, 185-. 
 
 Your last letter, my son, has given me very serious con- 
 cern. I am sorry that the information it contains has been 
 so long withheld — both for your sake and mine. What 
 you say about the course I have thought it necessary to 
 adopt may be just or not ; in any case, I am unable now to 
 discuss it. None of us can tell in this life when we may 
 be forced to act a part which shall procure us the censure 
 of the world, and yet be obliged to withhold our justifica- 
 tion. It is rarely that men learn charity in early life — or 
 women either, though your mother was an exception. 
 
 The main subject of your letter renders it imperative 
 that you should return home that we may have a personal 
 conference. Overcome prejudice, if you can, to at least this 
 extent. The person you alluded to has been back and 
 forth during the winter, sometimes at New York, sometimes 
 at The Kcst. He is here now, but will no doubt accede to 
 my wishes, and absent himself when you come. Heaven
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 249 
 
 knows I have tried hard enough to protect your future 
 interests, and I have so far, in the main, succeeded. You 
 will understand this better hereafter. I am too weak and 
 ill to write more, — you must come home, and at once, 
 however brief your stay. 
 
 God bless you. M. Dangerfield. • 
 
 FROM M, G. TO JAMES KIRKWOOD. 
 
 New York, April 25th, 185-. 
 You have disregarded my former letters. You will find 
 it wise not to disregard this, I wish to see you and at 
 once. If I hear nothing of you by the expiration of a 
 week from this date, you will speedily repent it. 
 
 M. G. 
 
 ROBERT ELIOT TO OLIVER VERNON. 
 
 Montgomery, Ala., April I5ih, 185 — . 
 
 This will be the last letter, My Dear Sir, which I shall 
 be able to send you before I have the pleasure of accepting 
 your hospitable invitation to re-visit 3^our home in the 
 North. I had intended to make a longer stay, but as 
 Stephen is naturally anxious to get home, and we agreed 
 to continue our pleasant association as compagnoyis de voya,ge^ 
 I have made my arrangements to suit his wishes, and we 
 are to meet at Charleston on the 20th on our way to New 
 York. 
 
 I left Boynton's plantation two days ago — ending my 
 second agreeable sojourn there with a regret which was 
 increased by finding him in no very happy frame of mind. 
 As you surmise, his feelings are very deeply interested in 
 your charming ward. Miss Grazebrook — and his is not a 
 nature which is easily impressed or which easily forgets. 
 While naturally avoiding intruding on his confidence, it 
 has been made evident to me that he attributes his rejec- 
 tion entirely to personal reasons ; a conviction in which I 
 do not agree, any more than you yourself do. On that 
 
 11*
 
 250 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 point I entertain an opinion whicli has probably suggested 
 itself to your mind — but I confess that if that opinion be 
 well founded, it suggests little chance for a happy solution 
 of the difficulty. 
 
 You question me as to the maturing of my views with 
 respect to the "peculiar Institution," and I must admit 
 that increased facilities for observation and consequent 
 reflection have certainly failed to make me its partisan. In 
 honesty I should allow that ivhat I have seen has rather 
 agreeably disappointed me in regard to the treatment 
 of the Slaves — they are more kindly treated, and appear 
 to be happier than I expected to find them. Yet, it would 
 be idle to expect, that, after all which has been said, and in 
 their anxiety to rebut the testimony of their opponents, 
 the masters would be likely to allow the dark side of the 
 picture to be exhibited to neutral strangers. 
 
 As regards the northern Press, I find the IST. Y. Crier 
 and Evening Yahoo to be decided favorites, and their 
 reiterated arguments that "amalgamation" would result 
 from emancipation, as well as the ruin of free labor in 
 the North, are highly relished and applauded. To judge 
 however, from the variety of hue I see around me, 
 " amalgamation" is not seriously repressed by the system 
 of bondage, and the candid mind will perceive that grant- 
 ing the right of volition to hoth races would certainly limit 
 the now numerous cases where it is exerted by one in 
 despite of the other. Moreover, the granting this right 
 would surely in one sense cover the question, inasmuch as 
 those of eiOier race who dislike amalgamation would be 
 under no obligation to indulge in it. With respect to the 
 free white labor question, it is one of the strongest and 
 most constantly repeated arguments here that white men 
 could not perform the field work which is readily performed 
 by black ones. If this be true — and I presume to a great 
 extent it is so — every physiological law indicates that the 
 converse rule must be approximately so-; that is to say, 
 that the negroes would be unable to compete with the labor 
 performed by the whites in the climates suited to the latter.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 251 
 
 I hear constant discussions among the planters about the 
 relative rights of the National and the State governments, 
 which, it is hardly necessary to add, are not often decided 
 favorably to the former. If the planters have the right 
 side of the case — which I understand you to deny — the 
 subject would be narrowed to the determination whether 
 Slavery is or is not a moral wrong. If it be the last, 
 I confess the constitutional doctrine does not strike me as 
 of major importance. There must surely be an ultimate 
 appeal to right in such things. Our English constitution, 
 unlike yours, is unwritten ; but were it otherwise, I don't 
 think the Englishmen of to-day would consent to be bound 
 by an ancestral clause committing posterity to the encou- 
 ragement of sheep-stealing in particular counties. Unques- 
 tionably, if your great nation is to progress according to 
 your cherished theories, it must, sooner or later, bring 
 itself to a willingness to dispense with that which the 
 sense of the whole civilized world now condemns as a 
 barbarism, and most of it as a crime. No power can re- 
 main in an exceptional position and keep up with the 
 progress of the age. If all but one of the Christian Powers 
 agree upon any great question of practical morals, the 
 dissentient must speedily lag behind the others in know- 
 ledge, in virtue, and in strength. 
 
 Nevertheless, in considering all the difficulties of the 
 case, and although Freedom is 'per se preferable to Slavery, 
 I am quite convinced that, for the good of both races, a 
 system of gradual emancipation running into ameliorative 
 apprenticeship, and followed by stringent vagrancy laws, 
 would be wiser than any scheme that could be devised for 
 a sudden and sweeping liberation of the whole race. The 
 latter would only seem justifiable for national self-preser- 
 vation, and in any other contingency it would certainly 
 appear reasonable that the owners should be compensated. 
 
 Boynton, — whose tenderness towards his people is quite 
 in contrast with the conventional abolition pictures, 
 — has made us a half promise to follow our steps to the 
 North. I hope and trust that his prospects with Miss
 
 252 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Grazebrook may brighten, for I really think them admira- 
 bly adapted to make each other happy. With every 
 kindly and grateful remembrance to yourself and your 
 amiable household, believe me 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Egbert Eliot. 
 
 James Kirkwood to Elias P. Staggers. 
 
 The Rest, April 26th, 185—. 
 My Dear Sir : — 
 
 I shall be in New York this week, and will then be very 
 
 happy to meet you and your friend Mr. Von Donk to 
 
 arrange about the business you refer to. In the meantime, 
 
 you can tell him for his satisfaction that the marriage he 
 
 apprehends will never take place. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 James Kirkwood. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 1 
 
 R. KIRKWOOD spent his winter in a manner which 
 he must have found highly agreeable, for it consisted 
 in an alternation of hard drinking and sluggish indolence. 
 Yet, the selfishness of the man was such that in all his suc- 
 cesses and in all his torpor he never lost sight of the main 
 objects which he had laid down in his future. Few men 
 would have slept so quietly as he on the brink of a crater 
 from whence volcanic fires might spout at any moment to 
 overwhelm him. But he measured with cunning accuracy 
 the sum-total of his dangers, and the force of the weapons 
 on which he relied to avert them. He knew that a rare 
 and haughty family pride, coupled with a nervous system 
 shattered by years of apprehension, fought on his side with 
 Martin Dangerfield. He knew that a spirit of uncommon
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 253 
 
 benevolence, an affection which would make heavy sacri- 
 fices to save the loved ones from evil or pain, was serving 
 him as a shield with Oliver Yernon. The avarice which 
 had replaced some of his old and fiercer passions grew 
 stronger in his heart as the months rolled round, and his 
 darling hope now was to avail of all the advantages and 
 immunities of his position, until by a well timed coup 
 he could assure himself of future competency and find 
 safety in a hasty but carefully planned flight. It was desir- 
 able to find some one, who, able to advance a large sum at 
 short notice, would yet have strong motives for not being 
 too particular in the investigation of security. Such a 
 person and such motives he had found in Gossamer Von 
 Donk ; and with the valuable aid of Mr. Staggers, he had 
 devoted himself at intervals during the winter to prepar- 
 ing that rich and credulous soil to yield at the proper 
 moment the golden fruit he proposed to gather from it. 
 Kirkwood considered himself armed at all points. If old 
 Dangerfield could be brought to make a genuine mortgage 
 through the threats or cajoleries of his tormentor, why 
 well : but Mr Kirkwood did not contemplate leaving his 
 harvest unreaped even in the absence of such an instru- 
 ment. 
 
 The old man's failing health afforded Kirkwood no 
 little satisfaction ; for whatever his power, it was clearly 
 more available over weakness than over strength. Occa- 
 sionally fierce altercations would take place between them, 
 and these were sometimes overheard by the servants ; old 
 retainers of the family, most of them, who would shake 
 their heads and wish Master Stephen would return. For 
 they had a certain dread and suspicion of Kirkwood for 
 all the largesse he would now and then carelessly dispense 
 among them ; and they did not think his protracted stay, 
 during the long absence of the heir, boded any good to 
 Dangerfield's Rest, Once or twice there were little whis- 
 perings between one of their number and David Green- 
 wood, or some other of the household at Uplands, but this 
 was on rare occasions, and was generally accompanied by
 
 254 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 soraetliing of that stiffness whicli is apt to prevail among 
 servants, when the gentry of their respective habitations 
 are not on terms of familiar intercourse. 
 
 There were times when Kirkwood would go to New 
 York, and when he did so, he usually contrived to take 
 a liberal draught of those pleasures to which as a younger 
 man he had been so attached. He would find his way of 
 nights to questionable places, where he would perhaps pick 
 up an old boon companion, and the two would swallow 
 bottle after bottle of champagne together. Then Kirkwood" 
 would proceed towards the small hours to the favorite 
 haunt where he used so often to be seen in the old days, a 
 dozen and twenty years ago. This was H — 's, the then 
 fashionable hell of the town. Faro was quite as attractive 
 for its old votary now as it had ever been. But he had 
 grown cautious from being burned so often at that fire. 
 His play had lost its old dash and recklessness, and he 
 would wait steadily for the case-cards instead of giving the 
 bank the advantage of the splits. He generally won this 
 winter, which did not however inspire him with fool- 
 hardiness. He wanted all the money he could get, he said, 
 and he would rise from the table contented with moderate 
 gains. 
 
 As his store increased from its various sources of supply, 
 Kirkwood began to feel the miser's yearning for a safe 
 place for its deposit. No bank or Trust Company in town 
 would serve his turn. Too much time would be needed 
 for transfer in the contingency of sudden departure. The 
 room he occupied at The Eest was unsafe. Should aught 
 turn up against him, it would be the first place searched 
 and rifled. He bethought him of a spot more secure, and 
 one wherefrom he could reclaim his treasure without the 
 aid or knowledge of a living soul. There existed in the 
 great city one particular source of danger ; one from 
 whence a blow might come at any time whose chief force 
 might be directed to wresting from him his ill-gotten wealth. 
 A letter he had lately received made him more anxious 
 than ever on this point. Besides, Stephen Dangerfield was
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, . 255 
 
 coming home, and with him might arrive fresh complica- 
 tions. All risk should be avoided by timely precautions. 
 So Kirkwood caused to be prepared a compact but strong 
 case such as would stand moisture and mouldy earth, and 
 having, after long and artful reconnoissances, selected its 
 temporary resting-place, with many an inward aspiration 
 for its safety, he committed his hoard to the ground. With 
 proper foresight it was put in a form which should require 
 no additional trouble — no delay in New York to make it 
 available. He was a practised and thoughtful operator, 
 and barring a handful of gold for temporary purposes, his 
 store consisted of bills on London and other Continental 
 cities of Europe. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 IN a luxurious apartment of the Club in Fifth 
 Avenue were three gentlemen, who, having partaken 
 of a dinner of the satisfactory character for which that 
 well known cuisine is noted, had disposed of their persons 
 after the various manners which their taste or caprice had 
 suggested. 
 
 Mr. Elias P. Staggers was sprawling at full length on a 
 lounge, with the table laden with fruit and wine in easy 
 reach, from which he occasionally supplied himself with 
 champagne. Mr. Gossamer Von Donk was airing his 
 patent leather boots at the open wiritiow, while the brocaded 
 chair which supported his person was tilted back at an 
 agreeable angle against the embrasure. Mr. James Kirk- 
 wood was seated under the massive chandelier at the table, 
 making little notes in his pocket-book from time to time as 
 the conversation progressed. 
 
 "It is clear," remarked the latter worthy, "that where 
 we are playing a common game and hold the winning cards, 
 all we have to do is to play steadily in concert, to bag all 
 the stakes."
 
 256 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " There ain't no trouble at all about it," said Elias P. 
 " It's a first rate investment any bow, and the General's 
 got plenty of cash. He'll let you go in for it whenever I 
 say the word." 
 
 " Ya-a-s," said Gossamer, " but I don't clearly see, you 
 know, how a good investment in land is going to insure a 
 dead certainty in a question of love." 
 
 " My dear young friend," said Kirkwood, blandly, " all 
 things arc uncertain, of course, until they are positively 
 accomplished. What we have to consider in life or in love 
 is the aggregate of chances. Old Vernon cares nothing 
 for money, but he's proud about land. Dangerfield's Eest 
 is the best property anywhere in his neighborhood ; there- 
 fore lie looks with favor on his daughter's marriage with 
 its presumptive heir. Change the situation ; let Stephen 
 Dangerfield be set aside and some other attractive young 
 gentleman step into his shoes ; and presto. Old Vernon 
 will regard with equal favor the attractive young gen- 
 tleman." 
 
 " Ya-a-s," said the dubious Gossamer, who thought it 
 indicated commercial adroitness to assume suspicion of every 
 new project. " But why should you favor one attractive 
 young gentleman more than any other ?" 
 
 " That's just the point. I wish to be entirely frank with 
 you. It certainly doesn't signify a straw to me who comes 
 into the place, provided I realize the value of my advances; 
 that is, in a pecuniary sense. But there are things besides 
 money in this world. You, for instance, are willing to go 
 great lengths to be successful in a matter of love. Now, I 
 — for reasons needless to mention — have no great liking 
 for your rival. Therefore, I'm willing to take some pains 
 to cause him to fliil, and to cause you to succeed." 
 
 " They say she's very fond of Steve Dangerfield," said 
 Gossamer, ruefully, and gulping down a draught of cham 
 pagne. "You don't either of you seem to think how 
 ihai^s to be got over." 
 
 " You see, Gossy," said Elias P. reluctantly disturbing 
 his agreeable posture to fill a glass and light a cigar, " you
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 257 
 
 see men of the world like Colonel Kirkwood here and me, 
 we take a kinder philosophical view of these things, and 
 you don't. Fond of Steve ? Well, yes, a girl of her age 
 is fond of any nice lookin', spry young man, 'specially 
 when he's got a good estate to his back. But mor'n half 
 the time they'd rather change than not. All folks likes 
 variety ; and when the new kind's got the most money it's 
 darned sure to carry the day." 
 
 " In any case," added Kirkwood, " you run no risk and 
 do no harm. You'll have all the advantage of the situa- 
 tion — a pied d terre, as the French say. The old man can't 
 last long — but whether he does or not, the mortgage can 
 be foreclosed at will. Finally, and in any event, young 
 Dangeriield will never marry the girl." 
 
 " But are you sure of that ?" 
 
 " So sure, that if you don't hear of the engagement being 
 broken off within a month, I'll give you half my claim on 
 the estate for nothing." 
 
 " But why should it be broken off— at any rate, why 
 before the fact of the mortgage being in existence, — which 
 you say is a secret so far, — comes to be known ?" 
 
 " Ah, that I can't answer." 
 
 *' Don't be too darned inquisitive, Gossy. — Ask me no 
 questions and I'll tell you no lies, eh. Colonel ? What 
 do you care, Gossy, so long as you git the gal and the 
 estate ?" 
 
 " Well, nothing, perhaps ; only one feels naturally anx- 
 ious, you know. And, by the by, perhaps, after all, Old 
 Vernon might object to me for a son-in-law on political 
 grounds." 
 
 " Stuff. What the devil difference is politics to you ? 
 You hain't run for nothin' yet ; time enough when you do. 
 For the ma.tter o' that, you can jest change round before 
 you're married, and change back again afterwards. It's a 
 free country, ain't it ?" 
 
 " I might do that, perhaps, but then the General" — 
 
 " What d'ye think he cares about one party or another ? 
 Not a row of pins! He goes for the party that's got most
 
 258 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 votes, he does. We're all among friends, and I don't mind 
 Sajin', if it comes to that, I do too !" 
 
 " It argues a generous nature to be willing to acquiesce 
 in the wish of the majority," said Kirkwood, gravely, " and 
 is quite consistent with the nature of our institutions." 
 
 " That's so," agreed Elias P., " I always go for doin' 
 what most of the folks wants ; or any of 'em, when I kin 
 make any thing out of it ; allers except them d — d aboli- 
 tionists ; I'm down on them." 
 
 " In a word, Mr. Von Donk," said Kirkwood, returning 
 to the original subject, " I don't think any of the dithcul- 
 ties you name will have any force at all." 
 
 " She's a lovely critter," said Elias P., warming with 
 his wine, and gazing enthusiastically at the ceiling, " she 
 was the prettiest gal aboard the Assyria, and that's saying 
 a heap. Now, Violetta and Zerlina are mighty fine gals, 
 but she takes 'em down. What a foot and ankle she's got ! 
 And she'll have that ere place of Uplands — glorious place 
 — wuth fifty thousand if it's wuth a cent,'' And he went 
 on dilating for some time on the personal attractions of 
 Grace Vernon, and the substantial excellences of the estate 
 to which she was heiress. Kirkwood marked the glisten- 
 ing eagerness in Gossamer's eye with the approval of an 
 angler who sees the fish toying about his hook. 
 
 Kirkwood was in fact playing a bold and deep game. 
 He felt that the storm which had been long gathering 
 might soon burst, and it was necessary for him to prepare 
 for any emergency. His plan was to raise a large sum by 
 a mortgage on Dangerfield's Eest, which document if it 
 could not be genuine should be forged. Either way it was 
 better the transaction should be got over with as little eclat 
 or investigation as possible. Once accomplished he could 
 abscond an}'- day at an hour's notice. But, to lessen the 
 chances for investigation, it was desirable that the nego- 
 tiator should have an incentive beyond a mere eligible 
 investment, so that his prudence might in a measure be 
 blinded. Such a negotiator, with Staggers's aid, he had 
 found in Von Donk. The broker had long dealt with
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 269 
 
 Kirkwood, and knew him to be adroit enough, whatever 
 ■his honesty might be. But, as Kirkwood privately arranged 
 to allow him a large commission out of the amount received 
 from Von Donk or the General, Staggers was not disposed 
 to look into matters too closely. Whatever happened he 
 would realize a profit, and he knew nothing, he said to 
 himself, which should lead him to look with doubt on the 
 affair. As he finished a glowing peroration which summed 
 up in most attractive colors the advantages to be enjoyed 
 by Gossamer from the proposed bargain, Kirkwood rose to 
 depart. 
 
 " After all, Mr. Yon Donk," he remarked carelessly, as 
 he pulled on his gloves, "I don't know that I care about 
 being precipitate. I may make an exchange and buy a 
 house here on the avenue. New York is really getting a 
 tolerable place to live in. My friend M — , the real estate 
 broker, was telling me this morning of a very fine property 
 whose owner would like a country mortgage. He's going 
 to Europe, and the house is beautifully furnished and all 
 that. See you soon, Staggers— good night both." 
 
 " But Mr. Kirkwood, I say !" said Gossamer in alarm, 
 " you won't do anything positive without letting us know, 
 you kno\^?" 
 
 " Oh, dear no. Let me see ; — I'll wait three days — will 
 that do ? All right. Just oblige me by not naming the 
 matter, that's all. I've some delicacy about my old friend 
 Dangerfield's feelings, you understand." 
 
 " To be stire, to be sure ; I understand you perfectly. 
 Better not to have it noised about. A — a — I think Mr. 
 Kirkwood that Staggers and I can arrange the thing if 
 you'll permit ?" 
 
 "Oh — well; as you please ; suit yourself; of course I'm 
 very happy if we come to terms. Staggers knows all 
 about it. Good night again." 
 
 And Mr. Kirkwood took his departure with a meaning 
 look at Elias P. "That's clinched at all events," he mut- 
 tered as he buttoned the coat across his broad breast to 
 keep out the cool night air. " No more trouble with him,"
 
 200 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 he continued, as he strode down the steps of the club into 
 the silent Avenue. " Thai part of the business will run 
 smoothly enough, and now for Mary." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 KIRKWOOD strode swiftly on, bearing southward until 
 he reached the extremity of the broad avenue, famous 
 .as being the centre of fashionable New York. Then he 
 inclined westward, crossing the small park known as Wash- 
 ington Square, and finally struck into one of those streets 
 running parallel with Broadway, which grow more squalid 
 and dirty as they draw nearer Canal street. He had almost 
 reached the latter when he turned abruptly to the right, up 
 a narrow alley, which ran into a somewhat wider courtyard, 
 and formed the approach to a row of mean-looking houses, 
 low and dilapidated, facing towards the east. Before one 
 of these uninviting tenements Kirkwood paused, and glanc- 
 ing about for a moment, as though afraid or ashamed to be 
 seen entering it, he tried the door, and finding it yielded to 
 his pressure, passed quickly in. 
 
 With some difficulty, and more than one muttered curse, 
 he groped his way up two shattered staircases, and stum- 
 bhng along a long passage, came to a door at which it end- 
 ed. Here he paused again and listened. There were no 
 voices to be heard within, and satisfied with that discovery, 
 he knocked thrice at the panels, and, receiving the answer- 
 ing permission, entered the room. 
 
 It was a shabbily furnished apartment, lighted dimly by 
 a single candle. There were two windows on one side, and 
 a door leading into a smaller room, apparently used as a 
 bed-chamber, on another. The furniture, such as it was, 
 was old-fashioned, and much of it broken. One or two 
 chests of drawers, half-a-dozen common chairs, a large 
 rocking chair, a table or two, and an antique looking clothes-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 261 
 
 press, constituted the principal articles. There was also a 
 stove, which looked as if it were used for cooking — a sug- 
 gestion which found corroboration in a few plates and pans 
 on a sort of dresser hard by. The place, albeit it appeared 
 to combine the purpose of both sitting-room and kitchen, 
 was clean and tidy enough, nor did it need the evidence of 
 the solitary figure sitting by a window, to show that it was 
 commonly occupied by a female. 
 
 The figure in question was that of a woman, about forty- 
 five years of age, and who would still have been uncom- 
 monly handsome, but for the wretched lines about her face, 
 which told so unmistakable a story of passion, vice, and 
 suffering. A face quite Greek in its character, with mas- 
 sive dark locks fretted with silver, and eyes like coals 
 which had not yet lost all their fire. A strange-looking 
 face, with decided intellect in the broad low brow, and 
 much of resolution about the chin. But the mouth though 
 handsome was weak, the lips a shade too full, and the nose 
 lacked delicacy in the cutting. She wore a dress of some 
 dark fabric, cheap almost to penury in quality and trim- 
 ming ; but she was one of the sort of women with whom 
 one never notices attire, unless indeed it were to remark 
 that it happened to be whole or in rags. By the feeble 
 glimmer of her candle she had been poring over a tat- 
 tered volume of an old novel, and as she rose on hearing 
 the demand at the door, it could be seen that she was quite 
 as tall for a woman as was her visitor for a man. 
 
 " So, James Kirk wood," she said, as he entered, and 
 carefully closed the door behind him, " so you thought it 
 wise to take notice of my last summons. It wouldn't be 
 well to quite set me at defiance, eh ?" 
 
 " You seem to be going down hill," he answered, eva- 
 sively, and looking about him ; " if it's money you 
 want — " 
 
 She waved her hand with an expression of contempt. 
 
 " K I refuse money from my own child, it's not likely 
 I'd take it from such as you." 
 
 " What do you want, then ?"
 
 262 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 "All in good time. I shan't keep you long. There's 
 plenty of time between this and midnight, and after that's 
 soon enough for your gambling, or whatever other devil's 
 work you happen to be at just now." 
 
 " Fair words, Mary ; if you've any request to make, you 
 won't find foul ones serve your turn." 
 
 " Request ! from me to you ? not now, I fancy, any more 
 than for many a long year. Did my last letter read like a 
 request ? No, James Kirkwood ; I did not send for you 
 to prefer a request, but to impose a command." 
 
 " Who told you where to send ?" 
 
 " Ask me something I can answer. This much I'll say 
 — my eye is always upon you — don't seek to escape it. 
 I've little else to do or think of now, and it amuses me. 
 Besides I intend to keep you out of mischief." 
 
 " In a word," said Kirkwood, impatiently, " why have 
 you sent for me ?" 
 
 " For several reasons. First and foremost look at this." 
 She tossed a paper across the table, which he took up and 
 opened. It was a playbill of the Theatre in Broad- 
 way — the date, that of the first appearance of Miss Ellen 
 Grey, which event was set forth in flaming capitals at its 
 head. 
 
 " What's this, and what is it to me?" he asked. 
 
 " Much. Do you know who tliis Miss Ellen Grey is ?" 
 
 "No. How should I?" 
 
 " I'll tell you. It's Elinor. It's my child." 
 
 "How do you know — has she been here — have you seen 
 her?" 
 
 " Seen her, no. It was agreed I should not. I keep my 
 word, James, whatever wrong I may do. Besides I don't 
 want to contaminate her — she, at least, shall be free from 
 all taint of my association or example." 
 
 " An exemption you did not design for the other," said 
 Kirkwood with a sneer. 
 
 " Alabama's but a little child," said the mother wist- 
 fully. " I should not have hurt her — and 'tis hard, very 
 hard, to be utterly alone."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 263 
 
 Then witli a sudden flash of bitter recollection she 
 said : 
 
 " Scoundrel that you were to steal her from me ! Why, 
 even the very beasts are allowed to keep their young until 
 they have learned to shift for themselves !" 
 
 "Come, all that's settled and understood. We have 
 nothing to discuss in that connexion. You asked me to 
 look at this — " touching the playbill — "I have looked at 
 it. You told me this stage-struck young woman is your 
 daughter ; — good ; what is that to me ?" 
 
 " A great deal. I have heard from her. She wrote me 
 word of her intention, but only partly of the cause. I 
 suspected though*— I know her nature pretty well — guessed 
 there was a motive of independence or something of the 
 sort. Then I wrote to inquire of Oliver Vernon. He has 
 informed me lately of what occurred. You have been 
 forging again, James." 
 
 "Did you send for me to tell me this?" 
 
 "This and something more. Whatever rascality you 
 may have been engaged in of late, you have been un- 
 molested by me. I havn't interfered so long as it didn't 
 trouble me or mine. Now the case is different." 
 
 "The money was my just due, legally established, and 
 admitted by Oliver Yernon after a careful investigation." 
 • " As to his investigation I know little and care less. As 
 to your claim being a just one, 'tis the merest fabrication 
 and you know it." 
 
 " I don't wish to bandy words with you. Suffice it that 
 the claim cannot be disproved, and without that you'd find 
 it rather hard to — " 
 
 " To recover the plunder or to punish the robber, you 
 would say. The first may be true enough, but as to the 
 second — think a little, James — would that be so very diffi- 
 cult?" 
 
 "What is it you want?" — asked Kirkwood, moving 
 uneasily in his chair, "if you need a few hundreds — " 
 
 She burst into a hard laugh. " Once for all, no — I tell 
 you. I'll take no money from any of you. If I were
 
 264 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 pinched for a crust I'd be an honest man's pensioner per- 
 haps — certainly not yours." 
 
 "Come," he said, roughlj^, "what the devil is it then 
 that you've brought me here for ?" 
 
 " What is it ? Do you think I'm going to stand by and 
 see my child defrauded of her little fortune, and that by 
 the villain who blasted her mother's life, and blackened 
 her name ? Upon my soul, crime must be second nature 
 in you that you can ask so coolly why I've brought you 
 here ! — That I may in plain words command you to restore 
 to my child that of which you've unjustly deprived her !'" 
 
 "And suppose I refuse," he added, in slow, measured 
 tones ; " setting aside my objections to the form of your 
 proposition, suppose I simply refuse to comply with it ?" 
 
 " In that case I shall postpone the recovery of the plun- 
 der, until I have taken measures to punish the thief ?" 
 
 " You mean to threaten ?" 
 
 " Oh ! no ; I mean to act." 
 
 " How, for example ?" 
 
 " I shall draw up a very brief statement — what may be 
 styled a series of anecdotal reminiscences — running back 
 for some fifteen years, and including some of your most 
 interesting adventures during that period. This will be 
 singularly amusing and instructive to all the people with 
 whom you have lately had dealings, and I shall propose' 
 to furnish them each with copies." 
 
 " You will ?" 
 
 " I will. There will be an extra copy, which, however, 
 will be the first delivered, for the Prosecuting Attorney 
 at - ." 
 
 " Very good. Now listen to me." He came close to 
 her, and the look came over his face which appeared there 
 before when provoked by Stephen Dangerfield. " What- 
 ever I am, Mary Grazebrook, I'm tolerably safe to strike 
 home when it's a question of revenge, or to stem a coming 
 danger. Betray me if you will. But I swear to you, your 
 life will be the price of the gratification." 
 
 " Bah ! which of us has most cause to fear ? And how
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 26") 
 
 much, for that matter, do you think I care for you ? Not 
 enough, be sure, to deter me one instant from any path I'm 
 resolved to pursue. Try, again, James Kirkwood, tliat 
 strategy won't avail you." 
 
 He looked for a few moments into her resolute eyes with 
 something of his old admiration, and said : — 
 
 "Why should you seek to injure me, Mary ; you never 
 sought to do so before ?" 
 
 " No, because you were the father of my child ; what 
 you have done now — or what you threaten to leave undone 
 — will cause me to forget that." 
 
 " She need not have left the Yernons — a piece of mere 
 foolish pride." 
 
 "Ah ! you are incapable of attributing any but an un- 
 worthy motive. But that is nothing to the purpose. What 
 concerns me is, that I will not have her wandering up and 
 down, leading the life of a social pariah — and that of a 
 play-actress is such as much as mine is — because she is 
 deprived of her just right through your thieving selfish- 
 ness ; more, you must give me an explicit reply before you 
 leave this room." 
 
 "You will prevent my going?" said he, with a laugh. 
 
 " If you go," she went on coolly, " without such a reply, 
 I shall consider the step to involve a refusal, — whereupon 
 I shall act in the manner I have described." 
 
 Kirkwood reflected. He knew the woman with whom 
 he had to deal ; knew that she had nerve, pluck — was 
 equal, in short, to the performance of more than her threat. 
 Suppose she took time by the forelock, and carried it out ; 
 suppose himself to be in custody, where would be his pro- 
 mised reprisal ? Besides, things were coming to a critical 
 pass in other quarters. It was clearly a situation in which 
 to fight for time. 
 
 "Listen, Mary," he said at length. "You are wrong in 
 your suspicions, but I won't speak of that. The money is 
 no great affair, after all ; and I'm sure I wish your daugh- 
 ter well. But I have invested in certain speculations, from 
 which I cannot in a moment withdraw." 
 
 12
 
 266 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 "In faro-banks, I suppose?" 
 
 "Nonsense ; in legitimate mercantile speculations." 
 
 " Well, what do you propose ?" • 
 
 " Briefly this. I'll give you a bond to pay back this sum 
 of twelve thousand dollars within a short time, say in ninety 
 days." 
 
 "What guarantee have I of its being honored?" 
 
 " You have always the same means for enforcing it that 
 you have now. Besides, I'm worth far more than that 
 sura, and it could, in such a case, be recovered by legal 
 means." 
 
 Mary Grazebrook mused for a while. She saw that she 
 had an advantage, and did not wish to let its fruits slip 
 through her fingers. On the other hand, Kirkwood was a 
 stubborn and dangerous man, who might at any moment 
 when his blood was up take a great risk rather than suc- 
 cumb to any threat. 
 
 " I'll tell you what I'll consent to. I'll take your bond 
 — it shall be a regular legal undertaking, mind — provided 
 you have it here before twelve o'clock to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Agreed." 
 
 "No shuffling, mind. I know your old tricks, James. 
 No new and ingenious quibbles or evasions." 
 
 " No, no ; honor bright." And truly Kirkwood was 
 sincere for once. A scandal at the present moment might 
 ruin all his plans. It would cost him nothing to give the 
 bond, and in three months he would in all probai)ility be 
 far away. The truce was, therefore, agreed upon under 
 the stipulated conditions, and the agreement exacted by 
 Mary Grazebrook was placed in her hands, as demanded, by 
 noon of the following day. The possibility of her cun- 
 ning opjjonent's absenting himself to escape the fulfilment 
 of his pledge did not escape her attention ; but she had 
 good reasons to believe that he was playing for a much 
 larger stake which he would not willingly abandon, and 
 she determined to find additional security in watching 
 his every movement with a vigilance which should permit 
 no elusion of her jealous scrutiny. No such device, she
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 267 
 
 resolved, should avail him ; and the moment he showed 
 signs of retreat should be the signal for the blow she had 
 threatened to fall, and which, with questionable prudence, 
 she had consented to postpone. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYI. 
 
 MAY Day had come. Not bright and smiling with 
 flowers as we typify it because we share the literature 
 of a land where it is- oftener so than with ourselves — but 
 wild, boisterous, and stormy. Yet dwellers near the sea — 
 or near ever moving waters of any sort for that matter — 
 learn to find and enjoy a beauty in every season, a charm 
 in every variety of atmosphere. And Stephen Dangerfield's 
 eye and taste were open to such influences, so that it was 
 not because the weather was inclement, not that the wind 
 roared and shrieked around the old walls and whistled 
 through the bending trees, that a load was on his heart 
 and a shadow on his brow. 
 
 He had arrived the evening before, and even filial duty 
 had not prevented his snatching a short hour to call at 
 Uplands. "We need not essay to paint the happy meeting 
 between the lovers. The sight of Grace was as warm and 
 cheering sunshine to Stephen, and he filled up for her the very 
 ideal of manly strength and comeliness. Little either of them 
 thought of money or any other obstacle to their happiness 
 during the delicious moments they passed together. Nor 
 was there aught to suggest apprehension in the cordial and 
 approving smile of Vernon. The kind old man thought 
 no doubt of parchments and settlements as in some sort 
 necessary things to consider in this practical world of ours ; 
 but doubtless he thought more of the pithy saying of the 
 playwright's Richelieu; and to look at the pair together 
 might have suggested to even a harsher sire that
 
 268 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 " The mate for beauty 
 
 Should be a man and not a money chest" 
 
 No, there was no gloom in Stephen's heart when he 
 started in the duskj evening to drive over to The Rest. 
 David Greenwood drove him over, and imparted to him on 
 the way that Mr. Kirk wood liad been absent for some days 
 as lie had heard, and had not yet returned. So that he 
 rejoiced that one disagreeable presence was spared him for 
 the time, and that he might see and come to an explanation 
 with his father without surveillance or interruption. 
 
 Stephen had for various reasons postponed advising Mr. 
 Dangerfield of his engagement to Grace Vernon, Perhaps 
 he thought that Kirkwood was certain to mention the fact; 
 perhaps he dreaded the enforced explanations which must 
 ensue respecting the state of the property. Be it as it may, 
 he had not referred to the fact, until, thinking the time was 
 drawing near when it must be divulged, he despatched the 
 letter which had brought in reply the one which, while 
 it summoned him home, implied ignorance of the subject 
 in question. 
 
 Neither had Kirkwood alluded to the matter in hearing 
 of his host. He was in no haste for the eclaircissement 
 which the discovery would entail, and wished indeed to 
 suck his orange dry before he threw it away. He had 
 gone to the city, not so much in compliance with Martin 
 Dangerfield's request, as because he wished to prepare his 
 own affairs for all possible contingencies. He had guessed 
 from Dangerfield's troubled mien that he had derived 
 through accident or direct communication from his son, an 
 inkling of the truth, and he hastened to make all snug for 
 the storm. 
 
 "When Stephen arrived, he was informed that his father 
 had retired, somewhat unwell, for the night, and he would 
 not therefore disturb him. But when they met in the 
 morning, he saw that the old man although affectionate 
 was constrained, and he at once began to connect in his 
 mind the unexplained mystery of six months ago with 
 some impediment to the realization of his hopes with
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 269 
 
 Grace. His father made no allusion to the latter during 
 breakfast, but remarked at its close that he wished his son 
 to join him in the library in the evening. During the day 
 Stephen again rode over to Uplands, and again did the 
 lovers wander side by side through the old walks and 
 favorite haunts which had witnessed the first buddings of 
 that love which was to last for them always. But Stephen 
 was oppressed with the suspicion of an evil which was to 
 come. 
 
 Evening came, and the father and son sat facing each 
 other in the library, the light of a pair of wax candles 
 scarcely illuminating the large apartment. They were 
 gazing on each other, as near relatives will who have been 
 separated, to note the differences wrought by time and feel- 
 ing since their last parting. The old man had failed not a 
 little since Stephen left him in the autumn. His cheek 
 was ashy in its hue, the thin grey locks were bleaching 
 fast, and the dim eye which peered from under its pent of 
 bristling white brows, seemed more deeply set than before. 
 As for Stephen, travel had rather improved him, — at least 
 so it appeared to the father's partial eye, — and so it had 
 appeared to Grace. 
 
 Through the windows could be seen banks of black and 
 drifting clouds through which the rays of the moon now 
 and again would strive to peer ; and the wind sighed 
 mournfully through the shrubs and trees. 
 
 " You look more sturdy and manly every year, Stephen," 
 said Martin Dangerfield, feebly, " more like my own father, 
 as I remember him when a little child, than like me. God 
 help me ! I shall never see his hale and mellow old age 
 boy — havn't lived the life, in truth, to deserve it." 
 
 " Nonsense, father," answered Stephen soothingly, 
 "your life is better than most men's at sixty. You mope 
 and shut yourself up too much. You must make a change 
 — take more exercise — live more in the open air." 
 
 " Ay — ay — there's much in that, I own — but not all — not 
 all. — Your grandfather and namesake kept the saddle ten
 
 270 dangekfield's rest; or 
 
 years beyond my present age, but" — witli an effort to recal 
 the quotation — 
 
 •' 'In his youth he never did apply- 
 Hot and rebellious liquors in his blood,' 
 
 You see I can quote Shakespeare still. Yet it is not absti- 
 nence or exercise alone that makes men live sound and 
 long. It needs a sound clear heart, Stephen, — an unsul- 
 lied conscience, which my father had, — and your father 
 has not." 
 
 " Who shall say to the contrary ? No one in the world 
 but you, sir, I fancy. "Who can say anything of wrong that 
 lies at the door of a Dangerficld ?" 
 
 " Three-score years," the old man went on, not noticing 
 the question, if it were meant for one ; " ten more would 
 be the allotted span, but I shall never reach it. There 
 should be grandchildren playing about my knees soon, 
 my son, if I am ever to see them." 
 
 Stephen moved uneasily in his chair. 
 
 " I would you had them, father : — or any other com- 
 fort." 
 
 " The old Dangerfield name must not be allowed to die 
 
 out, Stephen ; I shouldn't rest in my grave if I thought 
 it would. Promise me, my boy, — my son, — promise me 
 that it shall not." 
 
 " Not if I can help it, sir," said the son, smiling. 
 
 " Ay, but that's it. You can help it ; but, perhaps, 
 you'll not be disposed." 
 
 " There is but one course that I know of, and I've 
 expressed my willingness to take that course." 
 
 " There is my fear — we've all been such a stubborn race 
 — that you will not take it." 
 
 " Surely, sir, you remember my letter, and why you 
 have summoned me here ?" said Stephen, in surprise, and 
 beginning to think the old man's head was wandering. 
 
 " I remember everything, Stephen — everything. Some- 
 times I wish I could not — but 'tis part of the punishment, 
 no doubt." He put his hand on his son's head and began
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 271 
 
 to smoothe down the hair as if he were a little child. " I 
 remember when your dear mother died, and how she prayed 
 and begged that your life might be a happy one — and how 
 she made me promise to do all I could to make it so. And 
 now — my son — my only son — Oh, Stephen, Stephen ! my 
 boy, my poor boy !" and he broke into a choking flood 
 of grief 
 
 That grief of an aged man which is so solemn and so 
 awful — so piteously contrasting with the superficial passion 
 of youth. Stephen gazed and listened in amazement and 
 concern. 
 
 " Father ! Father ! What is it? What has happened to 
 you ? Speak ! You'll tell Stephen ; you'll tell your son all 
 about this wretched trouble which is killiog you ?" 
 
 "But you won't believe," faltered forth the parent, "you 
 won't believe, whatever happens, but that I loved you, and 
 did all for the best ?" 
 
 " No, no. Compose yourself, I entreat you. Perhaps 
 talking distresses you just now. Shall we postpone — " 
 
 " No, no more repetitions. Let me say what is to be 
 said, do what is to be done." He paused, made a strong 
 effort to recover his self-command, and then went on in a 
 dull, monotonous voice, like one reciting what he has 
 learned by heart. " I wrote for you to come, because it 
 was not well to write what I had to say. It would have 
 been too long — you would have misconceived — in short, it 
 would have been unwise." 
 
 " Go on, father ; I listen." 
 
 " First, I must ask you — are you very much attached to 
 this Miss — Vernon ?" 
 
 "I love her better than my own life," said Stephen, simply. 
 
 A groan burst from the old man's lips, much as he strove 
 to repress it. He resumed hastily, as if to distract atten- 
 tion from the expression of pain : — 
 
 " Men of your age fall in with many women they fancy. 
 You are not a child to be led away by a pretty face ; but 
 there are others you might see whom you might prefer — at 
 least — like as well?"
 
 272 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 " Never. I have chosen. Once and for all." 
 
 "Don't speak so positively, Stephen. We all change 
 our minds occasionally. Things unforeseen will occur 
 sometimes. We cannot absolutely dictate our own future." 
 
 "Father, in God's name, what does all this mean?" 
 
 " It means — and since it must be told the sooner now 
 the better — it means that this •marriage is impossible /" 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Your marriage with this young lady — Miss Vernon — • 
 is impossible !" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " It can never take place." 
 
 " Not take place ?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 The younger man paused a few moments, as if to 
 realize the full meaning of what he heard, and then said 
 mildly — 
 
 "I ask you, father, to tell me ivhy this marriage cannot 
 take place ?" 
 
 " That I cannot do." 
 
 " Cannot or will not ?" 
 
 " Both. Either would sufiice." 
 
 " Is this another machination of that scoundrel. Kirk- 
 wood ?" 
 
 " He knows nothing of it — at least to the best of my 
 knowledge and belief He could neither produce, change, 
 nor modify this necessity." 
 
 " The necessity, you mean, for breaking off my engage- 
 ment?" 
 
 " Even so." 
 
 Another pause longer than before. Then Stephen rose, 
 and, coming straight in front of his father, again spoke, 
 and this time his tones were full and firm : — 
 
 " Look, sir. You say your race is obstinate. I am a 
 Dangerfield as well as you. You refuse to give reasons 
 for an extraordinary prohibition, which sounds more like 
 madness than sanity, and whose effect would be to poison 
 my whole future life, and that of another which is yet
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 273 
 
 more dear. Very good. Let us understand each other. 
 I shall disobey it." 
 
 " You dare not?" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 The old man rose slowly, and with feeble and uncertain 
 steps crossed the room, to a sombre-looking cabinet of oak. 
 Then he drew a key from his pocket, and with careful but 
 tremulous fingers unlocked one of its doors. This being 
 opened, showed a space in which were various rolls of 
 papers and parchments, and which was backed by a num- 
 ber of small drawers. One of these was then drawn forth, 
 and a tiny panel removed, which covered the side of the 
 aperture occupied by the drawer when in its place. From 
 the space thus disclosed Martin Dangerfield extracted a 
 sealed packet, and then turned to his son and responded — 
 
 " I will tell you why. But first," extending the packet, 
 " read that." 
 
 Stephen mechanically read the superscription ; 
 
 "7b be opened by my son after my death. 
 
 " Martin Dangerfield." 
 
 " I had hoped," the old man went on in a low voice, 
 " never to have even alluded to the contents of this paper 
 in your presence while I lived. Fate — perhaps it were 
 more reverent to say the hanfl of Providence — has willed 
 it otherwise. Not that I mean to reveal what is here in- 
 closed — you will know it soon enough. But I show it to 
 you, that you may be more fully impressed with what I 
 now tell you. Stephen Dangerfield — by my honor — by 
 my mother's memory — by the God to whom I shall soon 
 render strict account — I swear to you that if you knew 
 what is here contained you would be as sure as I am that 
 this marriage never can take place ! Do you believe me ?" 
 
 " Why not acquaint me with this secret, that I may 
 judge?" 
 
 " Boy, boy !" cried the father passionately, " would you 
 embitter the few poor days which are yet left to me ? Can 
 you not trust my honor — the honor of a Dangerfield ?" 
 
 " We estimate obstacles differently, sir, at different ages, 
 
 12*
 
 274 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 and from different points of view. This may seem to you 
 insuperable, to me easily surmounted," 
 
 " Alas ! if there were room for doubt, you might che- 
 rish such a hope. Youth or age, strength or weakness, are 
 powerless alike in a case like this. Neither one nor all 
 can bring back the Past!" 
 
 " But they may atone it," cried Stephen eagerly ; ** why 
 should a phantom of misdeed, or of mislike perchance, 
 come groping back from the Past to ban the living, breath- 
 ing happiness of the Present?" 
 
 *' Man in years, but boy in knowledge," said his father, 
 sadly, " not to know that it is only that which cannot be 
 atoned which can never be forgotten — whose consequence 
 can never be escaped, because the cause is inexpia- 
 ble !" 
 
 " There is no such thing," said Stephen, " save in the 
 imaginations which coined the old priest-dogmas of days 
 gone by. There is repentance and atonement for every 
 sin and for every sinner." 
 
 "Heaven send it may be so," answered the old man 
 devoutly, "but that is between man and his Maker. I 
 spoke more of human laws and of human customs." 
 
 "One word," said Stephen, as his father proceeded to 
 replace the packet whence ne took it. " One word — does 
 your visitor — does this Mr. Kirkwood know of the secret 
 contained in that packet ?" 
 
 " I know your meaning, Stephen. I tell you his know- 
 ledge or his ignorance — his good or ill-will — would have 
 no possible bearing on this issue as it concerns you and 
 yours." 
 
 He re-locked the cabinet and resumed his seat. 
 
 "Now, mark me, my son. I know your nature, and 
 •know it may lead you to believe that an unreasonable 
 obstruction — or one it will construe as such — ought to 
 be over-ridden. Let us suppose you proceed to act upon 
 such an assumption. Let us suppose you persist in your 
 engagement. Shall I tell you the result? At the last 
 moment, you will oblige me to take a position which will
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 275 
 
 force you to break it off, and which will cover our ancient 
 name with ignominy and disgrace." 
 
 " You seem to think nothing of the dishonorable position 
 / should occupy by breaking off this engagement, without 
 the excuse of an assignable reason beyond a mere caprice," 
 said Stephen bitterly. 
 
 " I do not forget it. But of two evils it were choosing 
 the least. Or, rather, one course is possible, the other 
 absolutely impossible. Eemeraber, that had you acquainted 
 me with your views at the outset, what I have now im- 
 parted would have been made known to you long before." 
 
 " I will reflect," said Stephen rising wearily, for he felt 
 as if it must be that he were in a dream, and that he must 
 go forth into the cool night air. 
 
 " Do so. Eeniember, I ask no promises, nor do I offer to 
 put upon you any commands. You are a man — capable 
 as another of judging for yourself — beyond the years of 
 tutelage or control. I only tell you the simple truth and I 
 ask you to put confidence in my honor. God knows how 
 glad I should have been if all this were otherwise ; how 
 glad to aid, and sanction, and bless you in your choice. It 
 is the sole wish left in my withered heart to see a Danger- 
 field climbing at my knee. Think then how hard it is for 
 me to oppose your wishes, and upon such a subject ! Do I 
 not in so doing encounter the risk — perhaps the certainty, 
 of baffling my own cherished hope ?" 
 
 " You may yet be deceived," murmured Stephen gloomily. 
 
 " Do not think it ! Do not hope it ! It were cruelty in 
 me to allow you to do either. Had I died without giving 
 you this solemn warning before the mischief was irrepara- 
 ble, you would have cursed my memory for the omission." 
 
 He rang the bell as he spoke for a servant to assist him 
 to his chamber. 
 
 "I can talk no more now. I am weak and faint — 
 failing day by day. You will not have to wait long. Poor 
 Stephen — poor boy ! It is hard, I know — hard to bear — 
 but you are young and strong — and your conscience is 
 a clear one. God bless you — Good night."
 
 276 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 He went up to bis son and stooping kissed him on 
 the forehead, but Stephen made no sign ; and long after he 
 had gone and the candles were extinguished, Stephen sat 
 staring into the darkness, and trying to shape into form and 
 coherence the confused and nameless phantoms which his 
 imagination conjured up as part and parcel of the gloomy 
 future. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYH. 
 
 STEPHEN'S old vacillation was upon him. He had 
 thought at first that he would immediately confer 
 with Yernon and relate to him without reserve his inter- 
 view with his father ; but he paused, and as usual with 
 him when he paused, he vacillated. Most of all, he feared 
 some strange unthought of disgrace which might be hang- 
 ing over his house ; some buried and forgotten misdeed, 
 perchance, which discussion might unearth, but which 
 silence would leave in oblivion for ever. Yet, was he then 
 to forego his love, to fly her presence without adieux or 
 explanation ? He felt that to be impossible. There re- 
 mained one alternative, — that of regarding his father's 
 prohibition, — his solemn warning, — as the mere fancy or 
 caprice of a weak old man, whose brain was unsettled by 
 the pressure of years and protracted illness. 
 
 When he rode up to the piazza at Uplands the next 
 morning, his brain and heart filled with flickering and 
 uncertain purposes, he could have embraced honest David 
 Greenwood for relieving his embarrassment on at least one 
 horn of his dilemma. 
 
 " Squire Ycrnon's goin' to be dreadful busy agin," said 
 Uncle Dave. " The delegation folks have come, and they're 
 beginnin' to worry about the election and platforms and 
 caucussin' and all the rest on't. He hez to spring to't allers 
 when he consents to stand." 
 
 *' The place is looking very lovely again, David," said
 
 EEFORE THE STORM. 277 
 
 Stephen, with a sigh of relief, as he dismounted, " but I 
 suppose you've had a bleak time of it in the winter while 
 I've been away in the sunny South?" 
 
 " Bless you, sir, it's never what you may call bleak here. 
 To be sure, we're kinder set high up, but there's so many 
 trees round, and most on 'em of the evergreen sort, that 
 here at the house it's as snug as can be. But you know 
 how it is at The Best." 
 
 " I've scarcely passed a winter there since I was a child, — 
 and I took little heed of the seasons then, — except so far 
 as they marked the times for fruits and nuts and kites and 
 skating to come round." 
 
 " Bity you hev been away so much, Mr. Stephen," said 
 David, respectfully. " It's only a poor man need be remind- 
 ed of the rollin' stone, may be ; — but there's most allers 
 them that comes and gathers the moss in the nest which the 
 rich ones leave — and sometimes carries away the nest itself." 
 
 " What do you mean, David ?" asked Stephen sharply. 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 "You won't feel bad at anything /say, sir," answered 
 David, leaning carelessly against Black Vixen's stalwart 
 shoulder and stroking down her mane. " I'm only afeard 
 that ere gentleman who's stayed so much at The Best ain't 
 there for no good. You know, sir, servants and folks who 
 stay all their lives round a place get to have a kind of 
 instinct like the dumb critters as to what means harm and 
 what good that comes nigh 'em." 
 
 " You think our people dislike Mr. Ivirkwood ?" 
 
 " They knoiu he don't mean the master nor his son any 
 good ; for all he's very good-natered to 'em, and often 
 gives 'em money and all that. You can alius profit by 
 such things, sir. You can tell of a comin' storm by the 
 cattle, and a pinter's nose is sharper than a human's for the 
 trail of a partridge. I wanted to kinder warn you before ; 
 but I hain't got no call gen'rally to be officious. I b'lieve 
 in folks mindin' their own business, tho' we Yankees are 
 called inquisitive. But I wish you'd talk to the little gal 
 — I mean little Miss Ally, sir."
 
 278 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Miss Ally I why, what does she know about the mat- 
 ter ?" 
 
 " P'raps jest nothing at all — and agin, p'raps a good 
 deal. She's got a head of her own, and she's shy about 
 talking of anything but her play and such things. But 
 one day I see her in the lane that leads down through our 
 wood, facin' over agin Shooter's Jutty — and he came on 
 the other side of the fence and spoke to the child. I was 
 too fur off to hear what he said even if I'd had a mind, 
 but I jest kept behind the trees to see little Miss come away 
 safe. When she did come, it was very slow and thought- 
 ful like — queer for a little lady like that." 
 
 " And you think there's some connexion between this 
 mysterious interview and the gentleman's evil designs at 
 The Eest ?" queried Stephen, smiling, 
 
 •' I don't know nuthin' about that. I only tell you the 
 fact, sir, which hain't been told to nobody else. You can 
 judge for yourself as to the meanin' on't. It's my notion 
 tho' that no such man's that ever puts out his hand without 
 the idee of strikin' somethin' with it. Shall I hev' the 
 saddle taken off the mare, sir?" 
 
 " No— yes — " said Stephen abstractedly. "Perhaps it 
 will be best. Many thanks for your advice, David, and 
 for your information. It may be of use some day," and 
 he walked slowly and thoughtfully into the house. 
 
 "Dear Grace!" 
 
 " Dear Stephen !" 
 
 She had been sitting at the piano-forte running half 
 unconsciously over the airs which Elinor used to love so 
 well. Her lover had caught the concluding bars of the 
 Jast one. It was that which Cuthbert Boynton used so 
 often to ask for, and which he had alluded to during: 
 Stephen's visit to his plantation — calling it with a mournful 
 pleasantry the requiem of his lost love. No wonder poor 
 Stephen did not like the augury. 
 
 " You look sad this morning, Stephen." 
 
 "I shall not, long, in your presence, love."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 279 
 
 Indeed, who could ? Grace was becoming more matured 
 by the tiny degrees so charming to those who have watched 
 the development of beautiful girls, and with her snowy 
 morning frock and sunny smile she looked the very ideal 
 of a new Goddess — half Hebe, half Venus — who should 
 intoxicate with equal inspirations of mirth and love. 
 
 " What do you think I've got, sir?" 
 
 " How can I guess ? A philtre perhaps to make all fall 
 in love who come in contact with you ? I shall object to 
 that." 
 
 " Something better — something I really wanted — not 
 what I can do without, you saucy fellow; — see!" and she 
 held up a letter. 
 
 " A letter — and from whom ?" 
 
 "From the dearest, best, purest, most obstinate girl in 
 Christendom !" 
 
 "An odd description truly. You mean " 
 
 " Who should I mean but darling Nelly !" 
 
 " I was so selfish not to have asked for her last night. 
 We all knew of her absence, but not the why or where- 
 fore." 
 
 "I didn't quite like to write about that. You would 
 scarcely have understood without so long an explanation ; 
 and I couldn't bear any one we love to think slightly of 
 her." 
 
 " Slightly of one like Miss Grazebrook ? Impossible." 
 
 " Oh, you men are so odd. You find it so hard to com- 
 prehend all the crooks and crannies of a woman's heart — 
 and it's always so much easier to censure than to praise." 
 
 " She hasn't committed a murder, I suppose," laughed 
 Stephen, "and that's about the only thing I can think 
 of which would shake my esteem." 
 
 " Not so bad as that — but — in strict confidence, mind !" — 
 
 " In strict confidence — " 
 
 " She's gone on the Stage !" 
 
 "Gone on the Stage? In Heaven's name what for?" 
 
 " What for ? Why, to act, to be sure." 
 
 " Miss Grazebrook become an actress."
 
 280 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Yes. It's not disgraceful." 
 
 " Not disgraceful, certainly, if dictated by necessity — 
 but she—" 
 
 " She thought it necessary in her case. You know how 
 fastidious and sensitive she is in all her notions. She 
 believed it to be her duty." 
 
 "And was it for this that she rejected poor Boynton ?" 
 
 " Indeed not ; and it distressed her very much that he 
 might think so." 
 
 " He can think nothing about it — at least so far. I feel 
 quite sure he is, or was when I left him, ignorant of the 
 fact." 
 
 "And where did you leave him ?" 
 
 " In New York — at the Clarendon. We came up from 
 Charleston together." 
 
 " And do you think that he — he cares for her as much 
 as ever ?" 
 
 " I believe that he is madly in love with her ; that he 
 loves her almost as dearly as I love some one else you 
 know of." 
 
 " I'm so glad you think so." 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " Because I'm equally certain that she truly loves him." 
 
 " Loves him ? Then why for Heaven's sake should she 
 reject him — and that merely to indulge in such a wild 
 freak as going on the stage ?" 
 
 " That's so like a man. I've told you already, silly fel- 
 low, that that was not her motive." 
 
 "Perhaps you'll tell me now, then, what luas her mo- 
 tive?" 
 
 " I'm not quite sure, Stephen, but that might be a breach 
 of confidence," said Grace seriously. " Do you know 
 how long he stays in New York ?" 
 
 " He was to go to Boston for a day or two, and then 
 return. We are to meet again at the hotel — but how long 
 he'll remain I don't know. I suspect he'll scarcely go 
 South again without trying to see or hear from Aer." 
 
 " And I'm quite sure he won't — if what you tell me of his
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 281 
 
 feelings be true. Therefore, what you ask me he had bet- 
 ter learn from Elinor herself" 
 
 " But will she see him, think you ?" 
 
 " I should scarcely think she would refuse." Grace 
 paused a little and reflected, " Do you know what I'm 
 thinking about ?" 
 
 Stephen smiled. 
 
 " Your thought is much the same as mine, I fancy." 
 
 " Mine is of how much I should like to bring this loving 
 pair together ; is that yours ?" 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 "Good, But it must be very delicately managed. I 
 shall write a very careful letter to ISTelly, letting her know 
 that he has come North ; and you shall write a very care- 
 ful letter to Mr. Boynton, telling him where she is." 
 
 "Agreed," 
 
 " And now wait until I fetch my hat and shawl, that we 
 may take a walk, and arrange particulars." 
 
 So they wandered about the wq}1 known walks and paths, 
 noting each favorite shrub and tree, gazing on each lovely 
 view, all sanctified and precious as entwined into the his- 
 tory of their own love, and plotting their affectionate con- 
 spiracy, that others might share the bliss themselves had 
 found so sweet. And Grace told Stephen much of which 
 he was previously in ignorance regarding the sad incidents 
 of poor Elinor's life, and its many sorrows. Yet, although 
 Stephen listened with an eager ear, and built much at first 
 on obtaining through the details of Kirkwood's strange 
 relations with the inmates of Uplands, a clue to his con- 
 nexion with his father, the reader need not be told that the 
 knowledge thus gained only left that connexion as clouded 
 ^nd mysterious as before.
 
 282 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE stately natural wall called the Palisades, which rises 
 on the west bank of the Hudson, commences to ap- 
 pearance at a point about ten miles above the space where 
 that river debouches into the noble estuary of New York 
 Harbor. "VVe say " to appearance " in view of the fact that 
 geologists find a continuation of the Palisades in the heights 
 of Staten Island, and even trace them further south into 
 the Jersey hills. Towering to a height of some four hun- 
 dred feet above the level of the stream, it stretches away 
 northwards, maintaining an almost even altitude for many 
 miles beyond. The crest is all but unbroken, for the imper- 
 vious crags which support it yield scanty outlet for water- 
 courses, and the drainage of the back country is therefore 
 driven westward, to mingle with the waters of the Ilack- 
 ensack. The cross section of this vast wall generally ex- 
 hibits a sheer perpendicuUir for a great part of its height, 
 which appears as if it would be quite parallel with a plum- 
 met — which perpendicular is then met by a line running 
 straight to the river, at an apparent angle of forty-five 
 degrees to its surface. This latter is the crumbling — the 
 ixilns from the face of the precipice, which, in the course of 
 ages, has slid down towards the stream. Wc have inti- 
 mated that this transverse figure is almost uniform, and 
 indeed there are few exceptions ; one, however, existed at 
 the time of which we write, which was situated at about 
 a mile from Uplands, and in the direction of Dangerfield's 
 Rest. 
 
 Here there occurred a small indentation in the shore, 
 which, viewed in connexion with a corresponding rift or 
 fissure in the cliff above, seemed to indicate that the waters 
 of a creek might at some time have made their way through 
 to the river. There was no other trace of such a thing 
 than was suggested by this conformation, except perhaps 
 that the crest on the north side projected outwards towards 
 the stream, overreaching in truth the accumulations at its
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 283 
 
 base. Seen from above, this projection constituted a trian- 
 gular piece of ground, its sharpened apex pointing boldly- 
 eastward over the flood below. It was covered with turf, 
 flecked with many rocky outcrops, and it sustained a strag- 
 gling growth of dwarfed evergreens. The spot was con- 
 sidered dangerous, and a strong fence ran along in such a 
 manner as to form what might be called the base of the 
 triangle, although well inward from the edge of the preci- 
 pice, from whence sprung its northern limb. This line of 
 fence was met by another, at a right angle, which guarded 
 the ravine, and effectually protected stray cattle or un- 
 guarded passengers from the critical ground beyond. There 
 were rather thick woods, both on the side of Uplands and 
 that of Dangerfield's Eest, however, which made it rather 
 improbable that any such risk should arise. This space — 
 valueless save for the picturesque addition it made to the 
 view from below and from the wood on the Uplands boun- 
 dary — was known to the country round as " Shooter's 
 Jutty." 
 
 Perhaps it had been a favorite haunt years gone by for 
 the fowler when the unchecked barbarism which hates 
 game laws as "aristocratic," had not yet succeeded in sub- 
 stituting the more democratic extermination which is the 
 logical consequent of their absence. Be that as it may, 
 the place presented attractions some time back for one 
 of our dramatis personae — for no other, in fact, than Mr. 
 James Kirkwood. 
 
 Kirkwood had an exquisite instinct for things myste- 
 rious and hidden — for places unfrequented and solitary. 
 He had found his account many a time in the cultivation 
 of such, and he was not long at The Eest before he made 
 the acquaintance of Shooter's Jutty. He questioned the 
 people at the village — not at the mansion — asking in his 
 careless way what was thought of the spot, and receiving 
 solemn warning as to its insecurity and utter avoidance by 
 all prudent and sensible folks in consequence. These inti- 
 mations afforded him much gratification, suggesting as 
 they did the safety and isolation of a place environed bj
 
 28-4 d^ingerfield's rest; or 
 
 such terrors, and its peculiar fitness for an object whicli he 
 had in view. As for danger he laughed at it. Many a 
 mountain-road had he traversed in the saddle where the 
 plunging cation a thousand feet below threatened to 
 engulf the giddy head or the stumbling foot which caused 
 the slightest blunder in the narrow causeway. Many a 
 steep had he thundered down at a half gallop, like those of 
 Downieville and Goodyears Bar, where his clear, hard 
 brain had instructed him that, as in battle, the most 
 courageous course was also the safest one. The idea of 
 danger to a cool head and a steady foot at such a place as 
 Shooter's Jutty was simply absurd — but then it might be 
 very useful. 
 
 And he was quite right. For, when he tried the experi- 
 ment, after a cautious reconnoissance whereby he satisfied 
 himself that no one marked or dogged his steps, he found 
 the place as firm and steady to his tread as adamant. He 
 lay there a whole afternoon in the shade of the pines, 
 smoking and delectating himself with the superior view 
 which his position afforded of both up and down the river. 
 
 Upon his second visit — which was in the grey of evening 
 — Mr. Kirkwood carried under his cloak a long flat metallic 
 box, which, with the aid of a heavy bowie knife — an old 
 and favorite companion — and a small gardener's trowel, he 
 proceeded to deposit in the earth at a point near the end of 
 the Jutty. This he accomplished with great dexterity, 
 arranging the surface of the ground afterward with artistic 
 finish and naturalness. 
 
 On the occasion of his third visit, Kirkwood made some 
 additions to his store, selecting this time rather an earlier 
 hour than before. This was an error, especially when it is 
 considered to have been dictated by no worthier motive 
 than that of being able to sit ad libitum over his wine after 
 dinner. From such trifling causes will oftenest spring 
 great results. He flattered himself that his stealthy pro- 
 cedures had been unobserved, and in the two first instances 
 he was not deceived; not so in respect to the third, for this 
 time he had a spectator if not an audience. This was on
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 285 
 
 the day when David Greenwood had seen him speaking 
 with the child, Alabama. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 A WEEK had passed since Stephen's return. Kirkwood 
 still tarried in New York, much to the satisfaction of 
 both the gentlemen at The Rest, whose lives glided on 
 with a placidity which would have included content, but 
 for the gnawing presentiments of evil which were canker- 
 ing the hearts of each. The younger man had gladly 
 availed of the excuse for deferring his confidence, which 
 was furnished by Yernon's absorption in political cares ; 
 while the elder was happy in the suspension of strife, and 
 the temporary immunity from menace, let them be due to 
 what cause they might. Yet both were well aware that 
 this was but the deceitful quiet which heralded the ap- 
 proach of the inevitable tempest. 
 
 Stephen spent much time at Uplands. The last hours 
 of his love — if last they were to prove — should be like 
 those last notes of the swan, which are said to be its sweet- 
 est ones. He had not breathed a syllable to Grace of the 
 cloud which was gathering over their future, and she had 
 rallied him at times on his dejection without suspecting its 
 cause. She had spoken of her desire to see his father — of 
 how, in Stephen's absence, she had thought it her duty to 
 do so — and how her own papa had counselled delay until 
 the return of her affianced. But the latter looked very 
 grave, and spoke of his father's illness, and his unfitness 
 just now to receive visitors, so that although the girl won- 
 dered, her delicacy would not permit her to dwell on the 
 subject, and it was therefore abandoned. 
 
 One day Stephen had a tete-d-teie with little Alabama. 
 Yernon had a great deal of correspondence, and Grace, as 
 often happened, was pressed into his service as amanuensis.
 
 286 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Our hero bethouglit him of the information he had derived 
 from David Greenwood, and that this was a favorable 
 opportunity for its corroboration and extension. He there- 
 fore took the child for a walk, and managed that it should 
 be in the direction of Shooter's Jutty. As they sauntered 
 on, he listened to her artless prattle, and watched his op- 
 portunity to introduce the subject of his thoughts. Ste- 
 phen, like most men of manly natures, was fond of chil- 
 dren, and his interest in this one was enhanced by his 
 knowledge of Grace's attachment for her, and of the melan- 
 choly and romantic circumstances of her birth and paren- 
 tage. 
 
 " So, Ally dear, you like the walks in this direction ?" 
 
 " Very much. Only Papa Vernon does not like me to 
 come this way alone — not even with sister Grace — for some 
 good reason, I'm sure." 
 
 "And you always do as he wishes?" 
 
 The child hesitated. 
 
 ^^ Almost always. Once I came a long way over here, 
 picking berries and flowers. I didn't know I was so far. 
 When I thought of it, I meant to go straight back." 
 
 " And you did so, eh ?" 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 " Not directly — I was prevented for a little." 
 
 " By what ? more berries and flowers further on ?" 
 
 " Oh ! no. I wouldn't have stopped for them. A gen 
 tleman stopped me." 
 
 " Some one visiting at the house, I suppose?" 
 
 " No ; not at ou7' house." 
 
 "A stranger, then?" 
 
 " He didn't seeni quite a stranger," said the child thought- 
 fully. " I thought I had seen him before." 
 
 " And he spoke to you ?" 
 
 " Yes. I was frightened at first, he was so tall and dark- 
 looking — taller than you, and with very black eyes. But 
 his voice was soft, and he lifted me up in his arms, and 
 kissed my forehead, and I knew then he wouldn't hurt 
 
 me."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 287 
 
 '' And what did he say?" 
 
 " He asked my name, and I told him ' Ally.' Then he 
 said, ' That stands for Alice, I suppose,' and I answered, 
 ' No — for Alabama.' ' That's a queer name,' he said, 
 smiling, and I told him it was not queer, that my old papa 
 had given it to me, because it was the name of his State — 
 the State he was born in. And he asked, ' "Where is your 
 old papa ?' and I answered that he was gone away, never 
 to come back, and that Mr. Yernon was my papa now. 
 Then he cried." 
 
 " Cried !" 
 
 " Yes ; wet fell on my face, and I looked up and saw he 
 was crying." 
 
 " That was strange, wasn't it ?" 
 
 " No ; not strange. He told me why it was. He had 
 lost a little girl, who would have been just my age now, 
 and the thought of her made him cry." 
 
 " Oh ! I see. That was quite natural." 
 
 The two walked on some time in silence. Stephen was 
 thinking — as we all are apt to think on such occasions — 
 " Can this man be wholly bad ?" and arriving at that con- 
 clusion which experience ever teaches, that, even in the 
 darkest of human souls shall be found some redeeming: 
 
 a 
 
 glimmer — however faint though it be — to grow in time to 
 extinguish evil, and assert immortality ; for who shall say 
 in these latter days that any good can ever die ? None, 
 let us hope and trust ; at least none who believe in immor- 
 tality itself. 
 
 " And that was all ?" asked Stephen at last, in a softened 
 voice. 
 
 " That was all he said." 
 
 " And you never saw him before — never have seen him 
 since ?" 
 
 " That was the only day I've ever seen him, that I know." 
 
 There was a little childish duplicity in this. The truth 
 was, that Ally had wandered into the woods, and had 
 caught sight of Kirkwood when he was busied among the 
 bushes on the Jutty, when he paid his third visit to that
 
 288 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 perilous locality. The child's curiosity had been excited, and 
 she had watched all his procedures while he remained on 
 the point. As it was slightly higher than the ground 
 whereon she stood, she was unable to determine precisely 
 what he did ; but she felt sure he either took something 
 from the earth, or placed something in it. When he left 
 the spot, she had withdrawn from the wood ; and it was 
 when she emerged into the open, near the lane alluded to by 
 David Greenwood, that Kirkwood caught sight of her, and 
 imagined she had been simply approaching from the direc- 
 tion of Uplands. All this Ally had imparted to Grace, 
 who, after grave consideration, had told the child not to 
 speak of it to any one else. Of course that portion which 
 related to her interview with Kirkwood, she need not deny 
 or try to conceal, as it seemed probable from her account 
 that David Greenwood, who joined and took charge of her 
 immediately afterwards, might have witnessed it; but of 
 what she saw occur on the Jutty, she must say not a word. 
 Grace's policy was dictated by the simplest of feminine 
 considerations. She had been accustomed to hear the Jutty 
 pronounced a most dangerous place to venture upon. If 
 Stephen Dangerfield were apprised of the incident he would 
 as certainly attempt to penetrate the mystery by going there: 
 so that it was best, at least for the present, that he should 
 know nothing about it. Hence her instructions to the child, 
 which were coupled with such information as to their wis- 
 dom and propriety as would serve to shield her tender con- 
 science from the soil of a needless deceit. And so Grace 
 determined — knowing as she did, that she could count on 
 Ally's reticence — to keep the secret locked in their own 
 hearts until it might be judicious or safe to employ it for 
 any useful purpose hereafter.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 289 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 AEAW spring day. The blustering wind roared 
 through the streets, which were ankle-deep with mud 
 and half-melted snow. Elinor had come in from rehearsal 
 with wet feet, and Mrs. Maberly had forced her to sit by 
 the fire in the little sitting-room, while she herself went 
 forth to do some necessary shopping for the evening's 
 toilette. And, in truth, Elinor was not sorry to be alone 
 for a time, for she had weighty responsibility that night. 
 She hastily changed her chaussure and wet skirts, and now 
 sat in front of the little grate absorbed in the study of Vir- 
 ginia. For the great Mr. Bellow had come to P for 
 
 positively six nights only, and was to appear to-night as 
 the energetic Roman Father ; and he had objected strenu- 
 ously, — albeit he gallantly refrained from expressing his 
 true reasons — to the matured style and somewhat exuber- 
 ant person of Miss Adeline de Yere to illustrate the shrink- 
 ing chey-l-d, whose wrongs he was to avenge. " 'Twere 
 most unwise, my dear," he assured that dubious and rather 
 belligerent artiste, " to sacrifice your position in a mere 
 walking lady like Virginia, when you have to act Lady 
 Macbeth and Mrs. Haller on the two nights succeeding. The 
 young lady can get through the part — not, of course, with 
 your finish and artistic vigor — which afterward in contrast 
 with her feeble style and amateurish manner will 'stick 
 fiery-oS" indeed.'-" Miss de Yere was inclined to grumble, 
 but Mugford assured her with secret and vindictive threats 
 that Bellow must be propitiated in view of his own metro- 
 politan designs. Then she appealed to Grinder, but that 
 gentleman insisted that he could not interfere, much as he 
 desired it, with the stage-manager's business. Whereupon 
 Miss de Yere, although somewhat ruffled, inasmuch as her 
 choice in characters was invariably in the precise inverse 
 ratio of her suitability for them, made a merit of necessity, 
 and coolly informed Elinor that her good fortune in being 
 oast for Virginia was exclusively owing to her own inter- 
 
 13
 
 290 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 cession with Mugford and the great tragedian, whom she 
 had difBculty in persuading to leave her out of the piece 
 that Elinor might have so fine an opportunity for dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 Elinor was thinner and paler than when we saw her last. 
 Late hours and hard work had had their effect on a con- 
 stitution which, although elastic and vigorous, was by no 
 means robust. But her dark eyes and her golden hair 
 were as beautiful as ever, and her complexion almost as 
 radiant. Nor was the symmetry of her rounded bust 
 impaired, although the plain dress of dark stuff did little 
 to set forth its perfections; and, as she sat leaning back in 
 her chair eagerly conning the words with the slight sym- 
 pathetic tremor of the person which accompanies that of 
 the lips with people who learn much by rote, the same 
 tiny, dainty, arching foot could be seen we first admired on 
 board the Assyria. 
 
 Elinor was, indeed, passing through a season of sore 
 trial. She had calculated in advance what she would have 
 to go through, but as with most of us in worldly affairs, 
 there had been some things unforeseen left out of her 
 calculation. She had measured steadily the hard, exacting 
 toil she was expected to face and grapple ; and her heart 
 did not fail her, for she felt equal to the task. She 
 had contemplated and prepared herself for the deprivation 
 of the suitable and congenial society to which she had so 
 long been accustomed ; and consoled herself in the belief 
 that her intellectual needs would be filled and absorbed by 
 study and ambition. She had even anticipated and steeled 
 herself against the probable contempt of some of the 
 coarse-minded and hard-hearted ones who were of the 
 circles she had quitted, and who might stumble across 
 her path in her new career. If she was not necessary 
 to them they were not necessary to her. 
 
 But she was not quite prepared for the narrow and 
 sordid associations — the miserable petty jealousies and 
 cabals — the wearisome, exaggerated manners — all which 
 were characteristic of most of the dwellers in the little
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 291 
 
 world she had entered. She did not know in her inno- 
 cence, that the very appreciation of her superior education 
 and breeding would bring her persecution and annoyance 
 from the small natures whose worst qualities are nourished 
 by the peculiarities of the lives they lead, and of which 
 the most conspicuous is hatred of any species of superiority 
 they cannot hope to equal or excel. It is true that this 
 hard lesson is to be learned on other stages besides those of 
 small provincial theatres ; but in the latter it is pronounced 
 and intensified by the constant recurrence of appeals to the 
 smallest of meannesses — the most contemptible of vanities. 
 
 The men — with some exceptions — were constantly annoy- 
 ing her with sickening under-bred compliments, and en- 
 deavoring to establish a footing of easy familiarity which 
 Elinor found it quite impossible not to repel — so provoking 
 their ill-feeling by piquing their self-love. The women, 
 lavish in affection and proffered intimacy, each labored to 
 set her against all the others, and naturally resented the 
 cool civility with which poor Elinor thought after a time 
 to avoid entano-lino; alliances, and so diminish the chances 
 of war. Both sexes, possessing greater experience of the 
 Stage, had constantly recurring opportunities of avenging 
 themselves on the new-comer for what they regarded as the 
 slights she had put upon them, and which they charac- 
 terized, in general, as " putting on airs." 
 
 Nor was it the regular company alone which contributed 
 to the sum of Elinor's griefs and annoyances. There came 
 in due course to the P — Lyceum a succession of " stars — " 
 persons who, with some worthy exceptions, were more 
 vulgar, more exaggerated, and more under-bred than those 
 " ladies and gentlemen" themselves. This was at a time 
 when "character" acting was more especially in vogue. 
 There came numbers of Irish, Yankee, Ethiopian, nay, even 
 Dutch " comedians." Generally people of no education, 
 who had achieved ephemeral success through the rapidly 
 deteriorating character of dramatic audiences, they were 
 presumptuous, inflated, and exacting. All brought num- 
 bers of trashy plays, wherein their own parts were always
 
 292 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 conspicuous at the expense of every other, and which 
 entailed constant and ill-requited study on the unhappy 
 "stock." From Elinor's position she had her full share 
 of these delights, many of her roles being those of fine 
 ladies, supposed to be about forty, who served as foils 
 to the artless, gushing heroines of the female " Star," who 
 in reality exceeded that age. Then it was necessary to be 
 extremely perfect, although the study was often what is 
 called " from night to night." For the " Stars," knowing 
 well their own babble from constant repetition, by no 
 means tolerated any deficiency of the text from the beasts 
 of burden who supported them. 
 
 True, Eadcliffe had been of great service to her. As 
 we have seen, he fully comprehended her anomalous 
 position, and his knowledge of the world and of the pro- 
 fession taught him exactly what Elinor had to expect in 
 the circumstances wherein she was placed. He warned, 
 advised, and consoled her. Occasionally' he would remon- 
 strate with Mugford about imposing upon her too much 
 study. Now and then he would break out at rehearsal 
 and insist that some manifest unfairness toward her in the 
 business of the scene should be corrected or modified. 
 And, although his own position was not of the most im- 
 portant, and his habits rather weakened his influence in 
 the theatre, there was yet a dignity in his bearing, and an 
 undeniable savor of breeding and command in his manner 
 which carried a weight, when he chose, such as few liked 
 to oppose or defy. 
 
 But in the frequent intervals of his absence from the 
 Lyceum, Elinor was deprived of even this support ; and 
 resolute as she was to go through with her self-appointed 
 task, she passed many miserable hours, which all the kind- 
 ness and sympathy of Mrs. Mabcrly did not altogether 
 redeem. That worthy lady, perhaps, viewed with secret 
 satisfection the desagremens which might tend to disgust 
 Elinor with the Stage, for affectionate and truly attached 
 to her niece as she was, she certainly did not try to color its 
 mortifications with roses, or to paint the grovelling little-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 293 
 
 ness of so many of its disciples witli an extenuating 
 pencil. 
 
 A knock came suddenly at the door. 
 
 From Elinor's frame of mind, and from tlie task before 
 her, it might have been supposed she would hear the fore- 
 runner of intrusion with annoyance if not with dismay. 
 But it was not so. The sound impressed her with a con- 
 viction of approaching struggle. She laid down her book, 
 summoned her self-possession, and commenced to buckle 
 on her mental and moral armor for the conflict. There was 
 just a thought that she might be in error. Just a thought 
 that it might be a message from the manager to ask her to 
 go on for Miss Simpkins's dozen lines in the farce, that lady 
 having been taken suddenly ill. But the thought was 
 direct!}^ dismissed. You smile who have no belief in the 
 reality of prescience ; wait yet a little ; for the coming 
 generation may be wiser. It was the landlady, Mrs. 
 Dawkins : — 
 
 " A gentleman. Miss." 
 
 " You told him I was very busy, Mrs. Dawkins ?" 
 
 " And couldn't be disturbed. He says it's only for a 
 few moments." 
 
 " Some one from the Lyceum ?" 
 
 " No one I ever see before." 
 
 " And sent in no name ?" 
 
 " lie said there's no need. Miss : he must see you." 
 
 Elinor gave a deep sigh. She knew an imperative 
 Will was approaching — one to which she should be forced 
 to give combat. A sad but musical voice spoke in the 
 passage : 
 
 " I know Miss Grey will excuse me, madam. I'll not 
 detain her long." 
 
 Then a step coming up the stairs, nearer and nearer, and 
 passing Mrs. Hopkins on the threshold, appeared — Cuth- 
 bert Boynton. The Landlady went out and closed the 
 door. Elinor rose as her visitor advanced into the room. 
 
 " Is this fair ?"
 
 294 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Forgive me — don't be vexed. I couldn't pass througli 
 the town and not see you — see you if only for a moment. 
 I'll not distress — or trouble you in any way. Don't be 
 ungracious or unkind to me." 
 
 Elinor saw that he looked pale and ill, and she motioned 
 him to sit. lie did so at a distance, and she resumed her 
 chair, waiting for a few moments as if for him to proceed. 
 But he remained quite silent, only never withdrawing his 
 eyes from her face. This grew embarrassing, and presently 
 she spoke : — 
 
 " Have you been long in the North ?" 
 
 "Only a few days. I was on my way to Boston — to 
 meet a friend expected by the English steamer. I was not 
 quite well, and remained over on Saturday. In the even- 
 ing I strolled into the theatre here and saw — Miss Ellen 
 Grey." 
 
 Elinor flushed a little. " There is nothing derogatory in 
 that." 
 
 "Not in itself, perhaps. Tastes and opinions differ. But 
 you will not wonder that I was greatly shocked. I knew 
 you were absent. Eliot heard so from Dangerfield, but 
 did not, if he knew it, name the cause : — I was greatly 
 shocked." 
 
 " And is it this that you have come to tell me?" asked 
 the girl, coldly. 
 
 " I scarcely know why I came, except that I could not 
 have remained away. For heaven's sake do not be so 
 hard. Surely my coming cannot do you harm," 
 
 " Nor good, I fear," said Elinor, half abstractedly. 
 
 " Why say that ? Why say a thing so unkind even if 
 you think it — feci it ? Was it a crime in me to love 
 you? A sin to do what I could not help then, — cannot 
 help now ?" 
 
 " This must cease," said Elinor, rising abruptly. 
 
 "It shall," he cried eagerly, "only give me a moment. 
 I beg — nay, even demand it !" 
 
 " By what right ?" 
 
 " The right of a pure, honest love bestowed by a full
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 295 
 
 heart and a faithful one ; rejected by a bitter and unkind 
 one ; and which only seeks the poor satisfaction to know 
 the true reason of that rejection !" 
 
 " 1 thought all was understood between us," said Elinor 
 mournfully. 
 
 " This at least is not." 
 
 " Let it be, then. Go on. I listen." 
 
 " Cruel, cruel always. Oh ! Elinor, Elinor ! Is it for 
 this life of wretched mummery, this pitiful ambition, that 
 you could give up one who loved you so dearly, who loves 
 you even now better than living mortal ever can ?" 
 
 " You forget yourself, sir," she said haughtily. " How 
 can you justly criticise my actions, or call in question my 
 motives?" 
 
 '' I would not do so. But how explain? You declared 
 your heart was your own. You have quitted an affluent 
 and honorable home. You knew that with consent of mine 
 you could never do what you are doing. Is it unreasona- 
 ble to draw an inference which seems so obvious ?" 
 
 " Perhaps not," she replied, more calmly. " Perhaps 
 not — for you. I can understand how one bred as you have 
 been — surrounded from birth by such influences as you 
 have been — should find it difficult to comprehend the pos- 
 sibility of another giving up dear friends, loved home, the 
 hope of a happy future ; not for a pitiful ambition, as you 
 call it, but for the simple conviction of self-respect — the 
 prompting of inflexible duty." 
 
 " A duty to place yourself in such a position ! but I will 
 not cavil at terms. You did not reject me for the sake of 
 embarking in this strange career, then ?" 
 
 " I did not." 
 
 "Oh! Ehnor! That at least is a consolation. And you 
 are still heart-whole ? Do not answer ! I know, know in 
 my inmost soul that you are. It is impossible for a love 
 like mine to be utterly unrequited ! Now, you may say a 
 word — one little word — to prove I am not wholly blinded 
 and deceived. Only a word ; pray, pray, be candid with 
 me!"
 
 296 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " Do you remember the last word I ever spoke to you, 
 before you came here to-day ?" 
 
 The young man's face fell. 
 
 " Alas ! too well," he murmured. 
 
 •• You ask me to be candid with you," she went on, while 
 her face grew marble white, " and I will. The more per- 
 haps that 1 underrated the strength of your attachment, 
 and so may have done you an unwitt;ing wrong. And if I 
 ask jou to remember that word, it is because it is one which 
 should not be forgotten in connexion with what I am about 
 to say." 
 
 She paused, as if to collect herself, and drew her hand 
 across her brow. 
 
 " Go on," he said, softly. 
 
 "You ask me to be candid with you," sher repeated, 
 slowly, " and I will." Then rising suddenly, she said, 
 firmly : " Cuthbert Boynton, I love you as I never have, 
 and never again shall, love man — and yet I cannot be 
 your wife !" 
 
 He threw himself at her feet, and covered her hands 
 with passionate kisses. 
 
 " Elinor, Elinor, Elinor ! what happiness and what mise- 
 ry ! You must not, you shall not, you dare not say it ! 
 Look, Elinor. I have nothing in the world to love but 
 you ; neither father, nor mother, nor sister. All these long 
 weary months I have thought of nothing but you. I can 
 think of nothing but you ! Have you the right to crush 
 the happiness of a whole life ? To impair its usefulness, 
 to embitter its memories, to send it forth on the world, 
 wrecked, and ruined, and alone? Is this the duty that 
 you speak of ? Think you it is a duty that God, who 
 made us, will smile on and approve ? No, no, no ! It is 
 impossible that he should !" And with the height and in- 
 tensity of his emotion the strong man sobbed aloud. 
 
 Elinor withdrew her hands to cover her face. 
 
 "Poor Cuthbert," she said in a soft and gentle voice, 
 which yet trembled as showing how difficult it was to keep 
 from sharing in his audible sorrow. "Poor Cuthbert! 
 
 'o
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 297 
 
 Heaven help me. I did not think it would have been so 
 hard with him." 
 
 He caught her hand again. 
 
 " Ah ! you pity me. You say ' poor Cuthbert ;' you 
 never used that name before, and your voice sounds more 
 human than it has to-day. It says that you relent, though 
 its words may not. Say that you do, oh ! my love ! dear 
 Elinor, my Elinor!" _And his arm stole round her slender 
 waist. . 
 
 She disengaged herself hastily, and went to the other 
 side of the room. 
 
 " Cuthbert, Cuthbert ! let this parting be friendly, at all 
 events." 
 
 "Parting? I tell you I will not listen to it! There is 
 some obstacle, I know, which your woman's nature exag- 
 gerates — it shall be removed. Do you think I will be 
 stopped by obstacles ? Yon should know me better. Some 
 one's consent has to be obtained ? I will obtain it. "Who- 
 ever it may be, he shall consent. Something in your fami- 
 ly history, at which your soul revolts, and which you 
 would fain conceal, and believe in your scrupulous pride 
 it should fetter your choice ? I know enough — all of it — 
 and there is nothing which should part us — nothing which 
 shall part us !" 
 
 " Yes ; one thing — " 
 
 "'One thing which — " 
 
 " "Which will part us for ever." 
 
 " And that is—" 
 
 "Slavery!" 
 
 He started back transfixed with astonishment. 
 
 " Good Heavens ! Do I hear aright ! Is it possible that 
 you can be so mad — so fanatical ?" 
 
 "You think me so; perhaps most would agree with 
 you." 
 
 " I should think so. But opinions may differ. We 
 should not quarrel there. I, too, think Slavery an evil. 
 But it exists. By going where it is, you could mitigate 
 the wrong, at least so far as your conscience and means 
 
 13*
 
 298 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 might permit, /did not create the evil. It was my mis- 
 fortune, perhaps, but not my fault to have been born where 
 it prevails. Would you punish me for that ?" 
 
 "I would punish no one, but bless all I can," she an- 
 swered solemnly. " I am no casuist. I cannot with my 
 woman's intellect enter into all the subtle distinctions of 
 the question. But I can recognise the broad distinctions, 
 which are not subtle at all, between right and wrong. I 
 can see that this Right and Wrong are drawing year by 
 year, and day by day, to the point where comes the death- 
 struggle for supremacy of the one, destruction for the other. 
 Shall I, though the least of my country-women, throw my 
 life, my love, any little weight or influence I have or may 
 possess, into the scale of the Wrong ? Not for life's, not 
 even for love's sake." 
 
 " And is this all?" he asked, with a shade of incredulity 
 in his tone. 
 
 " No, not all. That is but a general view. There is a 
 personal one which may strike you more forcibly. It is 
 common to say that Slavery only harms those, masters or 
 serfs, among whom it exists. There is much to be said of 
 that ; much of the crying disgrace to our whole nation 
 abroad, the weakening of moral obligations, the truckling 
 to the slave-power of parties — but these are public topics for 
 men to discuss and settle. I have a private one which I 
 have a right — which it is my duty to consider, as bearing 
 on and directing my private action." 
 
 " I cannot understand you." 
 
 " You will do so. It is but right you should, though it 
 costs me much to enlighten you. You have said you knew 
 somewhat of my family history. What you do not know 
 I will tell you, and briefl3\ A man — a treacherous villain 
 who yet holds his head erect, and walks among honorable 
 men — came, while I was almost a child, into our family 
 circle. He was born, bred, educated among Slaveholders. 
 He was steeped in their habits of life, their modes of 
 thought, their chivalrous notions of honor. He was even 
 said to have owed his existence to one of the abuses which
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 299 
 
 grows out of their system. To him I owe it that my father 
 went down to a drunkard's grave. To him I owe it that 
 my mother became — what I cannot name. To him I owe 
 it that I have been thrust by force of those stigmas from 
 social position, to lead a life which you evidently think 
 that of an outcast. Do you wonder at my prejudice ?" 
 
 "I think it overstrained. This man's crime does not 
 implicate me — I was no sharer in it." 
 
 " No — Heaven forbid. But that he was capable of such 
 a crime was the direct result of his birth and breeding in 
 social conditions wherein you also were born and educated." 
 
 " And for his offence you would therefore punish me?" 
 
 "I would not choose to do so; but I would not ally 
 myself to a system which brings forth such offences." 
 
 " Yet, had such a bitter experience never befallen " 
 
 "My resolution would be the same. I told you this 
 but as a lower and personal motive which gave strength to, 
 but did not create, convictions springing from higher and 
 broader ones." 
 
 "But still," the young man went on, more steadily, and 
 for the moment almost losing sight of his passion in the 
 contemplation of what struck him as so strange a barrier to 
 its gratification. " But still, how absurd — pardon me — 
 how quixotic, to strain private actions into accordance with 
 such generalities. Grant there be a wrong ; what can an 
 individual effect by precept or example against a gigantic 
 system ?" 
 
 " If all acted on that principle, when would the wrong 
 be abated ?" 
 
 Cuthbert shook his head despairingly. " Enough for me 
 that I am to be one of its victims. I will not affront you 
 with further solicitations ; I will not suppose your resolu- 
 tion can be altered; but if some great grief or trouble 
 should come upon you — if there be no other to assist — to 
 counsel — will you — " 
 
 " I understand ; thanks; I will." 
 
 " God bless you, then, and — FarewelV^ 
 
 And a second time he was gone.
 
 800 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 Elinor was letter perfect in Virginia tliat niglit ; but it is 
 to be feared that she thou2;ht more of her lost love than of 
 Icilius. She felt, indeed, as the great conqueror may have 
 felt when he pla^^ed his last card — when he ordered that 
 last sublime charge of his imperial cohorts on which hung 
 the fate of Europe, and which sealed his own for ever. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 THERE was a grand party at the Von Donks'. Not 
 a very select one, it must be acknowledged; but 
 candidates' parties at election time seldom are, and that of 
 the Von Donks was not likely to be an exception. There 
 were, indeed, not a few who seldom find themselves within 
 the sacred precincts of the Fifth Avenue save on such 
 occasions as these, when the majesty of the people is about 
 to be vindicated. As usual, the exceptional privilege was 
 not grudgingly enjoyed. Mrs. General was condemned to 
 witness in silent horror her breakfast-room a la renaissance 
 turned into a sort of branch Hook and Cuff's, and the 
 conservatory in the rear metamorphosed into a miniature 
 City Hall. The immaculate carpets of the drawing-rooms 
 were pressed by the brogans of the followers of McSwindle, 
 and the boudoir of Violetta and Zerlina was invaded by 
 the whilome denizens of the Pewter Mug. Something of 
 a Celtic aroma flavored the entire atmosphere, and the 
 counteracting agencies of verbena and jasmine were in- 
 voked in vain against the subtle yet overwhelming bouquet 
 of whiskey and onions. 
 
 There were delegates representing many interests and 
 many classes : — for although it was not in this district that 
 th'fe election was to come off, yet, as sometimes happens, 
 more propitiatory and tributary capital was to be worked 
 up in the metropolis than in the district itself. Thus there 
 were divers rising young traders, junior partners generally,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 301 
 
 and known in the firm as " our Mr. So and So." The 
 firm has a large connexion with smaller dealers in the 
 contested district, and the junior partners are to be fascinated 
 by Yioletta and Zerlina. There were various city and 
 county officials — beetle-browed men, mostly, with red 
 faces, white eyes, and moustaches dyed jet black; also 
 with that peculiar defiant look the Milesian physiognomy 
 is prone to adopt when its owner finds himself in better 
 company or better clothes than he was formerly accustomed 
 to. There were a few rather objectionable characters (strong- 
 adherents of the party), in the shape of proprietors of lot- 
 tery offices and concert saloons ; and there was a heavy 
 detachment of rather dirty people " connected with the 
 press." 
 
 There were also scattered here and there a few profes- 
 sional persons of more breeding and culture than those 
 already described, and who therefore possessed less political 
 weight or influence, but whose presence Mrs. General 
 manoeuvred to secure, from a sagacious conviction that 
 something was needed to leaven the otherwise intolerable 
 mass. These gentry were content enough with the Von 
 Donk dinners and wines, and were willing to patronize 
 them on the tacit understanding that no social reciprocity 
 was expected or implied. Furthermore, there was a stray 
 Congressman very much bored — an attorney infamous as 
 being the tool of a well known city editor, and now con- 
 spicuous for being extremely mellow, and over-attentive to 
 such young women as he could get to listen to his uncouth 
 blandishments — Slymer in high feather, having his next 
 passage secured across the Atlantic as "Bearer of Des- 
 patches," for about the twentieth time — Sprigg in a new- 
 flowered waistcoat and a staring diamond pin (presented 
 by La Picaroni for those stunning " blows" in the Orier), 
 — McSwindle and Elias P. who came arm-in-arm, radiant 
 and mysterious with some new conspiracy — a large num- 
 ber of young men and women, lucky descendants of people 
 who had made preternatural fortunes in impossibly short 
 times and by processes altogether inscrutable — and, finally.
 
 302 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Eobert Eliot, fresh from his Southern Tour and surveying 
 the motley assemblage with great interest and curiosity. 
 
 General Von Donk was seated in a state of bland intoxi- 
 cation at the entrance between the back drawing-room and 
 the conservatory, pressing each new arrival to take cham- 
 pagne in the intervals of his political outpourings, and 
 invariably observing the courtesy of sharing with his guest 
 in the effervescing inspirer. Mrs. General, ablaze with 
 brocade and precious stones, was moving through the 
 rooms in stately curves, and dragging Eliot with her, 
 apparently for the purpose of introducing him to every 
 one they encountered ; but after enduring some two-score 
 of these inflictions whose object he was quite unable to 
 divine, her victim managed to extricate himself on pre- 
 tence of paying his respects to Miss Von Donk, who was in 
 turn trying to escape from McSwindle. Zerlina snapped 
 at her rescuer's arm with avidity, and the mutual saviors 
 wandered into the vicinage of the General, 
 
 " ' Taint no use talkin'," proclaimed that statesman, 
 " the only true salvation of the country lies in the Demo- 
 cratic Party, allers assomin' and retainin' the reins of 
 power. The hard-fisted Democracy, — them's the ones to 
 rule. Don't you look at it so, Mr. Eliot ?" 
 
 Eliot was really very much disposed to be candid ; and 
 he was on the point of being taken unawares, and making 
 reply that he feared those who spent all their time in hard- 
 ening their fists were unlikely to do much toward polish- 
 ing their brains ; but he remembered his surroundings and 
 took mean refuge in a discreeter common -place. 
 
 " Certainly, sir, the people are the basis of all power in 
 a free country." 
 
 '' You've ben a travellin', Mr. Eliot, you hev," continued 
 the General, pursuing his prey with implacable steadiness. 
 " I reckon this here's a rather taller kind of a country than 
 you expected — you've been astonished some, hain't you ?" 
 
 " Very much by the thrift and content of the people, by 
 the beauty of the scenery, and by the great resources of 
 the inner country," said Eliot, heartily.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 803 
 
 " Well, now, aiut it better to hev' a government like 
 our'n to bring about such blessin's than one like your rot- 
 ten old European concerns, grindin' down and oppressin' 
 of us ?" 
 
 " Why," replied Eliot, smiling, " the natural qualities 
 of your country, — such as its extent and productions, — 
 would be the same whatever form of government might 
 prevail. Democratic government in Europe would not 
 change its topography — would not increase the acres of 
 arable soil." 
 
 " It mightn't increase 'em," retorted the General with 
 great unction and the swelling elocution he employed when 
 he found himself on the eve of a triumphant point, " it 
 mightn't increase 'em ; but it would make them that 
 already exist, available. Why, sir, I understand that in 
 your country, small as it is, you've fifteen million acres 
 of tillable land lyin' uncultivated while thousands of your 
 poor are starvin !" 
 
 ''It's true that abuses exist," said Eliot, mildly, "but 
 the one you speak of is constantly undergoing modifica- 
 tions. No system is altogether perfect, and I for one don't 
 pretend that ours is an exception. Even your own, with 
 all its advantages, has drawbacks. There is much of our 
 soil uncultivated which might produce bread ; but that 
 which is tilled, remember, is tilled exclusively by freemen." 
 
 "The niggers is much better ofi" as they are," said the 
 General dogmatically, " they'd all be barbarous heathen, 
 clubbin' and eatin' each other, if we didn't hev' 'em here 
 for slaves, and if we sot 'em free, they'd relapse into bar- 
 barism and never do any work at all. They'd turn out 
 like them darkies o' j'-ourn in Jamaky." 
 
 Zerlina at this juncture had taste enough to shorten 
 the discussion by asking Eliot to go with her to the 
 library to see a picture or something of the kind, so 
 that the General was left in undisputed possession of 
 the field. 
 
 " I thought your papa was quite safe to win this elec- 
 tion," Eliot remarked as he passed up the grand staircase.
 
 304 daistgerfield's rest; or 
 
 " So he is," answered Zerlina — " at least everj^bodj says 
 so. But he's anxious to have a very large majority — what 
 Mr. Staggers calls an ' ovation,' and that's what they're all 
 working for now." 
 
 As they reached the landing, the band below struck up 
 a waltz, which stimulated Zerlina's desire to finish the task 
 she had undertaken and return to the drawing-rooms ; but 
 when they got to the door of the library — an apartment in 
 the rear of the mansion, projecting over the conservatory 
 — an impediment awaited her. 
 
 " La !" she cried, " the wind has put out the gas. I'll 
 find a servant, Mr. Eliot, and return directly." 
 
 Eliot would fain have postponed the suggested inspec- 
 tion, and remonstrated against Miss Von Donk's giving 
 herself trouble ; but she tripped away, leaving him to 
 grope into the library, and to find a seat on the opposlie 
 side from the door, between a window and a large book- 
 case. Presently a servant came in, and relighted one of 
 the jets of the chandelier, but Zerlina appeared to have 
 been detained by something — probably the making of en- 
 gagements for ensuing dances. As the attendant left the 
 room, the music ceased, and Eliot was conscious of voices 
 on the balcony, close beside him. 
 
 " Your month has nearly passed," said the peevish voice 
 of Gossamer Von Donk, " and we've heard nothing of the 
 breaking off of the marriage ; I think you must have 
 deceived yourself about its being so certain." 
 
 " I never deceive myself," responded a deep voice, which 
 Eliot instantly remembered to have heard before. ** A 
 thing may be practically accomplished without your direct- 
 ly hearing of it." 
 
 " Ah ! yes ; but I want to know. Business is business. 
 I can't count on things I don't absolutely know. Elias P. 
 said 'twould surely be as you promised." 
 
 " And so it will be. Listen : whatever cause there may 
 have been for delay, it will cease at any time I, myself, 
 choose to appear on the scene of action." 
 
 " Well, I wish you'd choose to appear soon then. The
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 305 
 
 truth is, I can't bear to wait for anything. It may be a 
 fault, but I never have, and I never can." 
 
 " You shan't have longer cause for complaint. I start 
 for The Rest to-morrow, and you will soon have good 
 news." 
 
 " All right. I can arrange money matters whenever 
 you're ready. The old man's been realizing heavily for 
 election purposes, and I can get what I like." • 
 
 " I may require it at very brief notice." 
 
 " Oh! a day will answer; Elias P. '11 fix that." 
 
 Whatever compunction Eliot may have had in listening 
 to this colloquy, it would certainly have been rather diffi- 
 cult to avoid it. The first and most interesting portion 
 had been rapidly spoken, and the noise of the band having 
 ceased, he saw that he could not rise to leave the room 
 without attracting the notice of the speakers. Just as he 
 determined on the propriety of taking that step, he was 
 spared further consideration by the return of Zerlina. 
 
 " So sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Eliot, but pa would 
 introduce me to that horrid Mr. Selvage of Dimity, Drill- 
 ing & Co., you know, importers of dry goods — wholesale, 
 of course." 
 
 Eliot rose instantly, as the young lady entered, and had 
 placed her arm in his almost before she spoke. As he 
 expected, there was an immediate reconnoissance from the 
 balcony ; but Gossamer, seeing his sister and the English- 
 man together, readily believed they had entered the room 
 in the same juxtaposition the instant before. He there- 
 fore, with a civil good evening, returned to his companion, 
 leaving Eliot to admire the " Claude " pointed out by Miss 
 Von Donk, and which, as she truly remarked, was a very   
 remarkable production. 
 
 " Who's that ?" whispered Kirkwood, as Gossamer re- 
 sumed the chair by his side. 
 
 "That Englishman, EHot; he's intimate at Uplands — 
 crossed the Atlantic with '.em," said Gossamer, rather unea- 
 sily. 
 
 " Do you think he heard ?"
 
 306 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " I think not. But if he did—" 
 
 " 'Twould be of no possible consequence. "We deal in 
 certainties, not in uncertainties." 
 
 Nevertheless, what he had heard was sufficient to induce 
 Eliot to determine to alter his previous plans, and to set 
 out for Uplands on the following morning. 
 
 " And what d'ye think of the chances ?" asked Sprigg 
 of Mr. Staggers, as they sat side by side at supper, in zea- 
 lous encounter with champagne and boned turkey. " What 
 d'ye think of the chances ?" 
 
 " Fust rate. The General's popular, he is. The people 
 understand him. That's the point. lie goes right in 
 among 'em — takes his cocktail and sling with 'em, and pays 
 for their'n," quoth Elias P., conscious that short sentences 
 are most favorable to rapid mastica,tion. 
 
 " Begorra, that's it," endorsed McSwindle, tossing off a 
 bumper of sparkling Moselle. " It's the thrue dimmichra- 
 tic principle to mingle and convarse, and take your whishkey 
 wid the people. Then they know you're not stuck up like, 
 and don't purtend to be better than they are thimselves." 
 
 " That's so," said Elias P. " Our folks don't want no high- 
 falutin idees in their rejjresentatives, 'bout knowing things 
 them that puts 'em in power don't know ; and if they keep 
 shut up in their houses, and don't mix with the voters, 
 how kin the voters know they're of the right stamp ?" 
 
 " Quite right," said Sprigg. " For men who are the ser- 
 vants of the people ought to try and please the people, and 
 do their work in the way which suits the people. Look at 
 our success ! The Press is the servant of the people, and 
 we write to please the people ; suppose we wrote to suit 
 such as are called the cultivated and the polished, how 
 many copies of the paper d'ye think we'd sell ?" 
 
 Mr. Slymer here expressed the conviction that no such 
 absurd contingency was at all likely to occur in the history 
 of the Critr. 
 
 " I should say not," said Sprigg, complacently. " Our 
 proud position is based on the popular appreciation of
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 307 
 
 sound business principles. We aim to please the greatest 
 number who buy the paper, as the General here aims to 
 please the greatest number who vote for Congressman," 
 
 " There aint no press," said Elias P. solemnly, " which 
 so truly elucidates the principles of our glorious Constitu- 
 tion. It goes for the greatest good of the greatest number 
 — 'specially of our foreign-born fellow-citizens ; — and ain't 
 that right? Of course it is. Why? 'Cause it ain't no 
 merit to be born on the soil — you couldn't help yourself — 
 but our foreign-born fellow-citizens come here from abroad 
 of their own accord, so showin' their higher appreciation of 
 our liberal institutions !" 
 
 " Hooray !" shouted McSwindle, enthusiastically, and 
 swallowing another brimmer of Moselle, 
 
 " Thus," continued EHas P. oratorically waving a turkey 
 bone; " thus, we see the surpassin' merits of our Univer- 
 sal Suffrage. The poor, the ignorant, and the oppressed 
 from all quarters of the globe kin come here and vote 
 to-morrow without troublin' themselves about all them 
 hair-splittin' distinctions which despots invents to blind 
 and oppress 'em to home. They kin vote for the Con- 
 stitution and the law, and they kin tax property to keep 
 their own representatives well paid for guardin' their inter- 
 ests in the country." 
 
 " And to kape down the nagur," supplied McSwindle. 
 " And to keep the nigger in the place which natur and 
 his gifts obviously intended him for," amended Elias P. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. General at the court end of the table 
 was apologizing to Eliot for the rathar miscellaneous cha- 
 racter of the assemblage. " You see we have to do what 
 all people are forced to," she remarked, " where a country 
 is blessed with a free government. All the citizens have 
 votes, and the lower orders must be conciliated as well as 
 the higher ones. You have the same thing in England, I 
 take it?" 
 
 " Why, to tell the truth, not precisely. I fear our House 
 of Commons would be something different from what it is 
 if the suffrage were absolutely universal. We have a pro
 
 308 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 perty qualification fixed at as low a point as we think con- 
 sistent with dignity and safety. Oar theory is that the 
 country will be most wisely governed if the rulers are 
 chosen by those who have a positive and direct interest in 
 its welfare." 
 
 " Ah, but your common people are so ground down by 
 long centuries of oppression, that you'd be afraid to trust 
 them with political power." 
 
 "We don't think it would be judicious," replied Eliot 
 courteously, not caring to discuss the ethics of the question. 
 
 " How is your friend Mr. Bojmton?" chirupped Violetta 
 Von Donk opportunely as Eliot looked around for relief. 
 
 " Thank you, well in health when I last saw him. lie 
 has gone South again." 
 
 " We heard he was desperately smitten with that Elinor 
 Grazebrook." 
 
 ''Indeed?" 
 
 '• Yes. Only think of that wicked girl having gone on 
 the Stage !" 
 
 " Gone on the Stage !" echoed Eliot with surprise. 
 
 " True. She's gone and turned play-actress !" 
 
 " Play-actress ! Oh my !" chorussed half-a-dozen young 
 ladies in a diapason of horror. 
 
 " Not from choice surely ?" 
 
 " Oh yes — she ran away from home, and came out just 
 for pure love of the thing. It's a comfort to think she 
 failed, though." 
 
 " Nonsense, Elinor," said Mrs. General reprovingly, 
 " Do be a little charitable. She lost her fortune some- 
 how, Mr. Ehot, and being a proud girl, thought she could 
 support herself by acting." 
 
 "Say what you like, mother," retorted Violetta in her 
 pertinacious squeal, "but no one in society ever thought 
 she'd come to a good end." 
 
 " May I ask why, Miss Van Donk ?" asked Eliot gravely. 
 
 " Oh," she answered simpering, "I couldn't exactly tell 
 you — but every one knows her father and mother were not 
 reputable, you know."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 809 
 
 "But I thought that, in this country at least, people 
 were valued or respected for themselves — not honored for 
 the merits of their predecessors or depreciated for their 
 failings." 
 
 " Oh yes — that is, as a general rule perhaps — but of 
 course not in society, you know." 
 
 "I see. Then in this respect, at least, you have no 
 advantage over the decrepid old countries of Europe." 
 
 "I fancy," laughed Slymer, "I fancy, Mr. Eliot, that social 
 observances in these matters are the same the world over." 
 
 " I'm by no means sure of that," answered the English- 
 man, " It may be prejudice, but I imagine more sympathy 
 and consideration would be extended in Europe to a per- 
 son really meritorious and accomplished who has suffered 
 such misfortunes, than what I now hear would lead one to 
 expect in America," 
 
 "He's a reg'lar prejudiced Britisher, he is," said Elias P. 
 soito voce to Slymer, " You'd orter 've heard the General 
 put him down a little while ago." 
 
 The conversation and festivity presently merged into 
 a melange of politics, wine, and flirtation, and Eliot took 
 his leave in the middle of a stump speech indulged in by 
 the General, wherein the favorite dogmas of his persuasion 
 were enforced in a manner which, to the stranger at least, 
 was more emphatic than conclusive. But it must be 
 acknowledged that Eliot's brain was busied with consider- 
 ing his discoveries of the evening, and in striving to trace 
 to a common cause the mischances present and to come 
 which had befallen and which threatened the friends in 
 whom he felt so warmly interested. Still, in what he 
 heard and saw that night the young Englishman found 
 food afterward for serious reflection. 
 
 The levelling tendency is the noxious sequent of a gene- 
 rous principle, which comes after democracy as pedantry 
 follows scholarship, or as avarice succeeds prudence. Its 
 aim is the opposite of that of its predecessor, for the one 
 would lift up all to the highest plane, the other would drag
 
 310 dangerfield's rest ; OR 
 
 down all to the lowest. This is the fatal excess, feared and 
 deprecated by the Fathers, fanned and stimulated by dema 
 gogues, predicted and rejoiced in by kings. It has grown 
 upon America year by year, lowering her standards, sapping 
 her strength, vulgarizing her society. It has grown, not 
 so much through inherent force, as through the tacit acqui- 
 escence of the people, who believe that a tyranny of few 
 over many is less just than a tyranny of many over few. 
 The intention has been good, but the mistake has consisted 
 in the assumption that to eschew the former evil implied 
 the acceptance of the latter. 
 
 The effects of this tendency are so degrading and so 
 manifest, that to-day, when the true Spirit of Progress is 
 becoming alive to their existence, and clamorous for their 
 correction, one marvels that they should have run riot so 
 long. The one of their number which is most conspicu- 
 ously injurious, — the evil to which we should, perhaps, 
 assign the credit of pre-eminence in mischief, — is what may 
 be termed The Worship of Mediocrity. 
 
 It is truly a singular state of society in which it becomes 
 prudent to avoid the reputation of uncommon wisdom or 
 uncommon virtue, — in which the statesman who assiduously 
 cultivates his intellect, must pay the penalty of subsequent 
 obscurity — in which it is almost a legitimate inference that 
 he who would rise in life, must systematically belittle his 
 understanding; — but has not sach a condition of things 
 existed among us ? 
 
 Have we not ostracized superior ability as the Athenians 
 did Aristides ? Americans every day complain of the 
 paucity of instances of acknowledged genius and brilliant 
 capacity among their public men. To such we would say 
 — children of Washington, of Jefferson, of Hamilton, have 
 you made Presidents of your Websters and Clays ? If not, 
 cease to murmur that no more Websters and Clays appear 
 among you. 
 
 If some enterprising person were to advertise a machine 
 for stunting intellectual development after the manner of 
 the hideous barbarians who flatten the skulls of their chil-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 311 
 
 dren-, it would excite a great deal of astonishment, — and 
 yet such an engine would be as labor-saving as many other 
 inventions whose advertisement excites no -astonishment 
 at all. 
 
 The tyranny of the many over the few is not more just 
 than that of the few over the many. On the contrary, 
 there is a lowering poison in the former system which may 
 ultimately do more harm than the latter. No masses of 
 people can participate in wrong, and escape personal degra- 
 dation because they act in large bodies. The soul of the 
 slaveholder is clouded and soiled by the " Institution" if 
 his slaves are ever so happy. The American character is 
 clouded and soiled to-day by the huge wrong of which it 
 has been guilty in worshipping mediocrity, and in permit- 
 ting a senseless and uncouth jealousy to do injustice to 
 merit. 
 
 It must be obvious now, to thousands who a few years ago 
 would have refused to listen to such a proposition, that the 
 evil in question is the legitimate product of placing political 
 power in the hands of the ignorant and the unthinking. It 
 follows that the evil would increase and has increased pre- 
 cisely in proportion to the increase of the classes indicated ; 
 — and that it will continue so to increase until a remedy be 
 applied. Moreover, the longer that remedy is delayed, the 
 more difficult will become its application : for the ignorant 
 and unthinking are not in the least degree more willing to 
 relinquish their hold on a power they have once wielded, 
 than kings and nobles are. A mob is not more ready to 
 abdicate than a dynasty. 
 
 "We hear it advanced in the way of explanation, that 
 there exists in the popular mind a vague apprehension that 
 shining talents are dangerous when intrusted with execu- 
 tive power. This is an apology which ignorance does not 
 deserve. It is unfounded in fact. Able men have been 
 kept out of high places from no such apprehension, but for 
 the simple reason that they were hated for their superi- 
 ority. The ignorant man likes to see his brother ignorant 
 man in the high places, and granting him the power, he is
 
 312 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 safe to put him there. It meets his views of the fitness 
 of things, and pampers his egotism by enlarging the field 
 of his own possible achievement. 
 
 It is asked, where is the remedy ? Can we be sure that 
 it will not be worse than the disease ? Alas ! the disorder 
 which takes years to culminate cannot be cured in a day. 
 But it is something that the intelligent and patriotic are at 
 last alive to its presence. It is something that the number 
 is daily on the increase who dare say, and say with a loud 
 voice, this gross Wrong, this despicable Corruption, is a 
 living, growing fact, and must be met, battled with, and, 
 by God's blessing, overcome. 
 
 We say dare^ and say it advisedly ; for not long gone it 
 was not so. The popular idea of Free Speech obtained 
 then — obtains too much now. The popular idea of Free 
 Speech is that of saying nothing which can offend the 
 lightest prejudice or taste of the lowest grade of your hear- 
 ers, and being as offensive and disgusting as you please, or 
 can be, to those of the highest. To infringe this was to be 
 persecuted and trampled upon by the lowest grade, always 
 heavily in the majority ; and to receive no manner of pro- 
 tection or encouragement from the highest grade, because 
 it never troubled itself with such matters. 
 
 We have reached an Epoch which promises better things, 
 albeit the battle may be long and arduous. An Epoch 
 wherein the genuine lover of Freedom and of Right may 
 protest against the wrongs of the many against the few, as 
 well as against those of the few against the many. An 
 Epoch when people cease to be satisfied with the mere 
 names of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, and begin ana- 
 lysing, testing, demonstrating, to discover how much they 
 possess and how much they lack of the real substances. 
 The Worship of Mediocrity is not likely to increase, as the 
 result of these investigations — these great strides forward 
 and upward. 
 
 Perhaps if Oliver Vernon ran for Congress against Gene- 
 ral Yon Donk in 1870, he might stand a better chance of 
 being elected.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 313 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE next day Eliot arrived at Uplands, and Kirkwood 
 returned to The Eest. The former lost no time after 
 his arrival in seeking an interview with Stephen Danger- 
 field, and relating what he had accidentally overheard of 
 the design apparently cherished by Kirkwood. " Depend 
 upon it," he concluded, " that man means mischief if he 
 can effect it. The longer I live, the greater is my confi- 
 dence in physiognomical signs, and I'm quite certain that 
 my first estimate of lago was a correct one." 
 
 Stephen sighed. He saw plainly that the reasons, what- 
 ever they might be, which induced his father to declare his 
 union with Grace to be impossible were known to Kirk- 
 "wood — were probably part and parcel of the mysterious 
 secret between them. He hesitated a little, and then, as 
 young men who trust each other's honor are prone to do, 
 he made a clean breast to Eliot of all he knew or had 
 learned from his father, both as regards this and other mat- 
 ters, since their arrival in the Assyria. He added an ac- 
 count of his earlier recollections of Kirkwood, and the 
 -strong aversion with which that person had inspired him. 
 Eliot listened gravely, and at the end did not affect to con- 
 ceal his concern. 
 
 " If your father alone had expressed himself thus," he 
 said, " it might be less serious. As you suggest, his mind 
 may be weakened, or he may exaggerate the obstacle, which 
 may by no means prove insuperable. But Kirkwood, also, 
 evidently regards the matter as quite a foregone conclusion. 
 In any case, if you permit me to advise, I should recom- 
 mend that you make a full and immediate statement of 
 the affair to Mr. Vernon. In the multitude of counsellors 
 there is, or should be, wisdom ; and, moreover, pardon me 
 if I say, that your duty also indicates such a course." 
 
 Stephen acknowledged the propriety of this, and ex- 
 plained his motives for previous reticence. It was finally 
 agreed that, as the enemy had made his appearance on the 
 
 14
 
 ?14 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 ground, he should at once impart his story to Yernon as a 
 preliminary to any future operations. Clearly Mr. Vernon 
 would have a right to complain if the fiict of Martin Dan- 
 gerfield's opposition to the match were to reach him through 
 any other lips than those of Stephen. In the afternoon, 
 therefore, the anxious lover took an opportunity of seeking 
 Yernon in his library, and of stating without reserve the 
 circumstances which weighed so heavily upon his heart. 
 The kind old man was both surprised and puzzled by the 
 narration, yet his words to Stephen were full of comfort. 
 
 " I can conceive," he said, " of no objections which your 
 father can entertain, unless indeed there may be such as 
 are suggested by pride in connexion with the impaired con- 
 dition of his fortune. The Dangerfields have ever been a 
 proud and sensitive race. He may perhaps entertain a 
 morbid dislike to acknowledging the state of his affairs, 
 and may cherish a conviction that such an acknowledgment 
 would entail an objection from myself to sanction your 
 union with Grace. Should he know what I now authorize 
 you to use your judgment in telling him — that such a con- 
 sideration would have no weight whatever on my part — 
 his views may be modified. I have no wish in the pre- 
 mises, save to assure my child's happiness. She is my only 
 one, and, in being my heiress, will be beyond the necessity 
 of weighing mere worldly concerns in her choice. As to 
 any machinations of Kirkwood, leave them to me. What- 
 ever may be his unfortunate power with your father, it 
 cannot avail with me ; and, indeed, I think I can manage 
 to thwart any evil design he may be concocting, let it be 
 levelled at whom it may." 
 
 And Stephen retired with renewed hope and courage, 
 and feeling strong, as he had a right to feel, in the sup^Dort 
 of so powerful an ally.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XLin. 
 
 ELINOR was not the Elinor she had been. The current 
 of her life ran on in its old irksome channel, but the 
 perspective no longer included the faery vista of hope, nor 
 were the banks bright and blooming as of old with the 
 flowers of promise. Yet William Radcliffe was wrong 
 when he charged her dejection to the account of her failure 
 in the great city, and Mrs. Maberly was wrong when she 
 attributed it to late hours and repeated fatigues. These, in 
 truth, were but the surface griefs which rather alleviated 
 than aggravated the deeper sorrow below. She could have 
 borne them bravely enough, and, as it was, she never mur- 
 mured. But her face grew paler and older, and her smile, 
 though always patient, was very sad. 
 
 Elinor had not really known the depths of her own 
 heart — had not known the strength of the passion that was 
 lurking there — until she had for the second time rejected 
 Cuthbert Boynton. Men are slow to credit how such 
 feelings can dwell in women's breasts, dormant to their 
 own as to every other perception, and yet be ineradicable. 
 Each man in his own case is accustomed to scan, to analyse, 
 to dissect every feeling — every passing emotion. He learns 
 its weight, its value — he measures its permanence, its 
 evanescence. His masculine nature does not shrink from 
 the task, however inquisitorial. Not so the woman. Her 
 more subtle and sensitive nature, though keener in all its 
 perceptives, hesitates far longer in the trying process of 
 self-examination. Because consequences in her case are 
 more momentous, she oftentimes instinctively covers up 
 instead of laying bare the causes which are to bring them 
 forth. Thus it is that women are often positively surprised 
 themselves when some unforeseen catastrophe unlocks the 
 inmost secrets of their souls, and thus will ruder and 
 coarser-minded men call that hypocrisy and dissimulation 
 which is, indeed, unconsciousness or the instinct of self- 
 protection. So it had been with Elinor when the tlepths Ind
 
 316 daxgerfield's rest; or 
 
 been stirred to the inmost by the explanation she had been 
 forced to enter upon. Before that, she could live on,- 
 absorbed in her chosen pursuit — absorbed in the discharge 
 of what she believed to be her duty — and suffer little but 
 what was included in the rough and ungenial attrition of 
 her daily life — but not so now. A part of herself was 
 gone out of her keeping, and no effort of resolution, no 
 invocation of the waters of oblivion could make her for- 
 get or call it back again. 
 
 Radcliffe and Mrs. Maberly were not the persons to 
 delve into another's secrets uninvited, and least of all into 
 those of such a nature as Elinor's ; but they watched her 
 growing sadness with affectionate solicitude, and strove in 
 their different ways to temper and assuage it. As to the 
 man, his own nature was changing and growing every day. 
 He had commenced to catch glimpses of that elysium which 
 is possible on earth to all of us — for the first time in his 
 worn and battered life; and he yearned to do good to 
 some one — to bring happiness to some one — during the 
 brief remainder that was left to him. He did more than 
 yearn — he did more than hope — for William Radcliffe had 
 been taught thus late what he had never practised in youth, 
 and nightly prayed that this sweet power might yet be 
 vouchsafed to him. 
 
 And the poor actor struggled on, bearing up more man- 
 fully than he had ever done uuder the toils and privations 
 of his lot — struggling day by day to make people happier 
 in little things who came within his humble orbit — and 
 gaining consolation for himself as time wore on, because he 
 saw in the future, clearer and clearer — as God sent that 
 events should fall out — that the aspirations and prayers of 
 his tardy repentance should not be altogether in vain.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 317 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 KIEKWOOD resumed his old life of easy indulgence, 
 which after the dangers and vicissitudes of earlier days, 
 he had found so very agreeable at Dangerfield's Rest. The 
 man was absolutely incorrigible in his habit of enjoying 
 the present. Even now when the most critical moments 
 in the development of his schemes appeared to be immi- 
 nent, he lost no particle of the zest wherewith he appre- 
 ciated the wines, the made dishes, the cigars and the siestas^ 
 the enjoyment of which had made up the sum of his 
 existence in the most placid ones. Yet, notwithstanding 
 his immense physique^ his iron nerves and his opaque 
 materialism, Kirkwood was possessed by certain presenti- 
 ments which were powerful enough to control his future 
 action when he came seriously to consider of it. A con- 
 viction was daily gaining strength in his mind, that his 
 tenure both of power and of safety in his present dwelling- 
 place was drawing to a close. It has been seen that he was 
 shaping his personal transactions with a view to sudden 
 departure at no great distance of time ; and that his main 
 object was to take with him as heavy a security against 
 future privation as possible; but, mingled with this pur- 
 pose, and scarcely inferior to it in the importance with 
 which his malignant nature invested it, was his design 
 of inflicting an overwhelming vengeance upon Stephen 
 Dangerfield. The undisguised contempt wherewith Stephen 
 had treated him naturally influenced a resentment which 
 was not likely to be readily appeased; but the personal 
 insult received at his hands was, to a man of Kirkwood's 
 stamp, not to be atoned save through a retaliation equally 
 ineffaceable. 
 
 He had hoped, as we have seen, by working upon the 
 pride and the terror of Martin Dangerfield, hopelessly 
 to encumber the estate his son had a right to receive intact. 
 Failing this — and repeated feilures had led him to the 
 reluctant conclusion that on this point the old. man was
 
 3iy dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 inflexible — he could at least undermine Stephen's hap- 
 piness by destroying his prospects of union with Grace 
 Vernon. To this end he had sought and found an instru- 
 ment in the infatuation of Gossamer Von Donk. At the 
 last moment, and when Stephen beheld his cup of joy at 
 his very lips, it should be dashed to the earth, while Kirk- 
 wood having plundered his rival to the utmost possible 
 extent, would suddenly vanish, leaving the other actors of 
 the complicated scene to arrange matters as best they 
 might. It will be observed that so craftily had the 
 conspirator managed his intrigues with the various parties 
 involved, that each would have a motive for concealing his 
 own part in the drama until concealment was no longer 
 possible. 
 
 Meanwhile, Stephen, who had formerly resolved not to 
 remain under the same roof with his pertinacious opponent, 
 found a reason to forego that resolution in the late intima- 
 tion of his projects, which had been discovered by Eliot. 
 It would not answer to abandon the field just when the 
 combat promised to begin. Ho must stand firm, watch the 
 enemy carefully, and be prepared to resist whenever that 
 enemy seemed on the point to strike. 
 
 As usual with him, Kirkwood affected towards Stephen 
 a manner of half-patronizing affability ; and, as usual, was 
 met by the latter with haughty distance. Yet, it must be 
 admitted that the younger man grew more apprehensive 
 from day to day of the potency of the force which the other 
 might be able to bring against him. Had Kirkwood in-' 
 dulged in threats, had his manner even betokened hostility, 
 Stephen would have known how to meet either the one or 
 the other. Neither, however, was apparent, but in their 
 place was exhibited a bland, self-assured confidence, which 
 was far more threatening and dangerous. There was not a 
 trace of doubt or insecurity — nothing but the easy air of a 
 player who knows he holds the winning cards, and only 
 bides his time to play them. Such was the account carried 
 by Stephen to his allies at Uplands, who, however, agreed 
 that it suggested nothing further than increased vigilance,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 319 
 
 and the adherence to his general policy, which was to watch 
 and wait. 
 
 Kirkwood, aware of the character of Stephen's explana- 
 tion with his. father, was simply observing what effect it 
 might produce upon his relations with the family at Up- 
 lands ; and when he saw that the young man's visits were 
 continued there as before, and that the common report of 
 the neighborhood brought no tidings of a rupture of the 
 well known engagement, he determined that his personal 
 interposition had become necessary. He was the more im- 
 pelled to this by impatient letters, which became frequent 
 from Gossamer Yon Donk, and from his conviction that 
 little more could be extorted from Martin Dangeriield, who 
 now seemed to be sinking into a state of lethargy. Once 
 or twice, too, he encountered the lovers, who pursued their 
 favorite habit of taking long rides among the hills, and his 
 animosity was kindled afresh by witnessing such evidences 
 of mutual confidence and unabated affection. 
 
 " Do you know," he said to Martin Dangerfield one 
 evening, " do you know that the engagement still remains 
 unbroken between your son and Vernon's daughter ?" 
 
 " Stephen knows it cannot be," replied the old man, fee- 
 bly. " I told him it could not be." 
 
 " Then he thinks you in your dotage, or sets you at defi- 
 ance, for he pursues his course despite of you." 
 
 " He takes a little time to break the matter, perhaps. 
 Poor boy, he is very fond of her." 
 
 "But hang it, man, don't you see the fools are on the 
 brink of a precipice — the next thing will be a sudden mar- 
 riage — what shall you do then ?" 
 
 " It must not be ; it must be prevented." 
 . "Ay! but how? Your son is not a child; what pre- 
 vents if the girl and her father agree ?" 
 
 " He cannoV 
 
 " Obviously he does — otherwise Stephen would not be 
 received at the house. Look you, Yernon must be led to 
 believe that your estate is impaired — that you are ruined, 
 in short — then, and then only, he will break off the match."
 
 820 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " He divined that to be the cause of mj opposition ; 
 Stephen told me as much." 
 
 " And he still consents ?" 
 
 " He still consents." 
 
 " Well," continued Kirkwood impatiently, "what do you 
 mean to do '/" 
 
 " I had hoped to make Stephen withdraw." 
 
 " But you see he does not — will not. Things are going 
 to the last extremity. What then? Do you propose to 
 tell—" 
 
 "No," said Dangerfield with a shudder; "I can't do 
 that." 
 
 " Some one must — shall I ?" 
 
 " Never ! would you be so base, so dastardly ? Eemem- 
 ber you have promised — sworn! You are la villain, Kirk- 
 wood ; but you're not — you cannot be — so black as that !" 
 
 " Perhaps, then, you'll be kind enough to show me the 
 alternative?" 
 
 " I'll think — think and determine," said the old man, 
 wearily. " To-morrow — in a few days, at the furthest. 
 For God's sake, now, leave me in peace." 
 
 Kirkwood withdrew grumbling, yet not really dissatis- 
 fied with the conversation. lie had discovered exactly how 
 the land lay. lie had discovered, too, that there was no 
 more time to lose. 
 
 " It is clear," he muttered to himself, as he lighted his 
 last cigar before retiring for the night, " it is clear that this 
 placer is tolerably well drained. It is also clear that, to 
 wind up affiiirs, the shortest and easiest course is the best."
 
 "S 
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 821 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 you like the country," asked Oliver Vernon of his 
 English visitor, as they sat at breakfast one breezy 
 
 summers morning. 
 
 " Better than from all accounts I expected to like it. — 
 The tourists are almost uniformly unjust, but more fre- 
 quently unreasonable. It appears to me that most of the 
 ill blood which exists between England and America arises 
 from the persistent refusal of writers to see or to under- 
 stand that different social and physical conditions produce 
 different characters and manners without either merit or de- 
 merit of the people thus passively acted upon." 
 
 " You would infer, no doubt, that a given number of 
 Englishmen transferred to-day to an entirely new country 
 would become, in the same time, very much what Ameri- 
 cans have become — achieve very much what Americans 
 have achieved ?" 
 
 " Precisely. There would be the same literature, the 
 same religion, the same laws, all enjoyed by the same race, 
 but subjected to other than home influences and conditions. 
 I regard the changes that would be effected ns inevitable, 
 and scarcely the proper subjects for either censure or praise. 
 But our stay-at-home countrymen, compact,' insular, and 
 prej udiced, insist on the latter view and ignore the former ; 
 while the returned emigrant or his descendants invariably 
 condemn most harshly those things which are equally 
 inevitable at home." 
 
 " So that, after all, we come back to the universal panaceas 
 — education and toleration. I quite agree with your the- 
 ory, and find it illustrated with even less than a century's 
 alienation, and without the bitterness engendered by forci- 
 ble separation. Most Englishmen dislike Canadians and 
 Australians in the same way, and for the same cause : and 
 most of the colonists unhappily return the compliment." 
 
 " You must write a book, Mr. Eliot," laughed Grace, "and 
 set your naughty countrymen right. But I think you gen- 
 
 14*
 
 322 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 tiemen leave one important item out of the account, whicli 
 is that so many of the immigrants — who come in such 
 myriads in this age of steam — consider themselves to have 
 been badly treated at home, and persuade the old settlers, 
 — whom time and prosperity would lead to ignore such 
 grounds for animosity, — to share in their own." 
 
 " That, of course, has its weight," remarked Vernon, 
 " and the more with ourselves that so many of the new 
 comers emigrate from a land which has had genuine cause 
 of complaint." 
 
 " I must, however, omit Slavery in my category of tole- 
 ration," pursued Eliot, " for however originated, and how- 
 ever lucrative, I cannot believe but that, with the educa- 
 tion of your masses, Englishmen w^ould ere this have 
 abandoned, or at least ameliorated its worst features." 
 
 " A just prejudice," said Vernon, with a sigh. " Yet, our 
 truculent cotton lords assure us that, in the event of the 
 rupture they sometimes threaten, Great Britain would be 
 found on their side in the struggle." 
 
 " I can never believe my country would be so base," 
 cried Eliot, warmly. " Some there are, of course, whose 
 trading propensity would stoop to anything to make a 
 profit or to damage a rival ; but the nation at large, 
 never !" 
 
 " Let us hope there may be no opportunity for the 
 test." 
 
 " Amen, with all my heart. Sooner or later the system 
 must go down ; yet I fear the longer the delay, the more 
 difficult will be the remedy, and the more tremendous the 
 catastrophe." 
 
 " Apropos," said Grace, " what did you think of the 
 plantation of your friend Mr. Boynton ?" 
 
 " That it contrasted most favorably with many others. 
 Yet, it is true, so far as I could judge, that the average 
 condition of the blacks, in a physical sense, is better than 
 is commonly supposed. It was very painful, however, 
 to see a man of his fine mind and generous nature helping 
 to uphold, and sharing in the benefits of, human bondage."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 323 
 
 " You had mucli discussion on the subject ?" 
 
 "A great deal — of course between ourselves. Free 
 speech, you know, is scarcely safe down there, especially 
 if indulged in by a ' prejudiced Britisher.' " 
 
 " Do you know," said Grace, " that I do not believe 
 Cuthbert Boynton will die a slaveholder?" 
 
 " I trust a great many now living may not," said Eliot, 
 smiling ; "but why in his case?" 
 
 " Oh ! you know a woman has the privilege of guessing 
 — more especially a Yankee woman — and I have a presenti- 
 ment that he'll not." 
 
 Eliot shook his head. 
 
 " I should be glad to think that the arguments of others 
 would impress him more than my own. He does not be- 
 lie s^e Slavery to be a good, but he is convinced that it 
 must now be regarded as an absolutely necessary evil." 
 
 " People change their opinions ; he may not always 
 regard it as necessary to Am." 
 
 " He could certainly live without it. He has some pro- 
 perty in stocks and real estate, I believe, not dependent on 
 Slavery." 
 
 " Well, when papa and I get hold of him again, we mean 
 to convert him." 
 
 " A formidable alliance, truly ; and I sincerely wish it 
 
 success." 
 
 The conversation naturally turned upon Elinor, her trials 
 and misfortunes, and the train of events which had led to 
 the adoption of her present profession. •* Eliot was per- 
 suaded that there had been foul play, and that there was a 
 mystery to be solved which would not only result in the 
 recovery of her little patrimony, but also in clearing up 
 the cloud which had so long hovered over the household &t 
 Dangerfield's Eest. Grace — warm-hearted girl — avowed 
 thr.t she would long ago have followed Elinor, and forced 
 her return home, but for the restraining prudence of her 
 father. The latter had been in correspondence with Mrs. 
 Maberly, and agreed with her that it was wiser to permit 
 the disease to run its course.
 
 324 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 "^I never intended," said Vernon, "to allo-w Elinor to 
 lose her little fortune ; but she is so sensitive and high- 
 strung 'twill be a very delicate matter to arrange." 
 
 Here Stephen Dangerfield bounded into the room, in a 
 style which quite set decorum at defiance, and with his old 
 joyous expression lighting up his handsome face. 
 
 " Have you seen the Grier this morning?" he demanded, 
 addressing the assemblage collectively. 
 
 " Gracious ! No, Stephen," replied Grace, " we never see 
 it. But why ?" 
 
 "See that!" exclaimed the intruder, handing the paper 
 to Vernon, alid pointing out a paragraph. 
 
 "Can it be possible?" cried Vernon in astonishment, as 
 his eye ran over the lines ; " why, Eliot, look there !" 
 
 " "What is it, pray ?" demanded Grace, " how tiresome 
 you all are I Do read it aloud, Mr. Eliot." 
 
 " Surely, Miss Vernon," said that gentleman, " surely 
 you must be a witch ! Listen and judge." And he read 
 aloud as follows : — 
 
 "supposed case of insanity. 
 " Cuthbert Boynton, Esq., a well known and hitherto 
 
 highly respectable planter of county, Alabama, has 
 
 just issued papers of Emancipation to all the slaves of his 
 estates. The unhappy gentleman is believed to have been 
 rendered crazy through the arts and machinations of the 
 infernal Abolitionists, as he had lately returned from a 
 visit to the North," etc., etc., etc. 
 
 Here followed a withering denunciation of Northern 
 Fanatics, who were represented as being engaged in a wide- 
 spread conspiracy to break up social order at the South, 
 and the article wound up by demanding the arrest and 
 punishment of the editor of a rival newspaper, who was 
 declared to have personally brought about by some myste- 
 rious means the last and crowning atrocity which had been 
 described. 
 
 A general exclamation of delight followed this perora- 
 tion, which Eliot delivered in a highly declamatory stjde.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 825 
 
 " Oh ! how happy this makes me !" murmured Grace, 
 with her blue eyes quite filling with tears. 
 
 " Boynton's a regular trump, after all," cried Stephen, 
 all forgetful of his own cares in admiration of the heroism 
 of his friend. 
 
 " Truly surprising," said Eliot. " I can scarcely believe 
 my eyes — what a noble action !" 
 
 " What a triumph of Principle !" cried Oliver Yernon, 
 wiping his spectacles, and preparing to read the article over 
 again. 
 
 " Nay, papa," said Grace softly, and kissing his noble 
 brow ; " what a triumph of Love /" 
 
 CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 ON the following morning the gentlemen of the party 
 set forth for a ten -mile drive to the neighboring town 
 of Cranberry Centre. General Yon Donk was stumping 
 the county, and was to speak at that place to-day, on the 
 condition of the country in general and on that of his Con- 
 gressional prospects in particular. Yernon had yielded to 
 the solicitations of a local committee of his party and would 
 also " express his sentiments" in behalf of the opposite 
 
 side. 
 
 " You'll hear a good deal of ' buncombe,' as we call it," 
 he said, laughingly, to Eliot, " and it won't be all on one 
 side either. — The truth is, our people have run into such 
 inveterate habits of hyperbole that to speak to them plainly 
 without metaphor or exaggeration is to run great risk of 
 being voted a bore. Their palates are too sophisticated with 
 stimulants to fancy simple cookery. However, there is 
 really improvement in this as in many peculiarities for- 
 merly rather sharply emphasised. It would be hard to 
 find many Jefferson Bricks or Goliah Gongs nowadays ; — 
 at any rate east of the Alleghanies."
 
 326 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Eliot thought of these remarks later in the day and after 
 hearing the observations of General Von Donk ; and it 
 must be confessed he marvelled very much what the state 
 of affairs could have been in such matters before the days 
 of improvement set in. 
 
 When our friends drove into Cranberry Centre, the little 
 town was overrunning witli strangers, heated, fussy, and 
 tumultuous. There were banners and drums and fifes, and 
 stars and stripes, and clouds of dust and crowds of dele- 
 gates, messengers and boj^s tumbling over each other in 
 mad haste and confusion. The long sheds by the Churches* 
 and "meeting-houses" were packed full of vehicles of every 
 conceivable shape and hue ; and all the taverns and bar- 
 rooms were besieged by impatient crowds who kept surg- 
 ing back and forth, alternating between their attractions 
 and those of the halls where the "speaking" was pro- 
 gressing. 
 
 As Vernon's carriage drew up before the door of the 
 principal hotel, its occupants could test for themselves that 
 the Von Donk party were hard at work in Acropolis Hall, 
 opposite ; for a voice was heard through the long, open win- 
 dows of that edifice, strained to the utmost pitch of vocife- 
 ration, but which the party had no difficulty in recognising 
 as that of the doughty General himself It was now past 
 twelve, and Vernon was to speak at one o'clock at The 
 Parthenon. 
 
 Amid the roars and screams which continually interrupt- 
 ed and rewarded the impatient orator hard by, Vernon was 
 recognised and taken possession of by the attendant commit- 
 tee of his own following, and the two younger men strolled 
 across to Acropolis Hall. The room was stiflingly hot, 
 densely crowded, and not altogether inoffensive in other 
 respects, but the new comers managed to get near a window 
 where they breathed in comparative comfort. Nature had 
 forced General Von Donk to moderate the energy of his 
 declamation, and he was just getting to that point where 
 orators of his stamp, finding their voices begin to fliil, affiict 
 to be contrastedly impressive. He was supported on
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, j 827 
 
 either hand by sympathizing admirers, conspicuous among 
 whom were Mr. McSwindle and Elias P. Staggers. After 
 the entrance of Stephen and Eliot, the scene proceeded 
 somewhat as follows : — 
 The General, solemnly. 
 
 " The right of suffrage which you will soon be called 
 upon to exercise is the proudest privilege of freemen. It 
 enables you to place in the national councils — not rich men 
 because they have so many houses and lands, not college- 
 bred men because they have so much unnecessary learning 
 — but men after your own hearts — men from among your- 
 selves, men of the hard-fisted democracy, who are sure to 
 see that your interests don't suffer, for the good reason 
 that your interests are identical with their own. 
 
 "Now, as to the great points at issoo in this coming 
 election, some of you think a great deal, and some not so 
 much, and some of our adopted feller-citizens may not 
 have had time to think at all. And this reflection leads to 
 the thought — and my heart swells with pride as I utter it — 
 that the principles of our great party are universal and 
 elastic enough to cover and meet the requirements of each 
 of these classes — petticularly the latter. It ain't necessary 
 for the working- man on his coming among us, to puzzle 
 his brains and waste his time in hair-splitting distinctions ; 
 all he's got to do is to vote the demercratic ticket to be sure 
 he's on the right side. 
 
 " I'll tell you why. Because voting for the demercratic 
 , ticket is voting for high wages and cheap food, and for 
 upholding the Constitution and the Laws. Because it's 
 voting on the side which supports the Sovereignties of the 
 States, and protects the rights of our Southern feller- 
 citizens in their slaves, against the encroachments of the 
 fanatical Abolitionists who are the worst enemies of the 
 workina; man. For if the Abolitionists could have their 
 way, it's easy to see the blacks would swarm into the North 
 like locusts, bringing down the price of labor and forcing 
 up the price of food until things got as bad as they are in
 
 828 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 the rotten old eountries of Europe where the laborer is ten 
 times wuss off than the Southern Slaves. 
 
 "Feller citizens,, the independent Sovereignties of the 
 States and the institootion of Slavery are inseparably con- 
 ected — and the demercratic party taking its stand firmly on 
 the Constitution, is for defending in their integrity the 
 Sovereignties and the institootions which the Constitution 
 provides are to remain unimpaired." 
 
 A Voice. — " Neither the word ' Sovereignty' nor ' Slavery' 
 are mentioned in the Constitution at all."* 
 
 The General. — " Ah, it is objected that two particular 
 words do not happen to be used to express a meaning 
 which was no less clearly intended. The democracy doesn't 
 stoop to chop logic, or to enter into them hair-splitting dis- 
 tinctions I was speaking of. It goes by the spirit and not 
 the letter. The poor man would fare badly indeed if he 
 had to abide by the strained and crooked constructions of 
 radicals and sophists. {Cheers.) The gentleman is prober- 
 ly a Black Kepublican — (Hisses) or a nigger-worshipper 
 — {Boars of execration) in favor, no doubt, of amalgama- 
 tion, and setting up the black man over the white ! ( Yelb 
 of "Put him out," " Lind him a wipe in the shkull," 
 "Shtomp on the baste," etc., amid which the offender pru- 
 dently withdraws.) 
 
 Elias P. — {With great enthusiasm.) "Three cheers for 
 General Von Donk !" 
 
 {Three tremendous cheers^ followed hy an indescribable sound 
 ivhich Eliot is informed by a bystander is a '■'■ tiger.'''') 
 
 The General — {after bowing his appreciation.) " Feller, 
 citizens, it is your duty and mine, both by day and" by 
 
 * * * * " 111 that Constitution the word 'Slavery,' or 'Slave,' is 
 not to be found. There are, indeed, the words ' persons bound to labor,' 
 but it is not said how bound. And a constitutional lawyer or judge con 
 struing the Amerieau Constitution witii a reference to tlio Declaration of 
 Independence which is its basis, would not hesitate to decide that ' bound to 
 labor' ought, in a court of justice, to mean 'bound by contract to labor;' 
 and should not be held to imply 'forced or compelled to labor,' in the 
 absence of all contract, and for the exclusive benefit of others." — Daniel 
 0'C0NNEL^ Oct. II, 1843.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 329 
 
 night in all times and in all places to crush out the Aboli- 
 tionists ! Like the fabled Upas they blacken and destroy 
 all who come within their pernicious influence. As that 
 eminent and high-toned gentleman, my friend the Editor of 
 the Orier says, they are, to a man, robbers and cut-throats, 
 and are, moreover, in league with the devil; and who 
 is better able to judge of such qualities and associations 
 than he? Nothing is more easy to see than that those 
 who would commence by robbing our Southern brethren 
 of their rights and privileges, would, if they had the 
 power, end by despoiling ourselves in the same manner. 
 The learned and witty orator who preceded me — the silver- 
 tongued O'Blarney — he who told you that 
 
 " You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses wOl cling round it still" — 
 
 and that 
 
 "Man the hermit sighed — till woman smiled," 
 
 among other equally felicitous and apposite reasons for 
 voting the demercratic ticket — has directed your attention 
 to the great fact that the Bible clearly announces and 
 endorses the servitude of the inferior to the superior race, 
 and are not you, my noble and enlightened fellow-citizens, 
 clearly superior to the sooty Ethiopian ? {Assenting mur- 
 murs of "That's so," and "Aint we thin?") Yes, my 
 friends, it is your proud destiny to be the master race of 
 this continent, and is it not then your manifest duty to put 
 down and crush the radicals and atheists who are not only 
 your enemies, but who, by flying in the face of Providence, 
 prove themselves the enemies of your religion ? 
 
 " Thus you have every motive of patriotism, dooty, 
 interest and religion to strain every nerve to put down the 
 pestilent faction which is opposed to each and all. In 
 your hands rests the future of this great country — the 
 greatest, the freeest, and most magnificent which has 
 existed since the beginning of time. On you devolves the 
 splendid task of governing and controlling, through your 
 representatives, this youthful giant whom your enlighten-
 
 330 dangerfield's rest; oh 
 
 mcnt and the purity of your principles so admirably 
 qualify you to direct and to rule ! And when he lays his 
 potent grasp on the shores of either ocean — when he 
 stretches his colossal extremities to compass either pole — 
 when the proud bird which is his emblem screams with 
 appreciative joy at this tremendous evidence of his expan- 
 sive capacities — then will it be your glory and your pride 
 that through your own wisdom and virtue these wonderful 
 results have been achieved !" 
 
 {Roars of applause, shouts of " Hurrah yer soul " a7id 
 "Kape down the naygur," and much congratulation of the 
 General, interrupted hy the striking up of the hand, to ivhose 
 inspiring strains Rohert Elix)t and Slep)hen Dangerfield heat a 
 retreat.) 
 
 As they reached the street, they found another crowd 
 pouring in a direction Stephen knew to be that of the Par- 
 thenon, the building wherein Yernon was to address his 
 political friends and adherents. Now, although such a 
 distinction may appear to be invidious, it is certainly true 
 that the audience the two friends found assembled in the 
 Parthenon was less objectionable in various respects than 
 that they had left behind at the Acropolis. That it was 
 superior, necessarily, in a moral point of view, wo will not 
 venture to affirm ; but that the Parthenon soared above the 
 Acropolis in respect of cleanliness and relative innocence 
 of the odor of strong drink, may confidently be put upon 
 record. It is only candid to add that, so far as numbers 
 are concerned, the advantage of the latter assemblage was 
 equally incontestable. Yernon had commenced his address 
 when Stephen and Eliot entered the hall. After passing 
 over various matters of local interests wherein the two par- 
 ties were at issue, the speaker went on to say : — 
 
 " My friends, we affirm that men are nothing, and that 
 principles are ever3'thing. It makes very little diffi^rence 
 whether I as an individual am elected to represent you in 
 this district. But it makes a very great difference whether 
 the principles of which I am the mere temporary mouth-
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 331 
 
 piece, or exponent, are disseminated and discussed among 
 you with the view to their subsequent demonstration and 
 final acceptance. You may ask why attempt to dissemi- 
 nate or discuss principles which, whatever their merits, are 
 not agreeable to the majority of the district. I answer 
 that only by this discussion and this dissemination can 
 those merits be properly weighed, understood, and appreci- 
 ated. The process is a part of education, and the further 
 it goes the more will the people become educated. Some 
 of you doubt this. You do not credit that the mere adver- 
 tising of certain political principles constitutes any definite 
 portion of enlightenment. Think a little. Is it not noto- 
 rious that the hold of the leaders of the opposite party is 
 strong in exact proportion to the ignorance or the immoral- 
 ity of their supporters ? When immigrants come here from 
 foreign parts, where there are no free schools — no means 
 for popular education — are not those leaders justly confi- 
 dent that in those new-comers they will secure exactly so 
 many fresh voters ? When immigrants hail from those 
 parts of Europe which are blessed with some approxima- 
 tion to our own educational system, are not those leaders 
 equally certain that, in a parallel ratio, they are to meet 
 just so many fresh opponents ? In those parts of our great 
 metropolis where dissoluteness, ignorance, crime, most 
 abound, do not those leaders find their greatest power, 
 achieve their heaviest majorities? In those parts of our 
 State where morality, culture, order, most prevail, do not 
 those leaders find their greatest weakness, suffer their most 
 disastrous defeats? Tell me what this means if it does not 
 mean — with those notable and reasonable exceptions from 
 which no great issue is free — that one party is identified 
 with education and enlightenment, and the other with igno- 
 rance and darkness ? 
 
 "My friends, every man of you has high responsibilities 
 as husband, or son, or father ; but a nation has higher 
 duties than even the collective domestic ones of its chil- 
 dren ; and this nation has, before Heaven, loftier obligations 
 than any on which the sun has ever shone. Why ? Be-
 
 332 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 cause those obligations are comprehensive and cosmopolitan 
 to an extent which has hitherto been unprecedented in 
 history. The obligations of other nations have been compa- 
 ratively circumscribed and isolated in their character ; refer- 
 ring almost exclusively to the welfare of their own citizens 
 or subjects. But yours are larger and grander, because 
 they involve the welfare present and future of the whole 
 world. Not only on account of the fractions of other peo- 
 ples you yearly absorb into your own body politic, but 
 because of the moral effect of your course upon the pro- 
 gress and happiness of the fractions which remain behind. 
 This is the great reason why, whereas other nations have 
 shaped their policy — more or less justifiabl}^ — in accord- 
 ance with the dictates of mere selfish expediency, you are 
 called upon to mould your own in accordance with those 
 of absolute justice and unqualified Right. 
 
 " America is strong enough to do right. It is not only 
 the price which she is commanded to pay for her present 
 greatness, but it is the absolute condition of her future ex- 
 istence. Depend upon it, this is the paramount difference 
 between political parties, which have arisen, or which may 
 hereafter arise in our country. By whatever names they 
 may be known, by whatever minor differences they may 
 be obscured or distinguished, the main issue will be be- 
 tween the advocates of Right on the one hand, and of 
 Expediency on the other. The Right will be eternal, self- 
 asserting, and self-protecting, and therefore consistent with 
 the national perpetuity. The Expediency will be tempo- 
 rary, short-sighted, and short-lived, and therefore tend to, or 
 be in sympathy with, national disintegration. The latter will 
 denounce the former as Utopian, because there are no his- 
 torical precedents to show that a nation can do right and 
 live; but the former will reply that conditions exist which 
 never existed before, and that the time has arrived when 
 the Golden Rule may be expanded from its application to 
 the conduct of a man, so as to extend in its noble scope to 
 the conduct of a People. 
 
 " ' Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 833 
 
 do ye also unto them.' Behold the plain maxim as appli- 
 cable to politics as to the moralities of daily life. Dema- 
 gogues may strive to delude and to confuse ; they may 
 insist on this reading of the Constitution, or upon that 
 principle of commercial economy ; but the simplest and 
 least penetrating intellect, earnest for truth and ever apply- 
 ing that maxim, need neither be bewildered nor deceived. 
 That simple phrase is the true genius — the vitalizing spirit 
 of our national existence. It is incompatible with the 
 oppression of any race of men, whatever may be their lan- 
 guage or their color. America cannot permanently remain 
 an asylum for some and a prison for others. If she has 
 been so prostituted, or ever is so prostituted, the Avenger 
 may come slowly, but he will surely come at last. If, as 
 the heritage of less enlightened days — as a consequence of 
 action taken before our own time (and "for which the present 
 generation is not therefore directly culpable), such an evil 
 prevails, it is the absolute duty of every true American to 
 apply the Golden Eule, and to labor calmly, dispassionate- 
 ly, mildly, for that evil's just and peaceable abatement. 
 All the sophistry on earth cannot weaken the force of this 
 injunction. All the cunning and jugglery of interested 
 selfishness cannot destroy its immortal potency. 
 
 " Enlightenment and justice are fighting the battle 
 against darkness and wrong ; and the latter knowing their 
 intrinsic feebleness, to-day seek to re-enforce themselves with 
 the poor benighted exiles, who seek plenty and happiness 
 on our shores — to-morrow may perhaps invoke the aid of 
 the hoary nations which have cast those exiles forth, and 
 who may gladly assist in destroying the young giant which 
 protects them. The contest is waxing more violent and 
 more bitter. For me, I have hoped, and prayed, and 
 trusted that it might be a bloodless one. But even now 
 the clash of strife comes to our ears from the far Western 
 Prairie ; even now the blare of that trumpet is heard which 
 may summon a whole continent to arms. If so — which 
 Heaven forbid — I cannot think of the result as doubtful, 
 but it may be bought at the expense of torrents of blood
 
 334 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 and mountains of sorrow. How shall we prevent sucli a 
 catastrophe ? 
 
 " Shall it not be -by rallying with such numbers and 
 with such enthusiasm to the standards of Truth and Right 
 that tlie partisans of Falsehood and Wrong will not dare 
 to measure strength with us, but will shrink back appalled 
 from the conflict? I know of no other means — certainly 
 no better ones, for they would leave us the option of ac- 
 complishing by mild and equable adjustments what other- 
 wise we may be driven to compel by harsh and violent 
 ones. Hence it becomes us to point out, so far as in us 
 lies, where those standards arc. To take in all the light we 
 can, not for our own selfish use alone, but, like the stars, to 
 transmit it for the glory and illumination of all who come 
 within our spheres. This it becomes all of us to do ; and 
 this is my excuse for coming before you as a candidate for 
 a district which at this time there is such slender hope of 
 my representing. 
 
 "And whatever happens, my friends — for we live in days 
 when the air is filled with portentous whispers, and the 
 earth trembles with foreboding mutterings — whatever hap- 
 pens, despite the threats of faction, and the prejudices of 
 races, I cannot believe that God has raised up this beauti- 
 ful land to such a pitch of grandeur and of happiness to 
 hurl it down so soon in dissolution and decay. I believe 
 that it depends on ourselves that it shall not be ; that it 
 depends on ourselves whether fifty years hence shall find 
 us a free, happy, and united nation of a hundred million 
 souls ; or whether the enemies of freedom throughout the 
 world shall hail with rapture a long night of despotism, 
 when, through the sinking of the Great Republic, the sun 
 of its liberty shall have been extinguished for ever."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 335 
 
 CHAPTEE XLYII. 
 
 « 
 
 iiTTTITH all your material prosperity," said Eobert 
 
 VV Eliot, as they sat after dinner on the piazza look- 
 ing forth on the glittering line of the distant sea, " with all 
 your, material prosperity and the vast service you have 
 rendered to the cause of labor, it appears to me that the 
 social tone is very much lowered in America by the absence 
 of an hereditary aristocracy." 
 
 " A natural estimate," returned Vernon, " and one not 
 easy to dispute. For although in the golden age of our 
 political system, — that when Washington, Hamilton, and 
 Jay led the Federal Party, and Jefferson, Monroe, and Burr 
 headed the opposition — our social standards, the reflex and 
 complement of public ones, would compare favorably with , 
 any in the world for dignity and polish, yet it must be 
 remembered, that the nation was fresh from the habits and 
 traditions of the parent land, and that those standards 
 have deteriorated in proportion to the lapse of years ever 
 since." 
 
 " I observe," pursued Eliot, " that most Americans 
 whom I meet, seem unable or unwilling to perceive that 
 distinction or reverence confers reciprocal advantages. 
 They would seem to insist that to set a man above his 
 fellows, for whatever reason, is only to do him good and 
 no one else, and that therefore such a practice is to be 
 discountenanced. The notion that self-respect or whole- 
 some ambition is stimulated, or that society is dignified and 
 elevated by a scheme of artificial distinctions, appears to be 
 quite unknown." 
 
 " Irreverence is, indeed, one of our besetting sins, and 
 it will so continue until the trade of politics ceases to be 
 disreputable. "We must abandon the monstrous folly of 
 electing judges, restrict our suffrage to rational and health- 
 ful limits, increase facilities for free education, and, above 
 all, cease to encourage, by office or preferment, vulgar, 
 illiterate, and unprincipled men."
 
 336 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 " But will your populace submit to, or accept such 
 sweeping innovations ?" 
 
 " Far more readilj than Europeans suppose. That is the 
 advantage we hope to gain through our plan of universal 
 education. Your American bred in the common schools, 
 is eminently practical : and when he once understands that 
 his condition will be the better for such innovations, he 
 will find means to bring them about. In Europe, such 
 things would cost revolutions ; but here we hope to make 
 knowledge take their place." 
 
 " It would certainly be no more than fair," said Eliot, 
 laughing, "since, as appears to be the case, the intellect 
 and education of the nation have been willing, as a pro- 
 tracted experiment, to be governed by its rabble — it were no 
 more than fair, that the latter should be willing for a while 
 to change places, and be governed in turn." 
 
 " They may be obliged anon, whether they will or no. 
 The abuses which have existed, must, in the nature of 
 things, accumulate to an intolerable climax, and self-preser- 
 vation will compel their correction." 
 
 " And yet," said Eliot, " immigration is on such a vast 
 and increasing scale, that mere numbers may prevent 
 wholesome reform which they think may deprive them 
 of their privileges." 
 
 " The Americans themselves increase very rapidly ; and 
 the new comers modify as they struggle up from their pri- 
 mary ignorance and darkness. Still, if those considerati dus 
 were inadequate to the gentler forms of solution — if, in 
 short, a conflict of races were unhappily to arise, the 
 usual result of a struggle between Anglo-Saxon and Celt 
 would be inevitable, — and history shows conclusively, what 
 that is." 
 
 " Speaking of our society," remarked Stephen Danger- 
 field, " I think the undue importance of mer'e trade and 
 traders has had a prejudicial effect independently of politi- 
 cal decadence. We have been more a ' nation of shop- 
 keepers' than your own, for we have no recognised ' estates' 
 save army, navy, and press, and protracted peace for the
 
 BEFOEE THE STORM. 337 
 
 first two, and catering for the lowest intelligences for the 
 last, have reduced their counter action to the minimum. 
 The number of people one meets who, like Staggers, are 
 perpetually asking how much everybody else is ' worth,' is 
 a shocking evidence of the estimate placed upon mere 
 money-getting." 
 
 "You say nothing of the Bar," observed Eliot. 
 
 " Oh, we have many capital lawyers, but you see they 
 won't accept public service when uneducated and dis- 
 honorable men are equally eligible." 
 
 " There again," said Yernon, " the evil is plainly to be 
 traced to the common source. Office must be made de- 
 sirable for intelligence and probity by diminishing its 
 chances for ignorance and depravity." 
 
 "But I'm sure, papa," put in Grace, "you have been* 
 willing enough to make a sacrifice of yourself without any 
 such incentive." 
 
 "Ah," replied Yernon, laughing, "you see I am one 
 of the exceptions, who have no right to claim credit, 
 because confident of never being elected." 
 
 The old happy life at Uplands had been resumed. Once 
 more the time glided by in those healthful alternations 
 of mental culture and country pleasures to which its 
 inmates and their guests were wont to devote themselves. 
 Grace, yet ignorant of the danger which threatened her 
 unclouded existence, lived in a perpetual atmosphere of 
 sunshine and affection. But one element had been needed 
 to fill up the measure — to round and perfect the symmetry 
 of her girlish character, and this had been found in her 
 love for Stephen Dangerfield. The rare happiness, too, of 
 compassing its fruition without the necessity of a practical 
 separation from her idolized parent seemed to leave no 
 drop of bitterness for her approaching cup of joy. 
 
 She had written to Elinor, and both Stephen and Eliot 
 had written to Cuthbert Boynton since the news which had 
 given them all such pleasant anticipations of their future 
 relations — and the answers which had been received, 
 
 15
 
 838 D^iNGERFIELD's REST; OR 
 
 although on both sides somewhat shy and ambiguous, yet 
 fully sanctioned the hope tliat those anticipations would be 
 realized. 
 
 Meanwhile sanguine Stephen was lulled into security by 
 the clearness of the skies, and was working himself into 
 the belief that the inactivity of his enemy was an evidence 
 of weakness; for impatient youth is ever slow to learn 
 that steady and patient preparation will often reduce to 
 a certainty, the success of a project which premature de- 
 monstration may utterly defeat. So as Stephen saw no 
 smoke, he believed there could be no fire — which was just 
 the conviction which Kirk wood sought to establish. 
 
 Eobert Eliot, cooler and more dispassionate, was not so 
 readily satisfied ; and his friendly interest led him to watch 
 matters with a wary eye. Yet, even he, after a time, 
 from the absence of any apparent weapon which Kirk- 
 wood could wield, inclined to credit that none such could 
 exist ; — and thus, as the period fixed for the wedding-day 
 approached, he came to share in the general feeling of 
 security. 
 
 If there were exceptions to the participants in this 
 feeling the}^ were to be found in the persons of David 
 Greenwood and Aunt Mercy, who always discussed family 
 matters at their evening tea-drinkings in the housekeeper's 
 room. 
 
 " I like Master Stephen," said Uncle David, " he's cute 
 and clever, and a gentleman to boot. I'd a darned sight 
 rather pretty Miss Grace married him than one o' these 
 'ere cheatin' shopkeepers in the big city. But Aunt 
 Massy, there's a kind of a blight on Dangerfield's Eest. 
 There's been wrong doin's there, and there'll be trouble 
 come of it yit." 
 
 " How you talk!" quoth Aunt Mei-cy ; " how can you be 
 so sot about a thing you can't know anything about? It 
 aint charitable. Uncle Dave, let alone the justice on't." 
 
 "Well, now, you just hold on and see. I haint lived 
 here nigh onto forty year without having my own idees of 
 things. Why hasn't the old man ever been over here to
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM. 339 
 
 talk matters over, and settle about the young folks' affairs ? 
 Why is it no one ever sees him about the country or in the 
 village like Squire Yernon, or the other gentlemen that 
 own property ? What's the reason he never goes outside 
 his own gates, and never sees any one 'cept that 'ere black- 
 muzzled chap that lives there all the time ?" 
 
 "Why, Uncle Dave, the old gentleman's poorly — he 
 aint strong and spry like you, and he has to stay in-doors 
 to take care of himself like many of his age." 
 
 " Don't b'lieve nuthin' bout it. He's done something 
 or other he's ashamed on, or else he'd show himself a bit 
 now and then like honest folks. However, 'taint my 
 business ; only you recollect, if anything happens, I told 
 you all about it beforehand." 
 
 This rather equivocal proposition being agreed to, the 
 worthy pair would indulge in the little episode of what was 
 recognised as " courting," which usually wound up their 
 seances of an evening. And if the shrewd Yankee knew 
 more than he disclosed, he had the sagacity or the reticence 
 to keep his knowledge to himself until the time should 
 arrive when it might be made useful to those whom he had 
 so long and so faithfully served. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLYin. 
 
 THE summer was drawing near its close,, and the season 
 was at hand wherein, a short twelvemonth gone, our 
 narrative commenced. Whatever the blow might be which 
 Earkwood meditated, it had not yet been struck. Stephen's 
 visits at Uplands were as frequent as ever, and the house- 
 hold there was filled with joy at having good reason to 
 hope that Elinor Grazebrook might soon share the happi- 
 ness of Grace, in a marriage that promised to be as felici- 
 tous as her own. As for Oliver Yernon, absorbed in his
 
 310 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 charities and his politics, he gave little thought to the pro- 
 spective harm which might be wrought by the evil genius 
 lurking so near his home. It was only at times when his 
 eye fell on the laughing child whose presence threw sun- 
 beams over his path, that he thought of one who was so 
 soon to shroud it in funereal clouds. 
 
 The incongruous party at The Eest still kept together, 
 for the conflicting reasons which have been described ; and 
 there was no change in the personal relations which sub- 
 sisted between them. Martin Dangerfield was sad and 
 silent, and his health was failing day by day. Stephen, 
 while treating his father with exceeding tenderness, found 
 it difficult to believe that his conduct was, or had been, 
 either just or courageous when dealing with their unwel- 
 come guest. The latter the young man treated with ill- 
 concealed disdain, such as would long since have either 
 driven forth or provoked to quarrel a nature more sensi- 
 tive or a purpose less indomitable. 
 
 K Stephen had not been so absorbed in his selfish love — 
 if the judgment and the philosophy which were really in 
 him had had fair opportunity to put forth their forces, he 
 might have read in Kirkwood's mobile countenance a per- 
 fect history of sarcastic hate, growing and deepening as the 
 time wore on, until it had now approached a climax of 
 menacing resolve. Not that he was unconventional enough 
 to omit the social smiles and graces which society in her 
 commonplace way exacts, and especially when the inter- 
 course between persons is scanty ; but he indulged his 
 pliysiognomical whims and grimaces when, as was most 
 usual, Stephen was not looking at him. It was only ano- 
 ther illustration of the blind, unreasoning folly of people 
 who are head over ears in love ; they never dream of 
 watching or preparing for the tiger until they are over- 
 whelmed by his spring. 
 
 One morning Mr. Kirkwood had been uncommonly 
 taciturn. He scarcely spoke to either Martin or Stephen, 
 and, although neither cared about the omission for its own 
 sake, the elder man became plainly uneasy for what it
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 341 
 
 might presage. Once or twice bis son happening to ghmce 
 at his face, noticed an imploring expression there, as it was 
 bent on Kirkwood's ; it was but a day afterwards that 
 Stephen quite understood what this meant. 
 
 Towards night Kirk wood absented himself, and did not 
 return to The Eest until long after its inmates had retired 
 to their pillows ; Stephen had dined at home, and spent the 
 evening with his father. 
 
 The next day Stephen was early at Uplands. There was 
 to be a little excursion on the river. Aunt Mercy and 
 Ally were to go, and Eliot was to make some sketches. 
 Oliver Vernon watched from his study window when the 
 merry party set forth ; but when Grace's silvery laugh rang 
 up to his ears, he covered them with his hands, and closed 
 the window, and drew down the blinds. He did not quit 
 his study all that day, and when, as the shadows were 
 growing long, and the horizon growing dusky, the party 
 returned, he sent for Stephen Dangerfield to join him 
 there. 
 
 What need to describe the wretched interview which, all 
 protracted as it was, made up of wonder, of expostulation, 
 of bitter grief — sanctified by the hard wrung drops of 
 manly tears — memorable as the blighting hour of two whole 
 human lives — can yet be summed up in a single sentence 
 — a single line ? For Stephen went forth with the know- 
 ledge that his dream was over, and that himself and Grace 
 Vernon must henceforth be to each other as strangers. 
 
 No reason assigned — none could be elicited any more 
 than from his father — only this, that the bar was insupera- 
 ble. No, it could not be removed by sacrifices, by gold, 
 by toil, by anything that human skill or pains could devise 
 or enforce. 
 
 "I love you even as my own son, poor boy," said the 
 kind old man, tremulously, his eyes filled with tears, " and 
 none the less now that you can never be so ; yet it were a 
 cruel kindness to proffer hope which can never, never be 
 realized." 
 
 Stephen could not doubt the probity, the honor of Ver-
 
 342 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 non, nor could lie, as in his father's case, question the clear- 
 ness of his judgment. It was evident his suit was abso 
 lutcly hopeless, and there was nothing left but resignation 
 or despair. See Grace ? No, he would not ; if this were 
 indeed true, perhaps it were better he did not see her. 
 Motives, explanations for her — for the world — her father 
 would undertake, and he, Stephen, would acquiesce in. 
 There was some strange, jumbled talk about their all being 
 friends again some day under favorable circumstances ; and 
 Vernon said something about how very excellent and desi- 
 rable it was, when people had loved so well and so hope- 
 lessly as Grace and Stephen had, for them to be friends in 
 after life — and then the old man broke down completely, 
 and fairly sobbed on Stephen's shoulder — and Stephen 
 finally rushed hastily from the room, and quickly gallopped 
 away, 
 
 Vernon had forgotten, or had otherwise been prevented 
 from naming one injunction he meant to urge — one pro- 
 mise he proposed to endeavor to extort. In the enforced 
 mystery which environed the cruel blow which had over- 
 taken him, Stephen would naturally suspect the malevo- 
 lent agency of Kirkwood ; and seeing, as Vernon did, that 
 the latter, however vicious, was in no wise responsible for 
 this particular evil, he desired to forestall any collision 
 which Stephen in the first flush of his grief might precipi- 
 tate. When he was alone, Vernon again thought of this, 
 and at once embodied what he had omitted to sav in a note 
 which he determined to send to Stephen without delay. 
 
 Black Vixen flew over the road like the wind, and her 
 rider was not sorry to seek in the rapid motion some relief 
 from the whirl of agonizing thou2:hts which chased each 
 
 o o o 
 
 other through his brain. Fortune he fully expected to be 
 deprived of — for the devilish machinery which could de- 
 prive him of his mistress might as readily wrest from him 
 that which only for her sake he had begun to value. What 
 was there left for him in the future ? 
 
 Whether prompted b}'' the evil spirits whom he served, 
 or by his own malicious design, Kirkwood was near at
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 343 
 
 hand. It was just after leaving the Uplands' boundary, 
 and abreast of Shooter's Jutty, that a turn of the road led 
 Stephen to slacken his pace ; and, waiting placidly by the 
 hedge, his horse browsing some chance clover under its 
 shade — sate the arch-enemy. He raised his hat as Stephen 
 came on, and saluted him with one of his courtly bows. 
 The young man rode straight up to Kirkwood's side. 
 
 "Have you completed aZZ the villany you intend to effect 
 in this neighborhood ?" he asked in a voice, subdued, but 
 thick with unreasoning passion, 
 
 " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " I mean that I would know what further mischief to 
 expect, of which you are the controlling cause." 
 
 "You are unreasonable," said Kirkwood soothingly, for 
 he saw something dangerous in his companion's eye and 
 manner. " How can I possibly tell what it is that disturbs 
 you ?" 
 
 " How can I possibly encounter any mysterious rascality 
 and not believe you to be at the bottom of it ?" 
 
 " You do me too much honor. For nearly a year you 
 have been good enough to attribute to me whatever of 
 mischance or disaster happens to befal you. If a murrain 
 break out among your cattle, or the wind blows down a 
 chimney pot, you lay the disaster at my door. Very 
 romantic, perhaps, but, I submit, not at all rational." 
 
 " Those who walk in the light do not fear suspicion. 
 I have a right to suspect your hand in what has just be- 
 fallen me." 
 
 " It is you who are dealing in enigmas. When I know 
 to what you allude, I shall not find it hard to reply." 
 
 " Your ingenuity will fail to exonerate you — in this 
 case at least. You have been overheard plotting the very 
 mischief to which I refer." 
 
 " And the eavesdropper ?" — 
 
 " Immaterial. I am personally responsible for the asser- 
 tion. I say, you have conspired to break off" the engage- 
 ment which subsisted between Miss Vernon and myself." 
 
 " Ah, now I understand. She has refused you, then ?"
 
 344 dangehfield's rest; ok 
 
 " Pshaw, man ! Practise your duplicity with those on 
 whom it may impose. Keep it for the weak fool whom for 
 your own subtle reasons you have drawn into your toils. 
 Spare yourself the pains with me." 
 
 "Yon attribute your rejection to me, then ?" 
 
 " I attribute it to the devilish arts which you have devis- 
 ed and set in motion." 
 
 " How curiously unjust. I think I may surmise to what 
 you refer. Some one has heard me say that this marriage 
 would never be consummated ? Granted. I might have 
 told you as much long before. Suppose T had done so : — 
 vou would scarcely have thanked me for depriving you 
 01 even this short-lived elysium. When you were to know 
 it — and know it sooner or later you must — it were better 
 from other lips than mine. Did I not advise you to enjoy 
 yourself while you might ? Had I been disposed to do 
 you an injury — to curtail your happiness — why did I then 
 refrain from doing so ?" 
 
 " No doubt, to make the stroke more cruel and effec- 
 tual. But I shall find a means to balance the account 
 between us," 
 
 " Ah, you threaten again : I have told you before how 
 foolish you are to adopt that tone. If you think me so 
 strong, don't you fear to declare open war ? Do you think 
 no further evil can betide you ?" 
 
 " None that I care for. None that your enmity, impla- 
 cable though it be, can compass." 
 
 " The confidence of youth. What if I were to say that 
 my friendship alone it is which stands between you and 
 still greater disaster ?" 
 
 " I should reply, that the friendship of one I thoroughly 
 believe a heartless miscreant, were a greater disaster than 
 any its withdrawal could possibly entail." 
 
 " Beware — the test may be nearer than you imagine." 
 
 Their horses were now walking side by side along the 
 road. The gloom of twilight was thickening, but it was 
 not yet so dark but that Stephen would see that Kirk- 
 wood's face was whitening with suppressed anger. The
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 845 
 
 sight, however, to his excited and stricken heart, afforded 
 more satisfaction than if it were a calmer one. 
 
 "Beware !" he repeated, with a bitter sneer. "Of 
 what should I beware ? What should a gentleman 
 and a Dangerfield fear from such as you? I am not a 
 gamester, a forger, a thief! — There can only be threats — 
 personal accountabilities between equals. What can I 
 have to proffer when a man like you even hints at such 
 a thing — what but utter contempt — what but simple de- 
 fiance ?" 
 
 Kirkwood's snake-like eyes absolutely blazed, and his 
 herculean frame shook with rage ; yet still, true to his 
 instincts, he suppressed his longing to provoke the explo- 
 sion until he himself should be out of reach of its devas- 
 tating effects. 
 
 "Don't defy me," he muttered at last. "You'd better 
 not — you'll find it unwise — unwise in the extreme. You 
 may go too far. I am human as well as you ; and, when 
 you speak of accounts, remember there are debts for which 
 I, too, may extort payment." 
 
 "I believe," Stephen went on with a higher key and 
 increased exasperation, "I believe all your stories and 
 claims to be lies and forgeries together. I have looked 
 into your career — there are others beside myself who know 
 something of its history — more perhaps than you are 
 aware. Beware, forsooth ! Of a wretch who comes into 
 my honest home to enrich himself by pillaging a weak 
 old man — practising on his fears for some unknown and 
 imaginary catastrophe ! — Of a scoundrel who thrusts his 
 intrigues between a man of honor and a gentlewoman the 
 object of his devotion ! Beware ! Of one whose life has 
 been one long soil and blot — a seducer who blasts the 
 happiness of families — and who, if report speaks true, is 
 but the nameless bastard of some Southern Slavedriver!" 
 
 As he finished the enraged speaker put spurs to his 
 mare as if to be rid of the presence of the object of his 
 passionate denunciation. Kirkwood had listened in silence, 
 but, as Stephen proceeded, his face had undergone swift 
 
 15*
 
 846 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 alternations from crimson to ashy pallor. His arm trem- 
 bled as if each moment he might raise it to smite down his 
 accuser. The latter, indeed, was half ashamed that in his 
 anger he had given way to a torrent of mere words — 
 especially as his leaving him gave Kirkwood no time for 
 retaliation. With this thought Stephen slackened his pace, 
 and heard as he did so* the horse of the other coming on 
 with long strides in pursuit. In a few moments it was 
 again abreast, and then strongly checked by the rider, who 
 raised his hand to arrest Stephen's attention. 
 
 " One word," he hissed in accents of concentrated hate. 
 " One word in return for all your compliments. You 
 would know the reason of your rejection. Henceforth 
 ascribe it to the right cause." 
 
 "To you!" 
 
 " You mistake. The daughter of Oliver Yernon cannot 
 wed the son of his brother'' s Murderer /" 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 THE blow had fallen at last, and with crushing effect. 
 A blow which neither sagacity could avert nor caution 
 parry. A blow which in an instant darkened the destiny 
 of two happy and innocent lives, and placed a third at the 
 point of dissolution. For it seemed as if Martin Dangerfield 
 could not survive his son's knowledge of his crime. On 
 the night Stephen came home after his fatal interview with 
 Kirkwood, the lather divined through one look at his 
 wretched face that his only son — his heir — was added 
 to the sharers in the miserable secret of his disgrace. The 
 old man spoke not a word, but handed Stephen the key 
 which opened the cabinet containing that history it had 
 been his hope to withhold until after his death : — and then 
 crept quietly to his bed. In the morning he was in a 
 raging fever.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 847 
 
 During that awful night Stephen was poring over and 
 reading again and again the papers he took from the cabinet. 
 Thej told without reservation and with ample details the 
 tale which he expected to find. They told how, for a length 
 of time, his father and William Vernon and Kirkwood 
 had been boon companions, spending many a night in 
 gambling and wassail together ; * how thej had finally 
 quarrelled about some disputed question at cards, and how 
 Martin Dangerfield soon after discovered that Vernon had 
 forged his name to several checks amounting to a large 
 sum which had been duly paid bj his bankers in New 
 York. The account went on to state that for a long time 
 they had not met, but that Kirkwood had persuaded 
 Dangerfield to postpone a prosecution and exposure, on 
 the ground that Vernon would replace what he had 
 fraudulently obtained. Pending this delay while walking 
 late one evening in a distant part of his grounds, Danger- 
 field encountered Vernon and Kirkwood together. All 
 were somewhat excited with wine, and high words passed, 
 when, infuriated by certain harsh epithets bestowed upon 
 him, Vernon struck Dangerfield across the face. The 
 latter closed with his assailant, and in the heat of the 
 struggle a pistol in Dangerfield's hand exploded, and the 
 bnllet passing through Vernon's breast laid the unfortunate 
 man bleeding and dead upon the turf. 
 
 The narrative then went on to relate how Kirkwood 
 had cbncealed the body among some bushes, and had then 
 forced the unhappy Dangerfield in a distracted condition 
 from the spot. How, after leaving him at The Eest, 
 Kirkwood had returned, and favored by the darkness of 
 the night and the loneliness of the spot, had managed to 
 convey the corpse down the cliff, and, availing of a boat 
 on the shore, had sunk it, as he afterwards averred, far out 
 in the stream. It was added that the remains were never 
 discovered, and that after a long search, the family- of 
 William Vernon concluded that he had either committed 
 suicide or left the country — the conditions of his previous 
 life having been such as to bring either contingency within
 
 848 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 the scope of probability. Finally there followed an earnest 
 disclaimer of any evil intent in the sad catastrophe which 
 had occurred, and a passionate appeal from Martin Dan- 
 gerfield imploring that his son would not curse his memory. 
 
 Such, in brief, was the gloomy substance of the docu- 
 ments over which Stephen spent hours in staring with 
 a sort of horrible fascination. There was no more mystery 
 now. Tlie secrets of his father's misery and of Kirkwood's 
 hidden power were alike laid bare. Knowing, too, the 
 passion that family pride had ever been in that father's 
 breast, the son could measure and appreciate the tortures 
 he must for years have suffered, not from remorse alone, 
 but from the ever-present apprehension of detection and 
 shame. Here likewise was the motive for his isolated life ; 
 here, more especially, that of his alienation from the 
 neighboring family, which had so often been remarked and 
 wondered at. And here, relentless and insurmountable, 
 was the barrier which should for ever prevent a son of 
 Martin Dangerfield from calling Grace Vernon his wife. 
 
 Long and wearily did poor Stephen ponder over the 
 woful tragedy he had perused, and the course of action 
 it was incumbent on him to pursue. His first resolution 
 was that his father's name and person must be kept sacred 
 at all hazards. Should he go, he thought, to Oliver Ver- 
 non ? No ; he was not a man to dread. Vengeance was 
 not in his creed, and even if it were, the misery of fifteen 
 years — the despairing agony of a son — might expiate in 
 his mild eyes even the shedding of a brother's blood. Be- 
 sides — and Stephen's heart sickened and his flesh crawled 
 at the thought — how could he face that good and sinless 
 man — the father of her who was so pure and beautiful — to 
 discuss the deeds of a felon, and he that felon's son ? 
 
 But Kirkwood — a3^e, there lay the danger. He must be 
 bought, cajoled, threatened — anything — to swear an eternal 
 silence for the future. 
 
 It was nearly four o'clock, and the cold, grey dawn was 
 glimmering in the east, when Stephen stole forth from his 
 room, and passed into the silent corridor. His father's
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 349 
 
 door was ajar, and Stephen heard his voice feeble and mut- 
 tering within. He was calling on his son, and imploring 
 his forgiveness ; asleep or delirious, Stephen thought, as he 
 glided softly into the chamber. The old man was in a fit- 
 ful slumber, the clothes of the couch heaped about him in 
 feverish confusion. His son went to the bedside, and leav- 
 ing a kiss and a tear on the worn and weary forehead, de- 
 parted as noiselessly as he came. Then he bent his steps 
 through the long passages leading towards the apartment 
 in the further wing occupied by Kirkwood. A horrible 
 thought flashed across his mind as he went on, thinking as 
 he was of the misery this man had caused, and the misery 
 he yet might cause hereafter. The thought almost deep- 
 ened into resolve, for the young man's teeth set, and his 
 haggard eyes burned with a desperate fire ; but when he 
 had crept into the room where Kirkwood lay, he found it 
 empty ; the nest had been lately occupied indeed, but the 
 bird had flown — and Stephen fell upon his knees and 
 prayed. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 THE next was a sad day at Uplands. Yernon was not 
 one to postpone a necessary duty, or to shrink from a 
 grief, however poignant, which must inevitably be endured 
 He had listened to the story told him by Kirkwood with 
 astonishment and pity. At first he was somewhat incredu 
 lous ; but his informant was armed at all points. He ex- 
 hibited some unimportant papers, which had been on Wil- 
 liam Vernon's person at the time of his death — one of 
 them stained with his blood. He told the tale with circum- 
 stantial minuteness, such as absolutely enforced conviction. 
 Finally, he showed a brief confession of the deed signed 
 by Martin Dangerfield, which Kirkwood had exacted 
 directly after it had been committed, as one of the pledges
 
 350 dangeufield's rest; or 
 
 of his own secresy, and as being essential in case of acci- 
 dents to disarm suspicion of himself as sharing in the 
 crime. Vernon failed not to perceive, likewise, that the 
 day and the hour corresponded with those of his brother's 
 disappearance ; and he remembered that the latter had 
 been even unusually sullen and moody for some time be- 
 fore that event. On the whole, Vernon found himself 
 obliged to accept Kirkwood's statement as literally true. 
 
 It remained for him to determine what his own duty 
 might be in the premises ; and here again Kirkwood's cun- 
 ning was not at fault in auguring his resolution. To de- 
 nounce Martin Dangerficld would not only involve open- 
 ing up the wretched story of the forgeries, but would tear 
 afresh the heart of his innocent son, and that of his own 
 unhappy daughter. A conviction would be doubtful, and 
 even if it were certain, Vernon questioned whether any 
 real duty to God or man would justify punishment. He 
 resolved, as Kirkwood had anticipated, that, in retaining 
 the secret absolutely within his own breast, he should do 
 what conscience and prudence would alike approve. 
 
 "We spare the piteous recital to poor Grace of the neces- 
 sity which existed for the giving up her betrothed. We 
 omit the pious and affectionate dissimulation wherewith 
 Oliver Vernon strove to persuade her it was for the beet, 
 while he was compelled to withhold the facts which would 
 show that necessity to be absolute. We draw a veil over 
 the agony of that simple, guileless nature, smitten with its 
 first great grief, and all conscious as it was that the love 
 she was bade to cast forth from her heart never could be 
 replaced on earth. 
 
 There are griefs which the pen should not seek to de- 
 scribe, for they leave the tongue dumb it would imitate. 
 Like some terrestrial joys — alas ! too few — they come to 
 us as " silence's perfectest herald." Like the stroke which 
 Heaven suffers to leap from its clouds, they leave their vic- 
 tim mute. The emotions which are most tremendous or 
 exalted are those that bring no speech ; and they suggest, 
 as do all earthly reaches into the infinite, our relation to
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 351 
 
 that higher existence when human words shall be no 
 more. 
 
 The strange mingling which all are destined sometimes 
 to feel — that of pleasure with pain — was not wanting now. 
 A letter arrived the same day from Elinor, brimming with 
 love and happiness. She wrote that Boynton had sought 
 ber once more — every obstacle to their union was removed 
 — and that he begged her consent to its consummation at 
 the same time with that of Grace Vernon and Stephen 
 Dangerfield. She wrote too — in a somewhat mysterious 
 strain — that the causes which would promote the felicity of 
 both alliances were so intermingled, that she was con- 
 strained to think there would be a propriety in such a 
 simultaneous celebration. But she would explain all to 
 her dear friends — her guardian and her sister Grace — whom 
 she besought to meet her at once in New York. 
 
 Eobert Eliot, on hearing the engagement was at an end, 
 immediately sought and obtained an interview with Ste- 
 phen. He bore an affectionate letter from Vernon, urging 
 his young friend to avoid a collision of any sort with Kirk- 
 wood — the warning, as we have seen, coming too late. He 
 likewise advised Stephen — in a guarded manner, not know- 
 ing to what extent he might then or hereafter be conver- 
 sant with all the mournful features of the case — that Kirk- 
 wood possessed a certain acknowledgment^ subscribed to by 
 his father, which it might be well to obtain, should it be 
 possible, in view of any mischievous use to which the pos- 
 sessor might be tempted to apply it in the future. Eliot 
 also apprised Stephen of the incident witnessed by little 
 Ally, on Shooter's Jutty. Grace had communicated it 
 to her father, who thought it right to reveal it to those 
 whom it might chiefly concern. What the man's objects 
 were, Eliot remarked, neither Mr. Vernon nor himself 
 could surmise. He also delicately conveyed an intimation 
 of his ignorance as to the cause of the rupture which had 
 occurred, but added his conviction that there was a mystery 
 about Kirkwood's proceedings yet to be unveiled, and 
 which he was much disposed to aid in discovering. But
 
 352 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Stephen shook his head with a mournful sigh, knowing lul'i 
 well that his visitor, however kindly disposed, must be 
 powerless in view of the eircumstances known to Vernon 
 and himself. Eliot learned with interest of Kirkwood's 
 absence, a circumstance which he coupled in his own mind 
 with what he had long before overheard — and shaking Ste- 
 phen heartily by the hand, urged him to keep up his spirits, 
 for that all would yet be well. 
 
 The same evening Eliot left Uplands for New York, 
 whither be was followed on the succeeding day by Oliver 
 Vernon. 
 
 The hour had come when Kirkwood's plans should reach 
 their consummation. He had waited even longer than he 
 thought prudent in the hope of avoiding such risks as a 
 forged mortgage would necessarily entail. But yielding 
 and timorous as Martin Dangerfield had been in all other 
 respects, he was firm in his refusal to cripple the estate, and 
 thereby rob his son of the patrimony he had a right to 
 expect. The same family pride which led him to make all 
 manner of sacrifices to prevent a stain being afiixed to its 
 escutcheon through the exposure of the deed he had com- 
 mitted, was powerful in restraining him from sacrificing 
 the family lands. At last, Kirkwood realized that his 
 hopes in that direction were futile, and promptly resolved 
 upon the alternative he had always kept in view. In order 
 to facilitate the arrangement which, with the aid of Stag- 
 gers, he proposed to effect with Gossamer Von Donk, it was 
 essential that the engagement between Grace Vernon and 
 Stephen Dangerfield should be unmistakably l)roken off. 
 That preliminary was now disposed of, and there was every 
 reason he should complete what he had to do with the 
 utmost speed. Indeed, the threats of Mary Grazebrook 
 were daily becoming more peremptory, for the time had 
 elapsed when it had been stipulated Kirkwood was to make 
 good the sum belonging to Elinor. When to these con- 
 siderations was added that, from the suspicious character 
 of his movements and the number of interests involved,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 353 
 
 his intrigues might, at any moment, be detected and de- 
 nounced, it was evidently highly desirable for him to wind 
 up his affairs and decamp with his booty. 
 
 It was, therefore, within a very brief space that he car- 
 ried into effect the negotiation of the mortgage, which we 
 need scarcely say was forthcoming in proper form. The 
 signature of Martin Dangerfield, duly witnessed by two old 
 servants of the family, and well known as it was to Stag- 
 gei'S, would have borne a scrutiny more disposed to suspi- 
 cion than the prudent broker found it his interest to be. 
 Gossamer was the more ready to advance the large sum 
 agreed upon, since he heard from Eliot on the third day 
 after Kirkwood's arrival in town, a corroboration of the 
 latter's statement that the obnoxious engagement was 
 really at an end. The delivery of the instrument was pru- 
 dently avoided by Kirkwood up to the last moment, that he 
 might have as much time as possible to secure his retreat. 
 It was necessary to silence Mary Grazebrook for a little 
 longer, to pay a flying visit to The Eest that he might 
 secure his buried treasures at Shooter's Jutty, and then he 
 was free to depart. All these plans were now on the eve 
 of fulfilment. It was a Friday, the mortgage had been 
 delivered just before the close of banking hours, and the 
 proceeds were secretly turned into bills on Europe ; and 
 Kirkwood chuckled with satisfaction as he reflected that 
 in a few short days he should be speeding across the broad 
 ocean to enjoy them. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 A DREARY autumnal evening with the leaves rattling 
 down from the tree-tops, and the wind sighing and 
 moaning ceaselessly through branches that looked pitiful 
 in their bereavement. Such evenings are always saddest 
 m the poor quarters of a great city. No strong shade 
 to throw coolness and mistiness over half the vista, to
 
 354 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 temper the staring dirt and meanness of the brighter half. 
 All one dull wearisome monotone, with never a trace of 
 relief or colour to lessen its tedium or soften its melancholy. 
 
 It had been very dark. during the afternoon, and con- 
 tinued so until it was quite time for the sunset. Then 
 there appeared one of these curious phenomena of the 
 atmosphere which people notice very little because they 
 are so common. The lead colour which suffused the air 
 changed suddenly to a murky pink, which again merged 
 into an ominous crimson. Easily explained, no doubt, by 
 natural laws of light and refraction ; but it gave no single 
 person who did notice it, the idea of something natural. 
 
 On the contrary, it suggested instinctively the idea of 
 something out of the normal and legitimate course — some- 
 thing which served as a precursor to events mysterious and 
 horrible which were to come. So thought James Kirk- 
 wood as he peered forth at the skies from the windows of 
 his hotel, and his spirits sank lower and lower until with a 
 violent and angry effort he changed the current of gloomy 
 reflection. " Absurd," he muttered, gnawing the end of 
 his cigar, "thrice absurd! It means simply that we are 
 to have what we shall all be glad of— a fair day to-morrow, 
 and I am conjuring up a horde of avenging furies ! Pshaw !" 
 
 He was in the reading-room of the house, and he had 
 continued gazing through the windows on the crowded 
 thoroughfare until it grew darker and darker, ^nd the 
 sanguinary glare had quite faded out of the atmosphere 
 Then, one by one, the street-lamps were lighted, and now 
 they were winking and blazing on the myriad faces of the 
 passers-by. Kirk wood looked at his watch and walked 
 away into the bar at the rear of the building and took 
 a heavy draught of brandy-and- water. 
 
 " Time to be moving," he muttered again. "Time to be 
 moving, or this She-devil may yet do me a mischief. None 
 so dangerous as those who have nothing to lose." He 
 drew forth his tablets and made sundry swift calculations. 
 " Quite a hundred thousand in all — enough for any one of 
 my moderate habits. Yet I might make it much more if
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 355 
 
 she were only silenced. And still what can she do, after 
 all? Denounce me-? Where are her proofs? — No ; better 
 not stir this time until the nest is well feathered. I must 
 see her, however, and close her mouth for the present. 
 Perhaps I'll make love to her again," glancing at his swart 
 yet handsome face in an opposite mirror, " that never failed 
 yet — even now may answer best of all." 
 
 He strode forth from the hotel and presently turned 
 sharply to the left and plunged into the network of 
 streets lying to the westward of Broadway, The man was 
 evidently in a nervous mood, for he paused in his course 
 at one of the abounding corner liquor shops and again 
 fortified himself with his fiery comforter. Soon he reached 
 the neighbourhood we have seen him approach before, and 
 arrived at the squalid court which contained the lodging 
 of Mary Grazebrook. Again he groped his way up the 
 dark and narrow staircase and once more knocked at her 
 door. The room was unlighted, and, as he entered, he 
 stumbled over something just inside; a crash followed, 
 but he recovered himself in time to avoid falling. 
 
 "Whattheh— ll's that?" 
 
 " Charcoal, James. Yerv convenient to cook with, and 
 to light a fire sometimes," said a voice out of the gloom. 
 
 " Why in the fiend's name don't you have a light?" 
 
 "It's expensive, worthy sir, and besides it drives away 
 my companions — there's much better society in the dark." 
 
 "Stuff," he grumbled, closing the door, while his com- 
 panion proceeded to strike a light. " You can have money 
 enough for the asking." 
 
 "Can I? Yes, when you know there'll be no asking, 
 you can be liberal enough, no doubt. But my child — 
 where's my child's money, James ? That which belongs to 
 her, I mean — you've broken your word, again, my generous 
 friend ; — have you come to tell me why?" 
 
 "I've been unfortunate," he said, throwing himself 
 testily into a chair. " Things have gone ill with me. I 
 can't do impossibilities. You must give me more time." 
 
 " What an accomplished liar you are, James," said Mary
 
 356 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 Grazebrook, turning the liglit full upon his dark face, and 
 regarding it with a look of contempt, not altogether 
 unleavened by admiration. " You really improve with 
 years instead of retrograding/' 
 
 " What do you mean by sending me this infernal threat- 
 ening letter?" he inquired savagely, and throwing her 
 note upon the table. The liquor he had drunk was 
 beginning to make him brutal. 
 
 "How handsome and attractive he looks when he's 
 angry," said the woman jeeringly, "but he mustn't think 
 to frighten any one here. We're used to that sort of thing, 
 and it doesn't even make our pulse beat quicker. Feel I" 
 and she stretched forth her hand on which her old marriage 
 ring glinted in the light, and which, as his eyes fell on it, 
 seemed to exasperate him the more. She followed his 
 glance and seemed to read his thought. 
 
 " I know what you're thinking of, James Kirkwood. 
 You're thinking of the time when that little circle of metal 
 meant something, and when, if an unhappy wife, I was 
 still not a dishonoured one. You're thinking of the time 
 when you came stealing in, first with looks of compassion, 
 then with whispers of sympathy, then with pressures of 
 the hand and words of manly consolation, paving the way, 
 step by step, inch by inch, to make me the foul thing you 
 afterwards transformed me to. It's a brave recollection, 
 man, isn't it? See here." And she rose abruptly, and 
 opening a defaced writing-case which stood on a bureau, 
 drew forth a miniature and held it up before him. It was 
 that of a handsome, sunny-faced young man, with a bright 
 smile, a clear blue eye uplifted in hope, and curling auburn 
 hair. Y^'ou could see now where Elinor's wavy blonde 
 tresses came from. " You remember him, too, don't you, 
 James ? This was taken in the first year you knew him — 
 he changed sadly m the last one, didn't he?" 
 
 " Take it away, woman," said Kirkwood hoarsely, and 
 shading his eyes from the light. " What devil is it that 
 tempts you to bring up all these memories now ?" 
 
 " It's my humour, that's all," she answered mournfully.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 857 
 
 " I often gaze on him for hours together, and why shouldn't 
 you see him sometimes ? Am I to bear all the punishment, 
 and you escape scot-free? ' Yes,' you would say. That's 
 your idea of justice, isn't it? Justice !" and she gave a 
 scornful laugh, " Justice ! Do you believe in such a thing, 
 James, now or hereafter ?" 
 
 " I'll tell you what I believe — that if you don't put 
 that thing away, I shall do you a mischief — do you 
 hear ?" 
 
 " Ho, ho ! A mischief! As if he could do me any mis- 
 chief in this world greater than he has already inflicted I 
 Threaten those you can injure, coward, — not me." 
 
 " What's come to you, Mary ?" he asked, and speaking 
 more gently, " what's the matter with you to-night ? We 
 can do no good by quarrelling — do be reasonable." 
 
 " Well, I will — I will be reasonable. You're quite right 
 — the time has long gone by for words between us — There 
 should now be only deeds. Come," she continued, restor- 
 ing the likeness to its place, " come ; I'll tell you why I 
 wrote that letter, and in a very few words. It was because 
 you are the father of my child, and although I hate you, 
 and am at no pains to conceal it, yet for her sake I would 
 save you from open disgrace — from penal punishment !" 
 
 " Punishment ? Pshaw. What can you do — who will 
 believe you — what can you prove ?" 
 
 " First — not of what I can do but of what I have done. 
 I have drawn up a sketch of your life and achievements — 
 nothing omitted that I know of — the thefts, the forgeries, 
 the subornations, — I believe I might add murders, but 
 of them I am not certain, — together with such circumstan- 
 tial evidence as I have been long collecting and putting 
 together — and this sketch I have sent" — 
 
 " To the ministers of the law ?" 
 
 " No — to Oliver Vernon." 
 
 Kirkwood made a quick tiger-like movement as if con- 
 templating a spring, but the woman drew a small revolver 
 from her breast and placed it quietly on the table before 
 her.
 
 358 dangekfield's rest ; or 
 
 " Don't be rash, James. My nerves are steadier than 
 yours, for you've been drinking, I see. Is there need to 
 tell you why I have done this ? None, I should say. 
 You had fair warning. You robbed my child and sent 
 her forth to a life of privation, perhaps to become an out- 
 cast in the end, like her mother. It is right that I should 
 protect her if I can. I mean to do so." 
 
 He crossed his arms upon his breast, and looked her 
 steadily in the eye. It was his fashion when he once began 
 to believe that he must face danger. When he spoke, it 
 was mildly, almost affectionately. 
 
 " There was a time, Mary, when you would not have 
 used these words of menace. Even now you will repent 
 having used them. What you have done is mere spite, 
 — simply that, because it can only harm you and cannot 
 touch myself. Nothing that you allege can be proved 
 against me. Even those letters which might have shown 
 something are destroyed." 
 
 •' You mistake," she replied coldly, "some of them still 
 exist." 
 
 " By your treachery, then." 
 
 " Call it what you like — enough remain to answer the 
 purpose." 
 
 " Pardon me — but I don't believe it." 
 
 " I could convince you, but that will come soon enough. 
 Suffice that what I say is true." 
 
 "Ah! you have something perhaps to which, in your 
 ignorance of the law, you attach undue importance. Come, 
 I will be generous with you. Vernon is a soft fool, who 
 will hesitate long before he strikes. Go to him; retract 
 what you have written — say it was suggested by a jealous 
 frenzy, or what you will. Give me such papers as you 
 have, and the same hour I restore, or rather give you Eli- 
 nor's patrimony. Is it agreed?" 
 
 " No. I can no longer trust you. Besides, I have re- 
 solved that — in this part of the world, at least — you shall 
 work no more evil." 
 
 "You refuse?"
 
 BEFOKE THE STORM. 859 
 
 " Distinctly." 
 
 " Then take the consequences." He rose as he spoke, 
 and her quick hand fell on the pistol. " Oh ! don't fear," 
 he continued, with a sneering laugh, " I've no mind to harm 
 you — at least in that way. I'll even tell you how the blow 
 will come, that it may not find you unprepared. To-mor- 
 row I shall lodge an information against you for defama- 
 tion and conspiracy ; you have no friends — no means ; you 
 will be locked up — incarcerated in a felon's cell, until such 
 time as I choose to take further action to chastise you." 
 
 She rose also, and waved her hand with the gesture of a 
 queen. 
 
 " Idle. Idle all, James, even if your power were equal 
 to your will. Nay, even were you to kill me to-night — 
 which I don't mean you shall," with a significant glance at 
 the pistol, " it would still do you no good. Your position, 
 indeed, would be far more critical than before — your fate 
 more hopelessly sealed." 
 
 " And why— tell me that !" 
 
 " Because, James Kirk wood," and her voice concentrated 
 into its deepest and steadiest monotone, " hecause that man 
 still lives y 
 
 "Liar!" 
 
 "True, so help meGrod! Do you think his evidence 
 will be sufiicient ?" 
 
 The veins in Kirkwood's throat and forehead swelled 
 up until they stood out in startling relief from his swarthy 
 skin, and his voice came thick and husky. 
 
 "And you have written Yernon this also ?" 
 
 "No. I only knew it for a fact to-day — but to-mor- 
 row — " 
 
 " To-morrow you will communicate it to him ?" 
 
 " I will." 
 
 "That by G — d you never shall!" And he advanced 
 threateningly upon her. '^ 
 
 Instantly she raised the pistol. 
 
 " Stand back, man, or I fire !" 
 
 But accustomed to think and act simultaneously, and
 
 360 DANGERFI eld's REST; OR 
 
 relying upon the uncertainty of her aim, he sprang for- 
 ward. As he did so, she drew the trigger, and the cap 
 exploded harmlessly. The weapon had been too long 
 loaded. In another second Kirkwood had wrenched it 
 from her grasp, and, transported with his fury, had dealt 
 her a heavy blow in the forehead with the stock. Mary 
 Grazebrook reeled for a moment, and then fell heavily to 
 the floor. 
 
 Only for a second did Kirkwood pause to gaze on the 
 prostrate form before him ; in the next he had noise- 
 lessly locked the door. 
 
 " Only in a swoon," he muttered, and then he looked 
 wistfully at the pistol. " No," he went on, " no noise — 
 that would ruin all — yet she must be silenced. Whether 
 true or false, for her to repeat that were my destruction. 
 What's to be done ?" 
 
 He lifted the body, and carried it like a feather to the 
 inner room, where he laid it on the bed, and put his ear 
 down to the mouth. "No breath," he whispered, "but 
 'twill come soon enough, unless prevented." Then he tried 
 the lock of the door leading from one room to the other. It 
 fastened easily. This was the only outlet. Not even a 
 window to the chamber. The sole ventilation must come 
 from the sitting-room. Suddenly he returned thither, and 
 stepping towards the door, his eyes fell on the basket over 
 which he stumbled on first entering, and a grim smile 
 broke over his face. 
 
 " I could not touch her again," said he with a shudder, 
 " but she might easily kill herself with this. How com- 
 mon ! and, in her case, how much cause !" With that he 
 descried a closet by the fire-place, and speedily found what 
 he shrewdly suspected must be somewhere on the premises 
 — a portable brazier. Hastily he filled it with the char- 
 coal, and carried it into the inner space. Then he reflected 
 a little, and began searching about for something else. 
 " Women of this sort always keep it," he murmured, "as 
 well as gamblers — sleep must be more than entreated some- 
 times." Presently he found a phial on a shelf in the closet.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM, 361 ' 
 
 whicli contained a dark-coloured fluid. This he both smelt 
 and tasted, and became satisfied that the label correctly 
 described the contents. Next he found a spoon, and car- 
 rying the phial back into the chamber, he cautiously pour- 
 ed out a few drops, and placed it gently to the woman's 
 lips. Even his iron nerves shook for a moment as her 
 passive mouth received the opiate, " Courage," he thought, 
 " 'tis no murder, after all," Strange discrimination ; he 
 meant to kill, but dared not directly, with his own hands 
 commit the deed. This done, he again went to the main 
 apartment, and opened the escritoire^ wherein Mary had 
 placed her husband's miniature. It was filled with papers 
 which, without pausing for examination, he thrust into the 
 stove, and applied the candle. Then he took the picture, 
 and carrying it to his victim's bedside, he placed it careful- 
 ly in her bosom. The action was mainly dictated by craft, 
 but it was not altogether without a spark of sentiment. 
 " She would wish it," he reflected, and actually took credit 
 to himself for consulting her probable desire. There was 
 a pocket-book in the desk with a little — a very little — 
 money in it ; he pondered for a moment, and then added 
 two or three bank notes to the store, and replaced the book 
 in the desk. He examined rapidly to discover if there 
 were any outlets or inlets for air communicating with the 
 room within. There were none. Even at the bottom of 
 the door, which might have been half an inch from the sill, 
 there was a piece of listing, which rendered the place quite 
 impervious, 
 
 Finallv, he took the candle into the chamber, set it on a 
 chair, and paused. He fancied she had commenced to 
 breathe. No ; the body was still motionless — insensible. 
 Then he imagined he heard a step on the stairs, and ha 
 held his own breath and listened. No one ; the whole 
 place was as silent as the grave. A fresh thoij^t struck 
 him, and he carried the pistol with the hammer down on 
 the exploded cap and laid it on the floor by the bed. 
 
 "That's all," he mused; " every thing that can be done. 
 The pistol, the laudanum, the charcoal, each will tell of a 
 
 16
 
 362 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 determined suicide. No one saw me enter, none will see 
 me depart. No one may come for days yet, and to-morrow 
 I may be on blue water." 
 
 He gazed for a while on the still beautiful face before 
 him, and perhaps the skilful might have traced some lin- 
 gering compunction on his own marble countenance. He 
 could not all forget that he had once loved and sworn 
 to cherish this poor inanimate clay. But whatever his 
 thoughts or feelings he did not hesitate long. " She or me," 
 he muttered, "she or mc. She would be implacable after 
 this — and then — if what she says be true — !" The sweat 
 stood on his brow as he thought of what might happen 
 should he, through weakness or accident, forego his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 " No," thought he again. " No folly, no irresolution. 
 All can be managed but her, and she once gone — " 
 
 He stooped down and carefully arranged fragments of 
 paper and shavings which he had gathered in a manner to 
 insure the ignition of the coals. Then he brought more 
 of the latter, adjusting them with extreme nicety so that 
 they might burn with freedom, and without falling upon 
 the floor. " Though for that matter," he murmured, "one 
 would answer as well as the other — but not so safe — not so 
 safe. People might come and extinguish the flames, and 
 rescue her — maimed and disfigured perhaps, — to hunt me 
 for life, — no, that must not be." 
 
 At last he lighted the inflammable matter in the bottom 
 of the brazier, and after watching carefully till it was safely 
 ablaze, he took the candle and withdrew. Then he closed 
 the door, locked it from without, and thrust the key well 
 under the listing into the room a2:ain. As he did so a con- 
 vulsive shudder shook his whole frame. Wretch as he 
 was, he felt that the action was irrevocable, and all there 
 was left Ahumanity in his degraded nature revolted at the 
 deed. B|r he could not do things by halves. He had 
 gone too far for that. As a final precaution he stuffed some 
 loose paper into the key-hole — it might have been placed 
 there from within, he thought, as well as from without.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 363 
 
 He extinguished the candle, passed softly into the entry, 
 locked the outer door, thrust the key under it as with the 
 other, and stole softly down stairs. He waited a moment 
 at the street entrance, but all was silent, — not even the tread 
 of a distant passer-by could be heard, — and he pressed his 
 cloak far up over his face and fled away into the darkness. 
 
 CHAPTER LH. 
 
 KIRKWOOD went straight to his hotel. There were 
 papers to secure, and he thought it wise to show 
 himself in his familiar haunts before starting by a late 
 train for the North. To do what he had to do, ending with 
 the payment of his bill at the office of the house, did not 
 occupy many minutes. He would send for his portman- 
 teau, he told the clerk, and, should any one call, would he be 
 good enough to say that Mr. Kirkwood had left town. It 
 was with a feeling of relief that the man strode away to 
 cross the threshold of the place for the last time. He had 
 a consciousness that it was well so to manage as not to be 
 easily found, in case of accidents. Yet he reflected that, 
 should the worst happen, the more witnesses to attest to 
 having seen him that evening the better. Therefore, he 
 
 determined to go to the Club in Fifth Avenue : he 
 
 would probably meet Staggers there, or young Yon Donk 
 and others of their set. Thus resolved he passed through 
 the hall, and had just set his foot on the pavement of 
 Broadway when some one touched him on the shoulder. 
 
 It required all Kirkwood's hardihood to enable him to 
 bear this sudden intimation without either flinching or cry- 
 ing out— but he did so. As he turned he sa^^ind recog- 
 nised the person who sought his attention — J^Pervant of 
 Oliver Yernon's — whom he remembered to have noticed 
 at Uplands. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," said the man respectfully, 
 
 «<-i
 
 3(34 dangerfield's rest: or 
 
 " but I was to find you and give you this." He held forth 
 a note and stood as if waiting for a reply while Kirkwood 
 rapidly opened and read it. It was from Vernon and ran 
 thus : — 
 
 Street, Friday, p.m. 
 
 "Mr. Vernon presents his compliments to Mr. Kirk- 
 wood, and for reasons of importance, requests that Mr. 
 Kirkwood will call at the above address during the presen 
 evening. Mr. Kirkwood will find it to his disadvantage 
 should he fail to respond to this invitation." 
 
 Kirkwood reflected. " This comes of Mary's letter. 
 Clearly he can know notliing of the other matter. It 
 won't answer to refuse to go. On the contrary, it were 
 perhaps the best of alibis. As to this pitiful money of 
 Elinor's, I can promise to restore it if need be — give notes 
 — anything to gain time. He'll scarcely proceed to ex- 
 tremities for the children's sake. Probably he means 
 nothing more than a warning and a suggestion to make 
 myself scarce. Yes, I'll go." 
 
 " Tell your master," he said at last aloud, " that you 
 have seen me — let me see — why, 'tis nine o'clock — " look- 
 ing at his watch, " and that I will have the pleasure of 
 waiting upon him before ten." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," again said the man, " but Mr. 
 Vernon thought it might be convenient for you to be 
 driven to the house, and so sent his carriage. Here it is." 
 
 Kirkwood looked up and saw the vehicle — the driver on 
 the box — close by the curb. A superstitious thrill ran 
 through his breast. " Have they been watching me," he 
 asked himself, " can these men know? — Impossible." 
 
 " Have you been waiting long ?" he asked, 
 
 " About an hour, sir," replied the man. " If we did 
 not find ^ki here by nine o'clock, we had a list of places 
 at which l^seek you." 
 
 Kirkwood's busy thoughts ran on. ""What does this 
 mean? Does Vernon propose to make me a prisoner? 
 Absurd. He can have no warrant — there is no charge —
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 365 
 
 can be none — at all events not to-night. Well, I'll go — go 
 and face it out, be it what it may. Those concerned will 
 be wary how they drive me to a corner. They know too 
 well what precious scandals I can bring on them all. There 
 is only one man I need fear," and he clenched his hand, 
 and a withering frown knitted his brow, "and only him 
 because he is reckless and impulsive. Damn him ! And 
 I to think of departure without settling accounts with the 
 young cub. This comes of old Martin's obstinacy. How- 
 ever, I can pay off the score. Once safe abroad I can 
 cause the thing to be published far and wide. They shall 
 feel that my arm can still reach them, if I am three thou- 
 sand miles away." 
 
 Briefer to think these thoughts than to write them. By 
 this time Kirkwood's expression was quite cheerful. He 
 had escaped for a moment the awful thought of the crime 
 he had last committed, and was revelling in the anticipation 
 of mischief to come. 
 
 " All right," he cried gaily, as he sprang into the car- 
 riage, " 'twas fortunate you found me." The door was 
 closed and then a man got on the box, and the vehicle 
 rolled swiftly away. Suddenly they passed a bright, 
 flaring light — it was at the door of one of those pestilent 
 " Concert Saloons," which infest Broadway. Through 
 the a:lass above the front seat Kirkwood could see the 
 figures on the box. One was the driver whom he had 
 noticed before, but the other — Kirkwood's heart sank with 
 apprehension — who was the other ? The man who brought 
 him the note was dressed in distinctive drab — trousers and 
 coat alike — but this man's attire was sombre — all black or 
 nearly so. What should be his object ? The smile faded 
 from the murderer's lip, and the anxious look of doubt 
 and dread came back again. His fingers began to play 
 nervously with a carefully loaded revolver he pulled from 
 his pocket. Then he drew forth a small bowie knife, and 
 passed his thumb along its edge. Whoever tried to arrest 
 him should make a stiff fight for it — on that he was deter- 
 mined. But resolution could not keep down the stifling
 
 HQQ dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 doubts and fears which were constantly rising to his brain, 
 and from which he was henceforth never to be free. 
 
 The carriage rolled swiftly on, and the time seemed all 
 too short to its desperate occupant before it drew up sharply 
 before Oliver Vernon's door. So many chances to be 
 weighed, so many contingencies to be guarded against! 
 How much was known and how little ? True, he was on 
 his guard as to the revelations of Mary Grazebrook — they 
 were doubtless unfortunate, damaging, — yet he did not 
 believe they could be practically wielded against him. 
 But what else was known ? And why was that man on 
 the box? Such were the thoughts and queries which 
 flashed across the active brain now bent on that service of 
 cxtremest need — to rescue its owner from impending des- 
 truction. The bell was rung before Kirkwood alighted, 
 but he sprang up the steps with a sudden purpose, and, 
 as the opening door permitted a flood of light to shine 
 forth into the darkened street, Kirkwood wheeled with a 
 rapid movement and looked behind. The glance was 
 sufficient. Brief as it was, it turned him half sick. He 
 had seen the features of the unknown man on the box ; — 
 and he recognised those of a noted detective. 
 
 " Courage," he thought. " It is impossible that any one 
 can have wind of the forgery. Neither Staggers nor Von 
 Donk had any spark of suspicion. There must be com- 
 plaint — investigation — comparison — before such action as 
 this could occur. Days would pass at least — that must be 
 safe. But if no time to detect the forgery how much less 
 to detect the mur — " 
 
 " Be pleased to walk up stairs, sir," said the domestic, 
 who answered the bell. The door closed behind him, and 
 Kirkwood was ushered into a rear drawing-room on the 
 floor above. The servant placed a chair, said something 
 about his master coming presently, and withdrew. Was 
 it fancy or was there a click as of turning a lock ? Kirk- 
 wood did not like to test it — better not exhibit suspicion, 
 he thought, but he rose stealthily and passing to a window
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 367 
 
 at the extremity of the room, made a lightning-like recon- 
 noissance of the situation. The windows opened upon the 
 top of an apartment below, constituting what is termed an 
 extension, and this was connected again with neighboring 
 structures of a similar character. A sash was open, and 
 Kirkwood perceived that a room next him on the left was 
 also accessible from the roof of the extension, and that the 
 third house in the same direction was evidently on a corner, 
 and had a vacant lot in its rear facing upon a street which 
 ran at right angles to that on which the house itself stood. 
 Satisfied with these hasty observations, Kirkwood glided 
 back to his seat barely in time to anticipate the opening of 
 the folding doors which separated the room he occupied 
 from the one adjoining, opposite the windows. These 
 doors opened noiselessly, and discovered a large and elegant 
 apartment wherein were seated three persons. 
 
 At a table covered with papers sat Oliver Yernon, upon 
 whose usually benevolent countenance was a look of 
 thoughtful resolution. Opposite him sat Eobert Eliot, 
 whose paramount expression appeared to be that of eager 
 interest. A few paces behind Vernon, dressed in an un- 
 wonted suit of black, and with an air of profound gravity 
 on his shrewd, kindly face, was David Greenwood. Whe- 
 ther or not the honest fellow expected to be called upon to 
 act a Huguet to his master's Richelieu^ he had between his 
 knees a stout cudgel of hickory — the most dangerous wea- 
 pon he had ever been known to use. 
 
 " Turn up the lights, Peters," said Vernon to the servant 
 who had opened the doors, "turn up the lights, and then 
 leave the room." 
 
 The man obeyed, while the speaker gravely saluted his 
 visitor. 
 
 " I sent for you, Mr. Kirkwood, because certain facts 
 have come to my knowledge, of which justice to others 
 compels me to take cognizance — facts in which you are in- 
 terested as principal actor — facts which, as they have been 
 productive of disastrous consequences, and through your 
 agency, I would gladly give you the opportunity to
 
 368 dangerfield's rest ; or 
 
 atone, so far as it may now be possible, before it is too 
 
 late." 
 
 "I know not what you refer to," said Kirkwood, boldly, 
 " but, if we are to talk business, I suggest that we should 
 be alone." 
 
 " What I have to say must be said before witnesses," 
 i-eturned Vernon gently. " It will make no difference to 
 your disadvantage. For at the termination of this inter- 
 view you will either be disposed to quit the country for 
 ever — or the number who witness your disgrace will be 
 quite immaterial." 
 
 " If you sent for me to indulge in empty insults, Mr. 
 Yernon," said Kirkwood haughtily, " you might have 
 spared yourself the trouble. I know the law. I know the 
 consequences of my own actions— better perhaps than you 
 know the consequences of yours — and I'll tell you one, at 
 least, of the latter, which is, that I shall hold you to strict 
 personal account for any defamatory expressions you em- 
 ploy towards me — to-night, or on any other past or future 
 occasion." 
 
 "Will you oblige me by coming nearer?" said Vernon, 
 in the same dispassionate tone. " Thank you. You are 
 unwise to lose your temper. It is my custom to speak the 
 truth ; you can judge for yourself, when we have finished, 
 whether I infringe it. Do you know this writing ?" 
 
 "This appears to be a sort of judicial investigation," 
 sneered Kirkwood, taking the paper. " However, I don't 
 object to humor the comedy. Know the writing ? Per- 
 fectly. More ; I can guess, without reading, the contents. 
 Is it strange that a woman like that should cherish hatred 
 under the circumstances, which you know as well as I ? 
 Don't you know, in fact, that she has hated and vowed 
 vengeance against me for years?" 
 
 " Granted. But if you committed these deeds, her 
 hatred would not absolve, any more than it made you com- 
 mit them. A man is not privileged to commit thefts and 
 forgeries, because some one has reason to dislike his person 
 or character."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 869 
 
 " Tut, Oliver Yernon," said Kirkwood, running his eye 
 hastily over the paper. " What need for us to chop sophis- 
 try ? I say that these charges are absolutely calumnious 
 and false. I say, further, that if true they are outlawed, 
 beyond the pale of legal prosecution." 
 
 " Does that apply to Elinor Grazebrook's patrimony ?" 
 
 " Bring an action, if you like, and put it to the test." 
 
 Kirkwood grew bolder and bolder, as he found the ex 
 tent and scope of the difficulties he was likely to encounter. 
 So far, he saw nothing he was not confident of refuting or 
 breaking down. 
 
 '* I certainly intend to endeavor to recover it," said Yer- 
 non steadily, " and that without delay." 
 
 " Why not have made the endeavor before ?" asked 
 Kirkwood insolently. " Indeed, why pay it in the first 
 place at all ?" 
 
 "Because there were reasons which your cunning was 
 not at a loss to appreciate ; reasons why scandal should not 
 be revived. But events have transpired which make the 
 principal of those reasons shrink into insignificance. The 
 lady affected can no longer be prejudiced in a social sense, 
 for her position is now assured. For the rest, if you 
 choose to inflict disgrace upon your own child, you are 
 worse than I take you to be." 
 
 " Eight is right," replied the other roughly. " These 
 personal considerations have no bearing on the merits of 
 the case." 
 
 " I am glad to hear that you think so, for if you are will- 
 ing to adjust all things in consonance with pure justice, it 
 will simplify our understanding very materially." 
 
 " I really see nothing further to discuss. To all that I 
 see here, and to all that you say, I interpose simply a gene- 
 ral denial. You challenge my denial. Good. I say, in 
 that case, proceed and establish your proofs. Meanwhile I 
 shall bid you good evening." And with his favorite as- 
 sumption of courtliness, always most apparent when he 
 was well at ease, Kirkwood rose and prepared to leave the 
 room. A peculiar smile flitted across the face of Eobert 
 
 16*
 
 370 dangerfield's rest : or 
 
 Eliot, and Vernon also arose, and stretching forth his arm, 
 said with dignity : — 
 
 " Not so, James Kirkwood. I have not yet finished 
 your indictment !" 
 
 A chill ran through Kirkwood's breast. 
 
 " Strange," he thought again, " strange, this constant 
 dread of the impossible. But there must be no flinching." 
 He resumed his seat with the smile still on his lip. " Pray 
 finish it as speedily as you can, then — I have engage- 
 ments." 
 
 " There shall be no unnecessary delay. First, it is 
 necessary that I should recal some circumstances to your 
 mind — circumstances which have passed between our- 
 selves." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " My daughter was engaged to marry Stephen Danger- 
 field. The pledge was on the eve of fulfilment. You 
 came forward and prevented it." 
 
 "You yourself justified the step and its motives." 
 
 " True. You made a long statement whose truth Mar- 
 tin Dangerfield himself has since corroborated and en- 
 dorsed." 
 
 " He has ?" asked Kirkwood, with a gleam of satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 " He has. You declared, and he repeated, that sixteen 
 years ago himself and my brother William had an encoun- 
 ter on the cliff between Uplands and Dangerfield's Eest. 
 That my unhappy brother had forged Martin Dangerfield's 
 name, and that there were other differences between them 
 which led to the altercation. That in the struggle which 
 occurred, my brother met his death at the hands of his 
 antagonist. Finally, that you, having witnessed this tra- 
 gedy, had religiously preserved the secret until the time you 
 communicated it to me for a special purpose." 
 
 Kirkwood paused for a moment in some surprise before 
 he rejoined : — "And which secret you yourself undertook 
 to keep." 
 
 " T am not unmindful of that, or of the consequences of
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 871 
 
 the infraction. For the present, I will ask you if I have 
 correctly stated the facts in question ?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 " Then I may proceed. The concurrent testimony of 
 the only living actor, and the only living witness of this 
 ghastly scene, I regarded as conclusive. You said true — 
 that my child could not espouse the son of her uncle's 
 murderer. You said true — that it was not in my heart to 
 bring this poor penitent, heart-broken man to what is 
 called justice. There the matter ended." 
 
 "As was expected — what more?" 
 
 " That which is most important, as you will admit. 
 This wretched story, so fatal to the happiness of two pre- 
 cious lives if true, would manifestly become less than tri- 
 vial if proved to be otherwise." 
 
 He paused, and looked at Kirkwood. The latter bowed 
 as in acquiescence. He was listening with breathless inte- 
 rest. 
 
 " Less than trivial, to all except the unhappy person who 
 could commit the crime of inventing and circulating so 
 wicked a calumny." 
 
 " Who dares to insinuate — " 
 
 " Listen and judge. Suppose it had been suggested to 
 me, through a rare and marvellous accident, that, in this 
 encounter, William Vernon did not receive his death- 
 wound ; that he was only stunned, although his opponent 
 believed him to be dead ; that the treacherous friend who 
 was present conveyed away the body of Vernon while he 
 was still insensible, and afterwards practised on the fear 
 and credulity of the supposed assassin for sixteen long 
 years ; that the victim was for a time kept quiet by re- 
 ported threats of prosecution for forgery put forth by Dan- 
 gerfield, who was represented as fully knowing the trifling 
 character of the wound he had inflicted ; that the pride of 
 Vernon (who had already brought his brother to disgrace 
 in early life by a similar act, of which he himself was 
 guilty) led him to bury himself in obscurity — first in Eng- 
 land, and then, after the lapse of years, in this country
 
 372 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 once more — disguised alike in name, and person, and in 
 his adopted calling — I repeat, suppose all this had been 
 suggested to me, what should 3^ou saj to it?" 
 
 During this singular narration, Kirk wood was using all 
 his energy to conceal each evidence of apprehension or dis- 
 may. But in the effort the blood rushed to his head, and 
 the veins stood in knots on his throat and head. The emo- 
 tion, which, however, was really stronger than terror, there 
 was no occasion to conceal, and to that he gave full vent. 
 With difficulty he restrained himself from interrupting 
 until Vernon had concluded, and when he spoke it was 
 with a hoarse shout of fury. 
 
 " Say? Say it was a d — d. infernal lie ! a most atrocious 
 lie ! I'd swear before God a lie !" 
 
 " It is His truth, James Kirkwood," said a solemn voice 
 from an inner chamber, and William Eadcliffe, with Elinor 
 and Cuthbert Boynton, advanced into the apartment, " It 
 is His truth. Add not to your other crimes the sin of 
 perjury !" 
 
 Kirkwood stood for a moment transfixed with astonish- 
 ment and horror. If the dead had actually risen, he had 
 not been more appalled. Nor was there any need of ex- 
 planation or denial as to identity. William Yernon, with 
 all the changes of time and costume, was not a man to be 
 forgotten by those who once had known him. But had 
 there been none such within reach, the remarkable resem- 
 blance between the two brothers, as they stood side by side 
 together, would have been conclusive evidence of the rela- 
 tionship, 
 
 " Yes," pursued William Yernon — for we should no 
 longer call him Radcliffe — "yes, I am he whom Martin 
 Dangerfield — after being sorely tried, and struck by me in 
 a moment of half-drunken frenzy — shot through the breast, 
 and believed afterwards — as I have since learned, but did 
 not until lately know — to have died from the wound. I 
 am he for whose youthful crime my noble brother was per- 
 mitted to suffer — to exile himself for life in a foreign land.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 373 
 
 This unhappy man well knew how to play upon my weak 
 and facile nature. It was not strong enough to face the 
 exposure which he threatened as a consequence of my 
 appearing again in the world. For years did I burrow in 
 concealment. But a merciful God willed that I should do 
 some good before I died, and sent this brave and high- 
 souled girl to guide me to that good as His appointed 
 instrument !" 
 
 By this time Kirkwood's iron nerves had assumed their 
 accustomed supremacy, and he had measured with practised 
 cunning all the disadvantages of his situation as well as the 
 chances for escape from its consequences. He had at first 
 glared from one to the other of the assemblage as if in 
 doubt at whom to spring, and honest Uncle Davy had 
 watched his expression with an anxious eye ; — but as Wil- 
 liam Vernon concluded, the disquietude of the man's coun- 
 tenance gave place to a ghastly smile, and he waved his 
 hand in his old courtly manner to the company. 
 
 " This, it seems, is the denouement of the comedy ! Not 
 badly arranged, Yernon, and does you infinite credit. 'Tis 
 idle either to deny or to confess anything when one has to 
 cope with so adroit a manager ! — Especially when he has 
 the assistance of so strong a corps dramatique ! Sorry I 
 can't stay for the farce, but the pressure of business must 
 be my excuse — so good night, all ; Mr. Vernon, should you 
 have further accounts to settle with me, you know my address." 
 
 And availing himself of the surprise which for the 
 moment this original method of viewing the case engen- 
 dered, Kirkwood passed swiftly from the room. Eliot was 
 the first to speak : — 
 
 "Ought we to permit him to go free? He may yet do 
 mischief." 
 
 "Not sOj" said Vernon. "The ofiicers will not permit 
 him to escape. They have their orders." 
 
 Eliot sprang to the door and in a twinkling descended 
 the stairs, but he almost instantly returned : — 
 
 " He has not passed into the street," he cried in a tone 
 of alarm.
 
 374 dangerfield's rest : or 
 
 "No? Then he must still be in the house," replied 
 Vernon. 
 
 The detective was summoned and a thorough search 
 made of the premises, but, as will be surmised, in vain. 
 The bird had flown. The experienced official soon read 
 the riddle, but, as he averred, Kirkwood might now be far 
 away — especially if, as was most likely, he had caught a 
 carriage. Oliver Vernon looked at his watch — it wanted 
 but five minutes of the time for the express train to leave 
 for the north. Too late for that, but not, as all agreed, to 
 despatch warning telegrams to Uplands, and to Danger- 
 field's Eest, as well as to the authorities along the route. 
 The rain was now pouring in torrents, and David Green- 
 wood was despatched in the carriage to hasten forward 
 these despatches. But he soon returned disappointed. The 
 wires were down, and a storm raging all along the line. 
 David drove to the railway depot where there was also a 
 telegraphic station, and received a confirmation of the 
 statement. A gentleman had been most anxious to send a 
 despatch, and finding it impossible, had just before taken 
 the express train. It was determined, as the next best 
 course to pursue, that Eliot and David sliould follow by the 
 succeeding train. The fears of the party were, indeed, 
 justified by the facts, for Kirkwood, by dint of surpassing 
 celerity and adroitness, had caught the express, and was 
 flying toward the North.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 376 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 ON this eventful night, so pregnant of consequences to the 
 principal characters of our history, Martin Dangerfield 
 was lying dangerously ill. Since the discovery of the 
 supposed crime which had now blighted the happiness 
 of his son as it long had blighted his own, he had sunk 
 into a stupor, interrupted at intervals by the delirium of 
 fever. Stephen spent much time at his bedside, only 
 leaving the house for an occasional wild gallop over the 
 hills — and for this he selected such hours as were least likely 
 to bring him in contact with any of the inmates at 
 Uplands. 
 
 On this occasion the old man's illness had assumed a 
 more alarming phase than before ; so alarming that his son 
 resolved, some time after midnight, to fetch the attending 
 physician from the village. For the sake of not arousing 
 the household as well as for that of speed, he went forth 
 to the stables to saddle and ride Black Vixen for the errand 
 himself. The old servant who acted as nurse could take 
 care of the sick man, but could not be trusted to manage 
 the spirited animal. Stephen had set out with an injunc- 
 tion to Williams to watch his father carefully, and had 
 been gone nearly an hour. 
 
 Indeed, the road was so dark and difficult that a know- 
 ledge less intimate than those of both horse and rider 
 might well have failed to trace it at all. This, together 
 with the fact that he waited to see Dr. Saunders started on 
 his way, accounted for Stephen's detention. 
 
 Martin Dangerfield was delirious — not constantly but at 
 intervals, and this was the reason for enjoining vigilance 
 upon his attendant. But it happened, soon after his son's 
 departure, that he turned his face to the wall and slept ; at 
 least so it appeared to Williams, who, after nodding and 
 blinking in silence for the better part of an hour, fell 
 asleep likewise. 
 
 But the patient was not sleeping at all. As he lay he
 
 876 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 could see across the quadrangular space which lay between 
 the wings of the building, to the windows on the opposite 
 side. Since the night he was taken ill, there had been no 
 lights in two particular windows there, until now; and now, 
 for the first time they had re-appeared. So the old man 
 lay, his brain half lucid, half confused, wondering and 
 speculating as to the cause. Anon the paroxysm of the 
 disease would be upon him, and he forgot all things but 
 the consciousness of pain. By and by, after one of these 
 alternations he opened his eyes and saw that the light had 
 again vanished. This gave him a feeling of disappoint- 
 ment, which was relieved when he saw that the mysterious 
 luminary, having quitted its first abiding-place, was flitting 
 from point to point, but generally descending, as he could 
 judge by seeing it at casements which looked forth from 
 the staircases. Finally it reached the angle where the 
 addition joined the main building, sharply turned the 
 corner, and was seen coming through the long corridor 
 toward the wing where the sick man lay. Presently it got 
 beyond the line of vision from his bed and he saw it no 
 more. He waited: — expecting perhaps to hear a tread 
 upon the stairs, to see a figure advance into the room, but 
 there came neither one nor the other. He waited some 
 five minutes and all was still. 
 
 Then Martin Dangerfield, after a cautious scrutiny of the 
 sleeping attendant, arose from his couch, and with feeble 
 and uncertain steps, quitted the room and descended the 
 stairs towards the library. Noiselessly he moved through 
 the passages until he arrived at the door, which opened 
 gently to his pressure. Yes, there was the light and there 
 was the man who had carried it. His back was turned to 
 the door, for he had managed to open the cabinet which 
 has been mentioned, and was busily poring over the papers it 
 contained. The old man stood on the threshold, his snowy 
 hair dishevelled about his head, and his long night dress 
 making him appear supernaturally tall. He spoke : — 
 
 " Hast thou returned, O mine enemy !" 
 
 The click of a pistol lock and a hasty exclamation was
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 377 
 
 the first response, but as he turned the man recognised the 
 speaker, and replied hurriedly: — 
 
 " Silence ! I would do no harm. You must have left 
 this unlocked : — I missed a paper of my own and sought 
 not to disturb you. Do not seek to stay or to molest me, 
 or it will be worse for you. See — I am about to go — to 
 leave the country — and I shall trouble you no more." 
 
 " No." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " You shall not go hence. You seek to rob my son — 
 to despoil him of his patrimony. You thought me mad 
 — unable to denounce you for forging my signature. I am 
 very ill — dead almost — but not mad, and I shall denounce 
 you !" 
 
 " Fool — you forget that I can denounce you in turn." 
 
 " I care not for that — I can face that now. A very little 
 longer and all will be over — but Stephen, though he be a 
 felon's son, shall not be a beggar !" 
 
 " You rave — no such thing as you hint at has been 
 dreamt of or attempted." 
 
 " You have told Stephen of the mur — of the secret which 
 was between us." 
 
 " What then ?" 
 
 " I know you well. You would not have played your 
 last card, except that in doing so you were ready to sweep 
 the board. I have had a warning — not unexpected." 
 
 " From whom ?" 
 
 " From one named Eliot. You have been negotiating 
 a mortgage at New York — there is but one inference — a 
 forged signature." 
 
 " False. A vile ridiculous invention." 
 
 " Then you will stay here and prove it so." 
 
 " No. I do not choose to remain. I have work to do 
 elsewhere." 
 
 " You will stay until my son returns." 
 
 " He is absent, then?" 
 
 In his weakness the old man had committed a blunder. 
 He saw it a moment after, and sought to retrieve it.
 
 378 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 « 
 
 " For a few moments only — lie will be here before you 
 could leave the grounds ; besides — " he advanced towards 
 the bell-rope which hung at the side of the door, " this 
 will arouse the servants." 
 
 But Kirkwood was too quick for him. In a second he 
 had intercepted Dangerficld's approach to the bell. 
 
 " Hearken !" he said fiercely. " There must be no noise 
 here. It suits me to leave this house as quietly as I came, 
 and I leave it at once." 
 
 " That you shall not till Stephen returns." 
 
 " Dotard ! Let me pass, or — " and he advanced threaten- 
 ing. 
 
 " Never ! You shall stay to have your share of igno- 
 miny — your share of punishment !" 
 
 As Kirkwood made for the door, the old man threw 
 himself in his path. There was a brief struggle — wretch- 
 edly brief indeed, for what could feeble, broken age effect 
 against such a mass of resolute thews and sinews ? There 
 was a sharp blow in the temple, a shrill cry of " murder," 
 and a hurried rush. Down came the bewildered domestic, 
 startled from his sleep, to find Martin Dangerfield lying 
 bleeding on the floor. The opened window on the piazza 
 showed the path of escape taken by the assailant, but Wil- 
 liams would not or dared not leave his master to pursue. 
 That duty was left to Stephen Dangerfield, who five min- 
 utes after gallopped up, and learned what had occurred.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 379 
 
 CHAPTER LK. 
 
 MURDER! 
 Kirkwood neither knew nor cared now whether he 
 bad committed another one. Consistent, at least, through 
 all his crimes, nothing should follow the last and most des- 
 iderate to endanger his safety, or to thwart his desires. The 
 money — the papers — must be had, and he be far away be- 
 fore the hue and cry of this crowning outrage should get 
 abroad. Everything was red before his eyes — the earth, 
 the trees, the heavens, with their thick, black clouds, 
 through which the pale moonlight occasionally struggled 
 — all, all, blood-red. Still the man tore on with desperate, 
 bull-dog tenacity, unflinching and unflagging ; had he sud- 
 denly heard the Last Trump, and had known the next hour 
 brought the awful Judgment, he still had held his way. 
 
 First he made for the highway, as being the shortest road 
 to his goal ; but it lightened up now and then with the 
 moonbeams sprinkling through the trees ; and he heard the 
 distant creak of a heavy wagon, making for market, may 
 be ; so he slunk away with smothered curses, and fought 
 his way on, over fields and meadows, through hedges and 
 ditches, and patches of woods. 
 
 He formed his plan as he went, and to execute it seemed 
 easy enough. He would get what he wanted at the Jutty, 
 descend afterwards to the river's bank, cross in a boat at a 
 favorable point, and take the earliest down train to the 
 city. Then he meant to go to the Battery, and board the 
 Cunard steamer after she hauled into the stream. It would 
 not be prudent to run the risk of detectives before that, for 
 it was possible, if not probable, that the deed might have 
 been discovered during the night. He would go to Lon- 
 don, or to Paris ; Paris was a gay and luxurious city, and 
 might better suit his taste. 
 
 Not that his mind was much occupied with festal or 
 lightsome images. Quite the contrary. It was pressed 
 down with a dull, heavy weight, which, like a mountain
 
 380 dangerfield's rest; op 
 
 of iron bearing inexorably towards the centre, could nei- 
 ther be resisted nor evaded. He lashed himself onwards ; 
 his will was stubborn and dogged enough ; no danger of 
 that failing ; but will could not serve to rid him of the 
 weight. It was not Conscience ; that was long since dead, 
 but the horrible presentiment of coming retribution. He 
 felt it closing densely upon him, cruel as fate, inexorable 
 as destiny. 
 
 Suddenly he plunged into an open space, and saw far 
 below him, its dark bosom crossed and spangled with 
 streaks and dots of glittering light, the broad and gliding 
 river. It was red too ; dark red in the shadows — ghastly, 
 crimson in the lights. He shuddered, and drew back with 
 a thrill of terror. Others were surely looking at the 
 stream as well as he ; and how could any one look at it 
 and not KNOW that a Murder had been committed ? He 
 crouched down among the furze, looked carefully at the 
 caps of his revolver, and tried the edge of his knife, to be 
 ready for that doomed first one who should touch his 
 shoulder with the appalling sentence, " Thou art the man." 
 
 Then he nursed his head in the hollow of his hand, and 
 strove resolutely to think. What w^ere the chances for and 
 against him ? Suppose some one had heard the scuffle in 
 Martin Dangerfiekrs chamber ! Not Stephen, he was ab- 
 sent. But some one of the servants who slept in the same 
 wing ! No, no danger of that. Whoever had heard would 
 have come or given the alarm at once. As for Mary, there 
 was not one chance in ten of the body being found in sea- 
 son to work him harm. Even suppose the neighbors, by 
 some unusual accident, did discover it, who was to connect 
 him with the crime ? No one. It would require a long 
 chain of evidence, the proof of motives, witnesses to for- 
 mer association, a hundred things ; no, no risk of that. 
 He was safe, then, safe and free as air. 
 
 Then again came the sickening weight, or, rather, it 
 grew heavier, for it was never absent — crushing and burn- 
 ing into his inmost consciousness the indelible conviction of 
 an avenging presence, which was close on his footsteps.
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 881 
 
 Nearer and nearer it came, never halting, never merciful, 
 surely destined to accomplish its purpose, without pitj, 
 without pause. 
 
 A triumphant gleam swept for an instant over the mur- 
 derer's swarthy features. What if he should defeat this hor- 
 rible pursuer, this implacable avenger, by putting between 
 himself and It an impassable chasm. He looked at the pistol 
 again and then at the knife, and played and toyed with 
 the trigger of the one and the handle of the other. He 
 was absolutely on the point of using one of the weapons. 
 The fiend-like Thing could not follow him across that 
 stream. Then there came over the man an awful convul- 
 sive shuddering as the thought flashed across his mind 
 that It might be waiting for him on the other side. 
 
 Again he sprang to his feet and fled. But for the dread- 
 ful danger he would have screamed aloud ; for his nervous 
 system, steel-like as it was, began to rock and quake under 
 the tremendous pressure. He sought instinctively to restore 
 the equilibrium by great physical exertions. He tore on 
 with superhuman swiftness, leaping fences and gullies, from 
 which he would have shrunk in dismay in a normal con- 
 dition. Presently it struck him that there was much time 
 to fill, and but little to do before he could take the first 
 morning train. Where should he weary out the hours he 
 had to spare ? It was not yet three o'clock, — the train would 
 not arrive before half-past six, — half an hour was time 
 enough in which to cross the river, — to reach and unearth 
 his treasure would take half an hour more, — so there 
 were two hours to fill — two hours of waiting and expec- 
 tancy. Again he sat down and reflected. 
 
 He shut his eyes to exclude the red glare, and for a little 
 space there came wandering over his seared and guilty 
 brow the only soft and gentle expression we have ever seen 
 there. And the moonbeams stole calmly and purely over 
 the murderer's face, and it looked for a moment almost 
 beautiful in its transient and remorseful tenderness ; he 
 was thinking of his child. 
 
 The only human and kindly feeling in that heart of
 
 382 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 adamant — the only trace of softer sentiment -whicli his 
 wretched life and selfish nature had left him — the little 
 remnant of the angel which all his sordidness and crime 
 could not quite blot out — came breathing and speaking up 
 into his face, and brimming his poor wicked eyes with 
 tears ; and when he looked out for a fleeting moment upon 
 surrounding nature, seen through the medium of those 
 purifying drops, the earth and skies were no longer red. 
 But he looked down at his hands — and the horrible color 
 came back again. 
 
 No, he could not see his child with its mother's blood 
 fresh on his soul. How could he fondle that little head, 
 and stroke down those glossy curls with the fingers that 
 but yesternight had wrought the earthly destruction of her 
 who had borne the child, and whom he had long ago sworn 
 he loved so well. Easy enough to go to Uplands — plenty 
 of time, too. lie knew where the child slept — he might 
 kiss, without awaking her, — but the shivering sensation 
 which ran through his very marrow as the thought flew 
 across his brain warned him that he should go mad if he 
 tried to carry it into execution. 
 
 Once more he arose and started on with a fresh impulse. 
 Drink ! He must have drink ! Quick ! he must do what 
 he had to do and cross the river. On the other side he 
 could get brandy somewhere, and 'that should strengthen 
 him to bear up under his fearful burden until he was safe 
 at sea. He became almost cheerful as he thought of this 
 resource, and hastened his steps that the time might be 
 short before availing of it. A few moments more brought 
 him close to the Jutty, and he crossed the fence at the 
 place he knew so well, and crept cautiously from bush to 
 bush as he drew nigher to his hiding-place. Cautiously he 
 stole, to avoid being seen by any chance, in the fitful moon- 
 beams which shone forth at intervals, and must throw out 
 in strong relief the sharp outline of the upheaved pro- 
 montory. 
 
 The clouds had increased in weight and compactness, 
 and as Kirkwood reached his destination, big drops had
 
 BEFOEE THE STORM. 383 
 
 commenced to fall, and the thunder to mutter ominously 
 over his head. He noted these facts with satisfaction. The 
 more physical disturbance the better. Every perturbation 
 of the elements furnished him with additional cover and 
 greater consequent security. He reached the top of the 
 cliff, and groping among the brush, soon found the flat 
 stone covered as he had left it, with earth and rubble. 
 He had no spade, but his knife answered the purpose, and 
 with its aid he soon turned up the soil which concealed the 
 box. Everything was undisturbed, and his heart beat more 
 freely as he saw so much of his task safely performed. 
 " So far, so well," said he to himself, and carefully replac- 
 ing as nearly as possible in the same position the rubbish 
 he had removed. " So far so well," he repeated audibly, 
 " and now for Europe!" 
 
 As he spoke, he turned, and saw standing within six 
 feet, and regarding him with fixed attention — Stephen 
 Dangerfield. Neither man spoke, for each knew per- 
 fectly well — although for different reasons — that there was 
 nothing to say. 
 
 Kirkwood was uncertain as to the extent of the injuries 
 suffered by Martin Dangerfield. He felt, that, although in 
 all probability they were not mortal, they were yet suffi- 
 ciently serious to warrant the detention of his assailant to 
 abide the result. He ought now, properly, to be in cus- 
 tody, and Stephen Dangerfield was not likely to be too 
 lenient with him. But his life absolutely depended upon 
 immediate departure, and upon no hue and cry being 
 raised in pursuit. To attempt to wheedle or cajole his 
 opponent was liopeless. That device had been attempted 
 and exhausted before. To seek safety in flight was equally 
 idle, for that opponent, besides being younger and lighter 
 than himself, was unimpeded by any extra weight. Kirk- 
 wood, at once, realized the remaining alternative, and with 
 characteristic hardihood prepared to adopt it. It would 
 not be the first time he had cut his way through an obstacle 
 which he could not circumvent. Moreover, he was well 
 armed, and had that sort of vigour fresh upon him which
 
 384 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 desperation gives — the quality which makes men, as well 
 as animals, fight harder when they have lately tasted blood. 
 
 Stephen was as resolved in the course he had determined 
 on as a man could be. He was resolved when he set out 
 from The Rest, and the time which had since elapsed served 
 but to make him more inflexible. It would have been easy 
 to bring help, but such a step would have involved a 
 repetition of the threat, and perhaps even the positive dis- 
 closure of the damning secret, which, like the sword of Damo- 
 cles, Kirkwood had so long kept suspended over his house. 
 Stephen felt that he would be justified in avenging the 
 gross insult and personal injury inflicted on his father, 
 though he doubted his right on that score to go the length 
 of shedding blood. But for the long arrearages of extor- 
 tion and insolence which had followed Kirkwood's know- 
 ledge of what, at worst, was a terrible misfortune rather 
 than a premeditated crime, he felt he had a right to exact 
 stern atonement. At all events, whatever the complica- 
 tion of motives or provocation, Kirkwood should be de- 
 prived of the written instruments wherewith he had already 
 worked so much evil, and threatened so much more. Nor 
 should he, if Stephen could help it, carry away to enjoy in 
 comfort, hoarded treasures whatever they might be, which 
 he knew to have been chiefly extorted from his unhappy 
 father. The box of papers whose whereabouts had been at 
 last discovered, he was determined to have. 
 
 The two stood eyeing each other in the moonlight, with 
 every muscle set, every nerve braced, in readiness for a 
 sudden spring. Then ensued a solemn pause, broken by a 
 long reverberating peal of thunder which was almost in- 
 stantly succeeded by the total obscuration of the moon 
 with dense sable clouds from which the crash had ema- 
 nated. Down came the rain in leaden drops, and everything 
 was enveloped in pitchy darkness. Stephen advanced a 
 step, as if fearful his enemy might escape in the gloom, 
 and Kirkwood spoke coolly and steadily : 
 
 "What do you want? Why do you stop my path ?" 
 
 " Those papers. Because I mean to have them."
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 385 
 
 A knife gleamed in the air, and quick as thought, was 
 struck from Kirkwood's grasp by the butt of the riding- 
 whip Stephen carried in his hand. With a fierce cry, the 
 assassin threw himself on the young man, and in a moment 
 they were writhing and struggling on the turf. A terrible 
 conflict ensued, whose result it would have been very difii- 
 cult to predict. The vast strength and superior weight of 
 Kirkwood would seem at the outset to have given him 
 an overwhelming advantage. But Stephen Dangerfield, 
 though both a lighter and more delicately-framed man, 
 possessed a nervous activity and a fertility of resource 
 which, added to his youth, went far toward balancing the 
 chances of the encounter. 
 
 Kirkwood being on the outer side, and near the edge of 
 the cliff, strove to change his position for that of his foe, 
 with the view, perhaps, of hurling him over the precijDice. 
 Stephen perceived this purpose and lent every energy to 
 resist it. Both men grew more des2:>erate and determined, 
 for it was now clear that life and death were in the issue. 
 They struggled first to their knees, and then to their feet, 
 their hands and arms turning and twisting into a tortuous 
 grapple from which neither dared withdraw, lest the 
 movement prove fatal. Kirkwood, without being able 
 to change places with his antagonist, had yet, by sheer 
 weight and strength, forced him backward some distance 
 from the original point of the struggle. But in so doing, 
 his foot struck against an obstacle which the younger man 
 turned to account by throwing him heavily on his back, 
 and with lightning swiftness, planting his knee on the 
 heaving chest of his enemy. Then Kirkwood with a 
 supreme effort of his colossal muscles, and seizing Stephen 
 by the throat and body with either hand, dashed him 
 several feet off; at the same instant each recovered a 
 weapon, for Kirkwood's hand fell on his knife, and Stephen 
 recovered his whip. 
 
 Again they rushed together, neither seeing until the 
 moment of meeting, the acquisition of the other. The 
 butt-end of the whip once more descended with crushing 
 
 17
 
 386 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 force, partly parried by the left arm which flew up to save 
 the head. At the same instant, however, the sharp knife 
 was driven savagely into the young man's side and he 
 reeled and fell to the ground. 
 
 Then Stephen Dangerfield heard a strange, rumbling 
 sound, like, and yet unlike, thunder — but there was a 
 slight lull in the storm, and again the moon broke fitfully 
 forth. Kirkwood also fell back from the effects of a blow, 
 which, though deprived of most of its force, had severely 
 bruised his head. It was only for a moment, however, for 
 his practised eye told him he must give his opponent no 
 time for recovery. 
 
 Stephen staggered to his feet, half-fainting, and blood 
 streaming from his side, but still self-possessed and un- 
 daunted. Fortunately he had stumbled upon a heavy 
 stick, which was safe to do its work more thoroughly than 
 the lighter riding- whip which he now cast away. As he 
 stood with his bludgeon poised, awaiting the onset which 
 his ebbing strength told him must be the last, he again 
 heard the mysterious warning sound which had struck his 
 ear as he fell, but which he had no thoughts for in the 
 critical moment which was approaching. 
 
 Forward rushed James Kirkwood, flushed with triumph, 
 for he knew his powerful hand had struck deep, and that 
 no strength or youthful vigour could long keep up when the 
 spring it had opened continued to gush forth. Avoiding 
 the heavy swirl of his adversary's bludgeon, he closed with, 
 and struck him again and again with the knife. Stephen 
 was forced to his knee, each moment blinder and feebler; 
 but nerving himself to a last effort, he threw himself back 
 a few paces, and then rushing at his foe with resistless vio- 
 lence, he managed to deal him a heavy blow in the fore- 
 head. The next instant the young man fell and fainted. 
 
 Hurled headlong nearly to the edge of the cliff, Kirk- 
 wood rose to his knees blinded with blood, but with a 
 smile of savage joy on his face. Strangely enough, he had 
 cither forgotten, or as yet been unable to use, his most 
 dangerous weapon. The deadly revolver was in his hand
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 387 
 
 now, however, cocked, and pointed at the prostrate form of 
 his victim. An instant to dash the gathering gore from his 
 eyes, and to take a steady and collected aim ; the next, he 
 pulled the trigger. But, as he did so, the ground between 
 himself and the body of Stephen Dangerfield opened with 
 a thunderous crash. A huge fragment was sundered from 
 the side of the precipice, and fell eastward as it was torn 
 away. The promontory, long overhanging and dangerous 
 — its foundations undermined by the attrition of centuries 
 induced by the ceaseless action of the great stream — bad 
 broken away, at last, with the added impulse of the despe- 
 rate struggle on the crest. The vast mass turned as it fell, 
 and, after some seconds, plunged into the waters below 
 with a hollow roar, burying the body of the homicide lor 
 ever in the bosom of the mighty river. 
 
 CHAPTEE LV. 
 
 WILD and furious was the storm which rattled and 
 crashed that night among the hoary hills of the 
 Hudson. Tbe thunder pealed forth its celestial cannonade 
 in those appalling volleys which blanch the cheek, and 
 make the heart stand still with awe. The lightning play- 
 ed in forked swiftness from the Catskills to the Palisades, 
 rifting many a rock, and laying low many a forest tree. 
 The heavens were piled with sooty draperies, which poured 
 forth torrents of blinding rain. The wind shrieked in savage 
 dissonance, as it tore up the valley, and flew round the brow 
 of the cliff. Nature seemed to have ransacked her armory to 
 launch forth each weapon of chaos and destruction. And 
 destruction came to the works of man as well as to those 
 of Heaven. Fragile houses were blown down, and the 
 chimneys crumbled from the tops of the stouter ones. 
 Barns and granaries were destroyed, and the affrighted cat- 
 tle ran bellowing through the fields. Vessels were torn
 
 388 dangerfield's rest; or 
 
 from their ancliorage, and dashed violently against the 
 shores. The timid nestled closer in their beds, and the 
 superstitious hid their heads for fear. To those who look- 
 ed forth into the night, all seemed darkness, ruin, and deso- 
 lation. 
 
 And yet the morning broke bright and beautiful. The 
 temjDest was brief as it had been violent. Even what it 
 left behind breathed more of sweetness than of bitterness ; 
 for the whole face of the earth exhaled a mild and deli- 
 cious fragrance. And they who looked forth to inhale the 
 spirit of the morning knew not that the powers of the air 
 had been chanting the requiem of a criminal gone to his 
 long account — thought not of aught as coming from the 
 heavens but Hope — for over opposite the warm red sun, 
 circling a mass of sullen but retreating clouds, and putting 
 to shame the cold glitter of the morning star, they saw the 
 Bow of Promise. 
 
 It was daylight when Eobert Eliot and David Green- 
 wood found the insensible but still living body of Stephen 
 Dangerficld. lie had suffered greatly from loss of blood, 
 but youth and a healthful organization soon repaired the 
 loss, and not many days passed before Stephen was himself 
 again. They bore him to his home, where they found his 
 father by no means seriously injured, but attended by 
 Oliver and William Vernon, who had hastened to comfort 
 the old man with the thrice happy news that he who was 
 dead was alive again, and that the proud old race of Dan- 
 gerficld was saved from the stigma of a felon's name. 
 
 And Grace and Stephen, Elinor and Cuthbert, were, 
 after all, married on the same day. To be sure this day 
 was postponed somawhat, by reason of Stephen's misfor- 
 tune ; but it was all the happier when it did come, and 
 none regretted the delay when they thought of the solemn 
 event — so clearly indicating the interposition of Providence 
 — which had made it necessary. 
 
 Cuthbert is practising law in the great city, and has 
 never regretted the sacrifice which his love first prompted,
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 389 
 
 but which his conscience and his reason have taught him, 
 year by year, more thoroughly to rejoice in and approve. 
 Both his wife and himself spend much time at Uplands 
 and Dangerfield's Eest ; and of all the pleasant people to 
 be met with at both houses, we need scarcely say that none 
 are more loved or more welcome than themselves. 
 
 No inquiries have ever been made for the body of James 
 Kirk wood; and it was judged better on all accounts to let 
 his fate remain, like his corpse, buried in oblivion. The 
 papers with which he had hoped to fly were all found, and 
 both Gossamer Von Donk and Mr. Staggers were very glad 
 to recover their money ; and, especially on learning the 
 mortgage was a forgery, to accept the belief that Kirkwood 
 had fled the country through fear of detection, leaving in 
 his haste both cash and documents behind. 
 
 It happened that Elias P. failed in business shortly after 
 Kirkwood's disappearance ; and some people were ill-natured 
 enough to say that the broker unfairly attributed certain 
 losses and bad debts to that person's account, so that his 
 credit was for a time under a cloud. He has, however, 
 emerged from its shade as often before, and is now carrying 
 sail in Wall street as merrily as ever. 
 
 Gossamer Von Donk finally came to marry Joanna 
 Heydensucker. How it was brought about no one knows, 
 but he boasts that at all events he hasn't as much to fear 
 from the Honorable Job as formerly, the latter worthy, by 
 dint of pettifogging, politics, and alcohol, having reduced 
 himself to comparative imbecility. Mrs. General has not 
 yet succeeded in marrying Violetta and Zerlina, although 
 there has been a flirtation on the carpet between the former 
 and Mr. Slymer for several seasons past. As for the 
 General himself, he has attained a rather apoplectic con- 
 dition, but agrees with his old friend McSwindle and the 
 confrerie of the Pewter Mug, in hating the " naygur" as 
 cordially as ever. 
 
 "William Vernon did not long survive the act which 
 brought happiness to so many. His constitution, shattered 
 by early excess, had only been kept up of late years by
 
 390 DAXGERFIELD S REST ; OR 
 
 artificial stimulants. He sank into a quiet and peaceful 
 grave, surrounded by friends and relatives, and bappy in 
 tbe blessed conviction tbat be bad done some good before 
 he died. 
 
 Tbe fate of Mary Grazebrook bas ever continued to be 
 sbrouded in mystery. No trace, no vestige of ber unbappy 
 life, nor of ber miserable deatb, ever repaid tbe anxious 
 researcbes instituted by Oliver Vernon. For, notwitbstand- 
 ing tbe precautions of ber destroyer, tbe flames be bad 
 ligbted caugbt tbe adjacent wood- work, and by tbe same 
 bour tbat Kirkwood slept in bis watery grave, only beaps 
 of asbes marked tbe spot wbere bad stood not only ber own 
 but a dozen dwellings wbicb surrounded it. Long, bow- 
 ever, before tbe fire could bave expelled it, ber weary 
 spirit bad passed painlessly away; to find, let us bope, 
 mercy and consolation in the bappier spbere beyond. 
 
 Wbile ber betrayer yet lived sbe seemed to bave some 
 purpose in life ; sbe was not wbolly aimless. To ferret 
 out and baffle bis insidious scbemes bad engrossed ber 
 tbougbts, and was regarded by ber in some degree as an 
 expiation of tbe past. Wbile sbe could warn or guard 
 Stepben Dangerfield, ber daughter, or Yernon, from tbe 
 evils tbis man so artfully contrived, ber life was not 
 altogether a useless one. Tbat time was past ; and with 
 it what sbe deemed ber mission was at an end. Perhaps 
 if we could see more clearly than is yet permitted, we 
 might distinguish a defined relation and purpose in tbe 
 dispensation whereby these two sin-connected souls were 
 taken from eartb on tbe self-same stormy night; mean- 
 while let pity draw a charitable veil over tbe faults and tbe 
 memory of one who, considering ber trials and temptations, 
 was, perhaps, more sinned against than sinning. 
 
 Robert Eliot bas not yet written his book, but we bear 
 tbat it may soon be expected. When it appears we do 
 not look for him to see only one side of our shield and 
 declare it all gold — or to view the other alone and pro- 
 nounce it all silver — neither do we think to find him adopt 
 tbe course many of his countrymen select as most popular
 
 BEFORE THE STORM. 391 
 
 and proclaim it a composite of baser metal than either — 
 but we hope for a rational, well-bred, and truthful expo- 
 sition smacking more of the character of the old-fashioned 
 English gentleman than of the new-fashioned English 
 tourist — a distinction which even the most ignorant Ameri- 
 cans know tolerably well how to appreciate. 
 
 David Greenwood and Aunt Mercy married at last, 
 having been unable to withstand the contagious examples 
 of their betters. It must, however, be admitted that their 
 lives glide on much in the same way that they did before, 
 as David says, " they concluded to hitch bosses." 
 
 Good Mrs. Maberly lives with the Boyntons, and takes 
 the warmest interest in their growing family. 
 
 We need scarcely say that Oliver Yernon lost his elec- 
 tion, — or that such an event gave him no great concern. 
 Nor need we say that he adheres strongly to those views 
 and principles which have been, in a measure, described. 
 His faith is abiding in the future greatness and worthiness 
 of his country, nor has the tremendous tempest which has 
 of late been sweeping over it, shaken that faith or impaired 
 its established convictions. On the contrary, he believes 
 that the reforms and corrections which are essential to the 
 national happiness and dignity, will be facilitated and 
 hastened by the storm which has overtaken us, and which 
 long years of slotliful progression and cumulative abuse 
 might otherwise have been consumed in effecting. But 
 Yernon's philanthropy is broad and cosmopolitan, and he 
 deems that whatever betide in the future, the achievements 
 of the past should be credited us by the nations — for — as he 
 lately wrote Eobert Eliot, in allusion to the prophecies and 
 wishes of too many English tongues and pens : — " Even 
 if this Union be broken into fragments, — even were its 
 sons scattered to the four winds of heaven, — though every 
 star were blotted from its escutcheon, and the memory 
 of the past obscured like Assyrian legends, we may yet 
 draw consolation from the belief that her example has 
 been of inestimable value to mankind, and that the Great 
 Republic has not risen and flourished in vain,"
 
 392 dangerfield's rest. 
 
 Five years have rolled away since these friends of ours 
 sailed over the summer seas in the Assyria. They have 
 met again at one of their midsummer gatherings. 
 
 Dangerfield's Eest looks much as it did of yore. Little 
 by little, more weather-stained and grey, perhaps, and the 
 ivy is embracing with its loving green arms something 
 more of the stout walls than when we last saw them. 
 
 All our friends are there — Oliver Vernon, the Boyntons, 
 Grace, Martin Dangerlield, and the child — grown now into 
 a dreamy broad-browed girl — his son brought from the 
 wreck. — There are little children, too, little Dangerfields 
 and little Boyntons — all, all but Stephen — and he is away 
 fighting the battles of his country. 
 
 They are looking forth on the shimmering line of the 
 far off sea, and talking of the absent one. The two old 
 men were never weary of that theme any more than Grace 
 was. Ohver had spoken of Stephen's bringing the little 
 one from the schooner, and of his fondness for her : — 
 
 " Strange fate," murmured Martin Dangerfield, " the 
 Instrument to save the child and to destroy the — " 
 
 " Poor lamb," said Grace hastily, as Ally came wistfully 
 between the old men, looking up at each. 
 
 " Fear not," said Oliver Vernon reverently, " God hath 
 sent thee two fathers now, Alabama !" 
 
 " Alabama," echoed Old Martin, dropping his withered 
 hand on her bright curls, " Alabama," — and, half uncon- 
 sciously translating the soft name, he whispered — " Here 
 we rest."
 
 GEN. McCLELLAN'S 
 
 REPORT AMD CAMPAIGNS, 
 
 THE ONLY COMPLETE MD ACCURATE EDITION. 
 
 By Special Arrangement with Gen. McClellan, 
 SHELDON So Co., 
 
 Publishers, 
 
 335 Broadway, N. Y., 
 Have published a 
 
 FULL AND COMPLETE EDITION OF HIS EEPOKT. 
 
 While going through the press, this edition was corrected 
 
 by Gen'l McClellan. It has none of the remarkable errors 
 
 which have crept into the Government edition and all the 
 
 other editions that have followed the Government edition. 
 
 It also has the 
 
 "CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN VIRGINIA," 
 
 prepared by Gen, McClellan expressly for this edition. 
 
 Illustrated with Maps, &c. One volume, 8vo. Price, $2.50. 
 
 12mo edition of the same, bound in cloth, with all the Maps, 
 Price, $1.50. Bound in boards, $1.25. 
 
 From the Journal of Commerce. 
 " We regret that the Congressional edition, the RebeUion Record edition, 
 and other cheap editions of the report are incomplete and inaccurate, omit- 
 ting entirely some portions which present the most interesting and important 
 view of the relations of General McClellan to the Cabinet, the army and the 
 country. The edition published by Sheldon & Company, under General 
 McClellan'a authority, is accurate." 
 
 From the Post, Chicago. 
 " Sheldon & Co. have issued their edition of General McClellan's report on 
 the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, to which is 
 added an account of the Campaign in West Virginia, from the General's own 
 pen. This edition is the only one which gives the main report in full ; im- 
 portant parts of it, relating to very critical periods in the history of the Army 
 of the Potomac, being omitted from the Congressional edition, and, by con- 
 sequence, from all other editions, without exception, which are mere reprints 
 of that. The edition published by Sheldon & Co., is complete and authentic, 
 and is the only complete and authentic edition." 
 
 jPVom the Boston Post. 
 " No man can feel that he has a copy of McClellan's Report, without a 
 copy of this edition."
 
 Books PublisJied by Sheldon <& Co. 
 
 Ready April 15th. 
 
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 OB 
 
 BEFORE THE STOItMi. 
 
 A Novel of American Life and Manners. One volume, 
 large 12mo. Price, $1.50. 
 
 This is the production of a polished and experienced pen, qualified by much 
 travel, experience and literary practice in other walks of literature, to attempt 
 an elaborate description of American Life, Politics, Letters and Factiona, 
 whose clashing led us to the Great Rebellion. 
 
 It will be especially attractive to those who believe in the indestructibility 
 of the Union, and to those who desire to see the American people rise 
 through their present ordeal to a higher standard in morals and manners. 
 
 i< »«   »» »i 
 
 Ready April 20th. 
 
 B 
 
 A Novel by Rosa Vertneb Jepfbey, author of " Poems by 
 Rosa." One volume, 12mo. Price, $1.60. 
 
 From the Louisville Journal. 
 
 A New Attraction in tiie Liteeart World. — A Novel from the Pen 
 OF Mrs. Rosa Yertner Jeffrey. — A novel entitled "Woodburn," by Mrs. 
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 BO bright a reputation as a poetess, is forthcoming from the press of Sheldon 
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 legion of admirers feci a world of curiosity respecting tho work but no solici- 
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 known it will have an extensive sale." 
 
 HUSKS. 
 
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 Author of •' Alone," " Hidden Path," " Moss Side," " Nemesifl," oat 
 
 " Miriam." 
 
 One vol 12mo. $1.50. 
 
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 designs by F. 0. C. Darley. 
 
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