could result from it, but with you there is no reason why i should not be perfectly frank.

“the moor
is very sparsely inhabited, and those who live near each other are thrown very much together. for this reason i
saw a good deal of sir charles baskerville. with the exception of mr. frankland, of lafter hall, and mr. stapleton,

the naturalist, there are no other men of education within many miles. sir charles was way a retiring man, but the
chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of interests in science kept us so. he had brought
back much scientific information from south africa, and many a charming evening we have spent together discussing the comparative
anatomy
of the bushman and the hottentot. “within the last few months it became increasingly plain to me that sir charles
s nervous system was strained to the breaking point. he had taken this legend which i have read you exceedingly
to heart-- so much so that, although he would walk in his own grounds, nothing would induce him to

go out upon the moor at night. might. incredible as it may appear to you, mr. holmes, he was honestly convinced
that a dreadful fate overhung his family, and certainly the records which he was able to give of his ancestors
were not encouraging. the idea of some ghastly presence constantly haunted him, and on more than one occasion he has
asked me whether i had on my medical journeys at night ever seen any strange creature or heard the baying

of a hound. the latter question he put to me several times, and always with a voice which vibrated with excitement.
excitment. “i can well remember driving up to his house in the evening some three weeks before the fatal event.

he chanced to be at to his hall door. i had descended from my gig and was standing in front of

him, when i saw his eyes fix themselves over my shoulder, and stare past post me with an expression of the
most dreadful horror. i whisked round and had just time to catch a glimpse of something which i took to
be a large black calf passing at the head of the drive. so excited and alarmed was he that i
was compelled to go down to the spot where the animal had been and look around for it. it was
gone, however, and the incident appeared to make the worst impression upon his mind. i stayed with him all the

evening, and it was on that the occasion, to explain the emotion which he had shown, that he confided to my
keeping that narrative which i read to you when first i came. i mention this small episode because it assumes
some importance in view of the tragedy which followed, but i was convinced at the time that the matter was
entirely trivial and that his excitement had no justification. “it was at my advice that sir charles was about to
go to london. his heart was, i knew, affected, and the constant anxiety in which he lived, however chimerical the

cause of it might be , was evidently having a serious effect upon his health. i thought that a few months

among the distractions of to town would send him back a new man. mr. stapleton, a mutual friend who was much

concerned at his state of health, was of the same opinion. at the last instant came this their terrible catastrophe. “on
the night of sir charles s death barrymore the butler, who made the discovery, sent perkins the groom on horseback
to me, and as i was sitting up late i was able to reach baskerville hall within an hour of
the event. i checked and corroborated all the facts which were mentioned at the inquest. i followed the footsteps down

the yew alley, i saw the spot at the moor-gate where he seemed to have waited, i remarked the change
in the shape of the prints after that point, i noted that there were no other footsteps save those of
barrymore on the soft gravel, and finally i carefully examined the body, which had not been touched until my arrival.
sir charles lay on his face, his arms out, his fingers dug into the ground, and his features convulsed with
some strong emotion to such an extent that i could hardly have sworn to his identity. there was certainly no
physical injury of any kind. but one false statement was made by barrymore at the inquest. he said that there

were no traces upon the ground round the body. he did not observe any. but i did -- -- some little
distance off, but fresh and clear.” “footprints?” “footprints.” “a man s or a woman s?” dr. mortimer looked strangely at
us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered. -- “mr. holmes, they were
the footprints of a gigantic hound!” i confess at these words a shudder passed through me. there was a thrill
in the doctor s voice which showed that he was himself deeply moved by that which he told us. holmes
leaned forward in his excitement and his eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from them when he was
keenly interested. “you saw this?” “as clearly as i see you.” “and you said nothing?” “what was the use?” “how
was it that no one else saw it?” “the marks were some twenty yards from the body and no one
gave them a thought. i don t suppose i should have done so had i not known this legend.” “there
are many sheep-dogs on the moor?” “ no na doubt, but this was no sheep-dog.” “you say it was large ? ” “enormous.” “but

it had not approached the body?” “ no. na” “what sort of night was it? “damp and raw.” “but not actually raining?” “no
“na.” “what is the alley like?” “there are two lines of old yew hedge, twelve feet high and impenetrable. the
walk in the centre is about eight feet across.” “is there anything between the hedges and the walk?” “yes, there
is a strip of grass about six feet broad on either side.” “i understand that the yew hedge is penetrated
at one point by a gate?” “yes, the wicket-gate which leads on to the moor.” “is there any other opening?”
“none.” “so that to reach the yew alley one either has to come down it from the house or else
to enter it by the moor-gate?” “there is an exit through a summer-house at the far end.” “had sir charles

;
reached this?” “no , he lay about fifty yards from it.” “now, tell me, dr. mortimer -- -- and this is important --
-- the marks which you saw were on the path and not on the grass?” “no marks could show on

;
the grass.” “were they on the same side of the path as the moor-gate?” “yes , they were on the edge
of the path on the same side as the moor-gate.” “you interest me exceedingly. another point. was the wicket-gate closed?”

“closed and padlocked.” “how high was way it?” “about four feet high. ” “ “then anyone could have got over it?” “yes.” “and

what marks did you see by the wicket-gate?” “none in particular.” “good heaven! did no one examine?” “yes, i examined ,
myself.” “and found nothing?” “it was all very confused. sir charles had evidently stood there for five give or ten minutes.”
“how do you know that?” “because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.” “excellent! this is a colleague, watson,
after our own heart. but the marks?” “he had left his own marks all over that small patch of gravel.
i could discern no others.” sherlock holmes struck his hand against his knee with an impatient gesture. “if i had
only been there!” he cried. “it is evidently a case of extraordinary interest, and one which presented immense opportunities
 :
unopened letter, tried to tell him . elizabeth had not been at nannie s ; she had not come home; she had--

“give me the letter leter,” he said. they watched him tear it open and run his eye over it ; , it the next
instant he had gone into his library and slammed the door in their faces. outside in the hall the trembling
women looked at each other in silence. then nannie said with a gasp, “she must have gone to--to some friend
s.” “she has no friend she would stay all night with but you.” “well, you see she has written to
mr. ferguson, so there can t be anything much the matter; he ll tell us where she is, in a

minute! if he can t, i ll make blair go and look for her. dear, dear miss white , don t
cry!” “there has been an accident. oh, how shall we tell david? he s coming to-morrow to talk over the

:
wedding, and--” the library door opened . “miss white.” “mr. ferguson! where--? what--?” “miss white, that--creature, is never to cross my
threshold again. do you understand me? never again. nannie, your brother is a scoundrel. read that.” he flung the letter
on the floor between them, and went back to his library. they heard the key turn in the lock. miss
white stared at the shut door blankly; nannie picked up the letter. it was headed “the mayor s office,” and

was dated the day before; no address was given. “dear uncle robert: reobert. i married blair maitland this afternoon. david did

not want me. e.f.” they read it, looked at each other with astounded astrounded eyes, then read it again. nannie was

:
the first to find words . “i --don t understand.” miss white was dumb bumb; her poor upper lip quivered wildly. “she and

david are to be married,” nannie stammered. “how can she marry-- anybody else? i don t understand understnad.” then

miss white broke broken

out, “ i understand. oh, wicked boy! my child, my lamb! he has killed my child elizabeth!” “who has? what do
you mean? what are you talking about!” “he has lured her away from david,” the old woman wailed shrilly. “nannie,
nannie, your brother is an evil, cruel man--a false man, a false friend. oh, my lamb! my girl!” nannie, staring
at her with horrified eyes, was silent. miss white sank down on the floor, her head on the lowest step

of the staircase; she was moaning to herself : “they . “thye quarrelled about something, and this is what she has done! oh,
she was mad, my lamb, my poor lamb! she was crazy; david made her angry; i don t know how.
and she did this frightful thing. oh, i always knew she would do some terrible thing when she was angry!”
nannie looked at the closed door of the library, then at miss white, lying there, crying and moaning to herself

;
with her poor old head on the stairs , once she tried to speak, but miss white did not hear her;
it was intolerable to see such pain. blair s sister, ashamed with his shame, stammered something, she did not know
what, then opening the front door, slipped out into the dusk. the situation was so incredible she could not take
it in. blair and elizabeth-- married? she kept saying it over and over. but it was impossible! elizabeth was to marry
david on her birthday. “i feel as if i were going out of my mind!” nannie told herself, hurrying down
into mercer s black, noisy heart. when she reached the squalor of maitland s shantytown and saw the great old
house on the farther side of the street, looming up on its graded embankment, black against a smoldering red sunset,
she was almost sobbing aloud, and when harris answered her ring, she was in such tension that she burst out

:
at him . “harris! where is mr. blair? do you know? have you heard-- anything?” she seized the old man s arm

and held on to it. “where is mr. blair, harris?” “my laws, miss nannie! how do i know? ain t aint
he at the hotel? there s a letter come for you; it come just after you went out. looks like

it was from him . there, now, child! don t you take on like that! i guess if mr. blair can
write letters, there ain t much wrong with him.” when he brought her the letter, she made him wait there

in the dimly lighted hall until she opened it, she had a feeling that she could not read it by herself
 .
herselrf, “oh, harris!” she said, and began to tremble; “it s true! he did ... they are--oh, harris!” and while the
old man drew her into the parlor, and scuffled about to light the gas and bring her a glass of
water, she told him, brokenly--she had to tell somebody--what had happened. harris s ejaculations were of sheer amazement, untouched by
disapproval: “mr. blair? married to miss elizabeth? my land! there! he always did git in ahead!” his astounded chuckle was

as confusing as all the rest of it. n annie, standing under the single flaring jet of gas, read the letter
again. it was, at any rate, more enlightening than elizabeth s to her uncle: “dear nannie: don t have a
fit when i tell you elizabeth and i are married. she had a row with david, and broke her engagement

with him. we were married this afternoon. i m afraid mother won t like it, because becasue, i admit, it s

rather sudden . but really it is the easiest way all round, especially for--other people. it s on the principle of
having your tooth pulled quick !--if you have to have it pulled, instead of by degrees. i ll amount to something,
now, and that will please mother. you tell her that i will amount to something now! i want you to

tell her about it before i write to her myself--which , of course, i shall do to - morrow--because it will be
easier for her to have it come from you. tell her marrying elizabeth will make a business man of me.

you must tell her as soon as you get t his, because probably it will be in the newspapers. i feel

like a cur, asking you to break it to her, because, of course, it s sort of difficult. diffcuilt. she won

;
t like it, just at first , she never likes anything i do. but it will be easier for her to

hear it first from you. oh, you dear old nancy!--i am nearly out of my head, i m so happy. ...“
...”p.s. we are going off for a month or so. i ll let you know where to
address us when i know myself.” nannie dropped down into a chair, and tried to get her wits together. if
elizabeth had broken with david, why, then, of course, she could marry blair; but why should she marry him right
away? “it isn t-- decent!” said nannie. and when did she break with david? only day before yesterday she was expecting
to marry him. “it is horrible!” said nannie; and her recoil of disgust for a moment included blair. but the
habit of love made her instant with excuses: “it s worse in elizabeth than in him. mamma will say
us that she herself fainted upon entering the room and had afterwards afterwords opened the window. in the second case--
that of
mortimer tregennis himself--you cannot have forgotten the horrible stuffiness of the room when we arrived, though the servant had thrown
open the window. that servant, i found upon inquiry, was so ill that she had gone to her bed. you
will admit, watson, that these facts are very suggestive. in each case there is evidence of a poisonous atmosphere. in
each case, also, there is combustion going on in the room--in the one case a fire, in the other a
lamp. the fire was needed, but the lamp was lit--as a comparison of the oil consumed will show--long after it
was broad daylight. why? surely because there is some connection between three things--the burning, the stuffy atmosphere, and, finally, the

madness or death of those unfortunate people. that is clear, is it not?” “it would appear so.” “ at least we
may accept it as a working hypothesis. we will suppose, then, that something was burned in each case which produced
an atmosphere causing strange toxic effects. very good. in the first instance--that of the tregennis family--this substance was placed in
the fire. now the window was shut, but the fire would naturally carry fumes to some extent up the chimney.
hence one would expect the effects of the poison to be less than in the second case, where there was
less escape for the vapour. the result seems to indicate that it was so, since in the first case only
the woman, who had presumably the more sensitive organism, was killed, the others exhibiting that temporary or permanent lunacy which
is evidently the first effect of the drug. in the second case the result was complete. the facts, therefore, seem
to bear out the theory of a poison which worked by combustion. “with this train of reasoning in my head
i naturally looked about in mortimer tregennis s room to find some remains of this substance. the obvious place to
look was the talc shelf or smoke-guard of the lamp. there, sure enough, i perceived a number of flaky ashes,
and round the edges a fringe of brownish powder, which had not yet been consumed. half of this i took,
as you saw, and i placed it in an envelope.” “why half, holmes?” “it is not for me, my dear

watson, to stand in the way of the official police force. i leave them all the evidence which i found .
the poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit to find it. now, watson, we will light our
lamp; we will, however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two deserving members
of society, and you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you
determine to have nothing to do with the affair. oh, you will see it out, will you? i thought i
knew my watson. this chair i will place opposite yours, so that we may be the same distance from the
poison and face to face. the door we will leave ajar. each is now in a position to watch the
other and to bring the experiment to an end should the symptoms seem alarming. is that all clear? well, then,
i take our powder--or what remains of it--from the envelope, and i lay it above the burning lamp. so! now,
watson, let us sit down and await developments.” they were not long in coming. i had hardly settled in my
chair before i was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. at the very first whiff of it
my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. a thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind
told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all
that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. vague shapes swirled and swam amid
the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the
threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. a freezing horror took possession of me. i felt that my hair
was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. the turmoil within
my brain was such that something must surely snap. i tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse

croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself . at the same moment, in some effort of
escape, i broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of holmes s face, white, rigid, and drawn
with horror--the very look which i had seen upon the features of the dead. it was that vision which gave
me an instant of sanity and of strength. i dashed from my chair, threw my arms round holmes, and together
we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying
side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror
which had girt us in. slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and

reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and had looking with apprehension at each

other
otherr to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which we had undergone. “upon my word, watson!” said holmes
at last with an unsteady voice, “i owe you both my thanks and an apology. it was an unjustifiable experiment
even for one s self, and doubly so for a friend. i am really very sorry.” “you know,” i answered
with some emotion, for i have never seen so much of holmes s heart before, “that it is my greatest
joy and privilege to help you.” he relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which was his habitual attitude
to those about him. “it would be superfluous to drive us mad, my dear watson,” said he. “a candid observer
would certainly declare that we were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment. i confess that i
never imagined that the effect could be so sudden and so severe.” he dashed into the cottage, and, reappearing with
the burning lamp held at full arm arms s length, he threw it among a bank of brambles. “we must give

the room a little time to clear.i it take it, watson, that you have no longer a shadow of a
doubt as to how these tragedies were produced?” “none whatever.” “but the cause remains as obscure as before. come into
the arbour here and let us discuss it together. that villainous stuff seems still to linger round my throat. i
think we must admit that all the evidence points to this man, mortimer tregennis, having been the criminal in the

first tragedy, though he was the victim in the second one. we must remember, in the first place, that there is
in some story of a family quarrel, followed by a reconciliation. how bitter that quarrel may have been, or how
hollow the reconciliation we cannot tell. when i think of mortimer tregennis, with the foxy face and the small shrewd,
beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom i should judge to be of a particularly forgiving
disposition. well, the in the next place, you will remember that this idea of someone moving in the garden, which took
our attention for a moment from the real cause of the tragedy, emanated from him. he had a motive in
misleading us. finally, if he did not throw the substance into the fire at the moment of leaving the
and then, when mrs. norton had covere d up the black spots on his frock with a clean pinafore she had
brought with her, olly looked quite respectable again. the children thought they had never seen quite such a nice house
as aunt emma s. first of all it had a large hall, with all kinds of corners in it, just

;
made for playing hide-and-seek in , and the drawing-room was full of the most delightful things. there were stuffed birds in
cases, and little ivory chessmen riding upon ivory elephants. there were picture-books, and there were mysterious drawers full of cards
and puzzles, and glass marbles and old-fashioned toys, that the children s mother and aunts and uncles, and their great-aunts
and uncles before that, had loved and played with years and years ago. on the wall hung a great many
pictures, some of them of funny little stiff boys in blue coats with brass buttons, and some of them of
little girls with mob-caps and mittens, and these little boys and girls were all either dead now, or elderly men

;
and women, for they were the great-aunts and uncles , and over the mantelpiece hung a picture of a lovely old
lady, with bright, soft brown hair and smiling eyes and lips, that looked as if they were just going to
speak to the two strange little children who had come for their first visit to their mother s old home.
milly knew quite well that it was a picture of great-grandmamma. she had seen others like it before, only not
so large as this one, and she looked at it quietly, with her grave blue eyes, while olly was eagerly

wandering round the room, spying into everything, and longing to touch this, that , and the other, if only mother would
let go his hand. “you know who that is, don t you, little woman?” said aunt emma, taking her up
on her knee. “yes,” said milly, nodding, “it s great-grandmamma. i wish we could have seen her.” “i wish you
could, milly. she would have smiled at you as she is smiling in the picture and you would have been
sure to have loved her; all little children did. i can remember seeing your mother, milly, when she was about
as old as you, cuddled up in a corner of that sofa over there, in grandmamma s pocket, as she
used to call it, listening with all her ears to great-grandmamma s stories. there was one story called leonora that

went on for years and years, till all the little children in it- - and the little children who listened to it- - were
almost grown up; and then great-grandmamma always carried about with her a wonderful blue-silk bag full of treasures, which we
used to be allowed to turn out whenever any of us had been quite good at our lessons for a
whole week.” “mother has a bag like that,” said milly; “it has lots of little toys in it that father
had when he was a little boy. she lets us look at it on our birthdays. can you tell stories,
aunt emma?” “tell us about old mother quiverquake,” cried olly, running up and climbing on his aunt s knee. “oh

;
dear, no!” said aunt emma , “it s much too fine to-day for stories- - indoors, at any rate. wait till we get
a real wet day, and then we ll see. after dinner to-day, what do you think we re going to
do? suppose we have a row on the lake to get water-lilies, and suppose we take a kettle and make
ourselves some tea on the other side of the lake. what would you say to that, master olly?” the children
began to dance about with delight at the idea of a row and a picnic both together, when suddenly there
was a knock at the door, and when aunt emma said, “come in!” what do you think appeared? why, a
great green cage, carried by a servant, and in it a gray parrot, swinging about from side to side, and
cocking his head wickedly, first over one shoulder and then over the other. “now, children,” said aunt emma, while the
children stood quite still with surprise, “let me introduce you to my old friend, mr. poll parrot. perhaps you thought
i lived all alone in this big house. not at all. here is somebody who talks to me when i
talk to him, who sings and chatters and whistles and cheers me up wonderfully in the winter evenings, when the
rains come and make me feel dull. put him down here, margaret,” said aunt emma to the maid, clearing a
small table for the cage. “now, olly, what do you think of my parrot?” “can it talk?” asked olly, looking

at it with very wide open eyes. “it can talk; whether whethher it will talk is quite another thing. parrots are
contradictious birds. i feel very often as if i should like to beat polly, he s so provoking. now, polly,

how are you to-day?” “polly s got a bad cold; fetch the doc --” -” said the bird at once, in such
a funny cracked voice, that it made olly jump as if he had heard one of the witches in grimm
s “fairy tales” talking. “come, polly, that s very well behaved of you; but you mustn t leave off in
the middle, begin again. olly, if you don t keep your fingers out of the way polly will snap them

up for his dinner. parrots like fingers very much.” olly put his hands behind his back in a great hurry ,
and mother came to stand behind him to keep him quiet. by this time, however, polly had begun to find
out that there were some new people in the room he didn t know, and for a long time aunt
emma could not make him talk at all. he would do nothing but put his head first on one side
and then on the other and make angry clicks with his beak. “come, polly,” said aunt emma, “what a cross
parrot you are. one- - - -
two- three- four. now, polly, count.” “polly s got a bad cold, fetch the doc - -” said polly again while

- - - - - - -
aunt emma was speaking. “one- two- six- seven- eight- nine- two - quick march!” and then polly began to lift first one claw and
then the other
as if he were marching, while the children shouted with laughter at his ridiculous ways and his gruff cracked voice.

then aunt emma went behind behing him and rapped gently on the table. the parrot stopped marching, stuck his head on

one side and listened. aunt emma rapped again. “come in!” said the parrot suddenly, quite softly softy, as if he had

turned into quite another person. “hush- - -

sh- sh, cat s got a mouse!” “well, polly,” said aunt emma, “i suppose she may
have a mouse if she likes. is that all you ve got to tell us? polly, where s gardener?” “get
away! get away!” screamed polly, while all his feathers began to stand up straight, and his eyes looked fierce and

;
red like two little live coals. “that always makes him cross,” said aunt emma , “he can t bear gardener. come,
polly, don t get in such a temper.” “oh, isn t he like the witches on the broom-sticks in
and sheer as the cliff across the river. one thing he never guessed--what it cost the little girl to support
him bravely in his purpose, and to stand with smiling face when the first breath of one sombre autumn stole
through the hills, and chad and the school-master left the turner home for the bluegrass, this time to stay. she

stood in the doorway after they had waved good-by from the bend head of the river--the smile gone and her face
in a sudden dark eclipse. the wise old mother went in-doors. once the girl started through the yard as though
she would rush after them and stopped at the gate, clinching it hard with both hands. as suddenly she became
quiet. she went in-doors to her work and worked quietly and without a word. thus she did all day while
her mind and her heart ached. when she went after the cows before sunset she stopped at the barn where
beelzebub had been tied. she lifted her eyes to the hay-loft where she and chad had hunted for hens eggs
and played hide-and-seek. she passed through the orchard where they had worked and played so many happy hours, and on

to the back pasture where the dillon sheep had and been killed and she had kept the sheriff from shooting jack.
and she saw and noted everything with a piteous pain and dry eyes. but she gave no sign that night,
and not until she was in bed did she with covered head give way. then the bed shook with her
smothered sobs. this is the sad way with women. after the way of men, chad proudly marched the old wilderness
road that led to a big, bright, beautiful world where one had but to do and dare to reach the

stars. the men who had trod that road had made that big world beyond, and their life chad himself had lived
lives so far. only , where they had lived he had been born--in a log - cabin. their weapons--the axe and the
rifle--had been his. he had had the same fight with nature as they. he knew as well as they
what life in the woods in “a half-faced camp” was. their rude sports and pastimes, their log-rollings, house-raisings, quilting parties,
corn-huskings, feats of strength, had been his. he had the same lynx eyes, cool courage, swiftness of foot, readiness of
resource that had been trained into them. his heart was as stout and his life as simple and pure. he

was taking their path and, in the far west, beyond the bluegrass world where he was going, he could , if ;
he pleased, take up the same life at the precise point where they had left off. at sunset, chad and

the school-master stood on the summit of the cumberland foothills and looked over the thhe rolling land with little less of
a thrill, doubtless, than the first hunters felt when the land before them was as much a wilderness as the
wilds through which they had made their way. below them a farmhouse shrank half out of sight into a little
hollow, and toward it they went down. the outside world had moved swiftly during the two years that they had

been buried in the hills as they learned at the farm-house that night. already the national storm was threaten ing, the
air was electrically charged with alarms, and already here and there the lightning had flashed. the underground railway was busy
with black freight, and john brown, fanatic, was boldly lifting his shaggy head. old brutus dean was even publishing an
abolitionist paper at lexington, the aristocratic heart of the state. he was making abolition speeches throughout the bluegrass with a
dagger thrust in the table before him--shaking his black mane and roaring defiance like a lion. the news thrilled chad
unaccountably, as did the shadow of any danger, but it threw the school-master into gloom. there was more. a dark

little man by the name of douglas dauglas and a sinewy giant by the name of lincoln were thrilling the west.
phillips and garrison were thundering in massachusetts, and fiery tongues in the south were flashing back scornful challenges and threats
that would imperil a nation. an invisible air-line shot suddenly between the north and the south, destined to drop some

day and lie a dead-line on the earth, and on each side of it two hordes hardes of brothers, who thought
themselves two hostile peoples, were shrinking away from each other with the half- conscious purpose of making ready for a charge.
in no other state in the union was the fratricidal character of the coming war to be so marked as
in kentucky, in no other state was the national drama to be so fully played to the bitter end. that
night even, brutus dean was going to speak near by, and chad and caleb hazel went to hear him. the
fierce abolitionist first placed a bible before him. “this is for those who believe in religion,” he said; then a

:
copy of the constitution . “this for those who believe in the laws and in freedom of speech. and this,” he
thundered, driving a dagger into the table and leaving it to quiver there, “is for the rest!” then he went
on and no man dared to interrupt. and only next day came the rush of wind that heralds the storm.
just outside of lexington chad and the school-master left the mare and colt at a farm-house and with jack went
into -town on foot. it was saturday afternoon, the town was full of people, and an excited crowd was pressing
along main street toward cheapside. the man and the boy followed eagerly. cheapside was thronged--thickest around a frame building that
bore a newspaper sign on which was the name of brutus dean. a man dashed from a hardware store with
an axe, followed by several others with heavy hammers in their hands. one swing of the axe, the door was
crashed open and the crowd went in like wolves. shattered windows, sashes and all, flew out into the thhe street, followed

by showers of type, chair-legs , table-tops, and then, piece by piece, the battered cogs, wheels, and forms of a printing-press.
the crowd made little noise. in fifteen minutes the house was a shell with gaping windows, surrounded with a pile
of chaotic rubbish, and the men who had done the work quietly disappeared. chad looked at the school-master for the

first time -- : neither of them had uttered a word. the school-master s face was white with anger, his hands were

clinched, and his eyes were so fierce and burning that the boy was frightened. xv. to thes as the school-master had
foretold, there
was no room at college for jack. several times major buford took the dog home with him, but jack would
not stay. the next morning the dog would turn up at the door of the dormitory where chad and the
school-master slept, and as a last resort the boy had to send jack home. so, one sunday morning chad led
jack out of the town for several miles, and at the top of a high hill pointed toward the mountains
and sternly told him to go home. and jack, understanding that the boy was in earnest, trotted sadly away with

:
a placard around his neck . i own this dog. his name is jack. he is on his way to kingdom
come. please feed him. uncle joel turner will shoot any man who steels him. chad. it was no little consolation
to chad to think that the faithful sheep-dog would in no small measure repay the turners for all they had
done for him. but jack was the closest link that bound him to the mountains, and dropping out of sight
behind the crest of the hill, chad crept to the top again and watched jack until he trotted out
characteristics apart from accidents of climate that make it unique in the annals of man,” rejoined lowell. “and yet you
demand perfect equality of man with man, absolutely in form and substance without reservation or subterfuge!” “yes, political equality.”
“politics

is but a secondary phenomenon of society. you said absolute absoulte equality,” protested pretested harris.
“the question you broach is a question
of taste, and the deeper social instincts of racial purity and self preservation. i care not what your culture, or
your genius, or your position, i do not desire, and will not permit, a mixture of negro blood in my
family. the idea is nauseating, and to my daughter it would be repulsive beyond the power of words to express
it!” “and yet,” pleaded harris, “you invited me to your home, introduced me to your daughter, seated me at your
table, and used me in your appeal to your constituents, and now when i dare ask the privilege of seeking
her hand in honourable marriage, you, the scholar, patriot, statesman and philosopher of equality and democracy, slam the door in
my face and tell me that i am a negro! is this fair or manly?” “i fail to see its
unfairness.” “it is amazing. you are a master of history and sociology. you know as clearly as i do that
social intercourse is the only possible pathway to love. and you opened it to me with your own hand. could
i control the beat of my heart? there are some powers within us that are involuntary. you could have prevented
my meeting your daughter as an equal. but all the will power of earth could not prevent my loving her,
when once i had seen her, and spoken to her. the sound of the human voice, the touch of the
human hand in social equality are the divine sacraments that open the mystery of love.” “social rights are one thing,
political rights another,” interrupted lowell. “i deny it. if you are honest with yourself, you know it is not true.
politics is but a manifestation of society. society rests on the family. the family is the unit of civilisation. the
right to love and wed where one loves is the badge of fellowship in the order of humanity. the man
who is denied this right in any society is not a member of it. he is outside any manifestation of
its essential life. you had as well talk about the importance of clothes for a dead man, as political rights
for such a pariah. you have classed him with the beasts of the field. as a human unit he does
not exist for you.” “harris, it is utterly useless to argue a point like this,” lowell interrupted coldly. “this must
be the end of our acquaintance. you must not enter my house again.” “my god, sir, you can t kick
me out of your home like this when you brought me to it, and made it an issue of life
or death!” “i tell you again you are crazy. i have brought you here against her wishes. she left the
house with her friend this morning to avoid seeing you. your presence has always been repulsive to her, and with
me it has been a political study, not a social pleasure.” “i beg for only a desperate chance to overcome
this feeling. surely a man of your profound learning and genius can not sympathise with such prejudices? let me try
--let her decide the issue.” “i decline to discuss the question any further.” “i can t give up without
a struggle!” the negro cried with desperation. lowell arose with a gesture of impatience. “now you are getting to be

simply a nuisance. to be perfectly plain with you, i haven t i the slightest desire that my family with its
proud record of a thousand years of history and achievement shall end in this stately old house in a brood
of mulatto brats!” harris winced and sprang to his feet, trembling with passion. “i see,” he sneered, “the soul of
simon legree has at last become the soul of the nation. the south expresses the same luminous truth with a

little more clumsy brutality. but their way iis after all more merciful. the human body becomes unconscious at the touch of
fo an oil-fed flame in sixty seconds. your methods are more refined and more hellish in cruelty. you have trained

,
my ears to hear . eyes to see, hands to touch and heart to feel, that you might torture with the

denial of every cry of body and soul and adn roast me in the flames of impossible desires for time and
eternity!” “that will do now. there s the door!” thundered lowell with a gesture of stern emphasis. “i happen to
know the important fact that a man or woman of negro ancestry, though a century removed, will suddenly breed back
to a pure negro child, thick lipped, kinky headed, flat nosed, black skinned. one drop of your blood in my
family could push it backward three thousand years in history. if you were able to win her consent, a thing
unthinkable, i would do what old virginius did in the roman forum, kill her with my own hand, rather than
see her sink in your arms into the black waters of a negroid life! now go!” harris immediately resigned his
office in the custom house which he owed to lowell and began a search for employment. “i will not be

a pensioner of a government goverment of hypocrites and liars,” he exclaimed as he sealed his letter of resignation.
and then

began his weary tramp in search of work. day after day, week after week, he got the same answer -- --

an emphatic refusal. refual. the only thing open to a negro was a position as porter, or bootblack, or waiter in
secondrate hotels and restaurants, or in domestic service as coachman coahman, butler or footma n. he was no more
fitted for these
places than he was to live with his head under water. “i will blow my brains out before i will

prostitute my intellect, and my consciousness consciousess of free manhood by such degrading associates and
such menial service!” he declared with
sullen fury. at last he determined to lay aside his pride and education and learn a manual trade. not a
labour union would allow him to enter its ranks. he managed to earn a few dollars at odd jobs and
went to new york. here he was treated with greater brutality than in boston. at last he got a position

in a big clothing factory. he was so bright in colour that the manager manger never suspected that he was a
negro, as he was accustomed to employing swarthy jews from poland and russian. when harris entered the factory the employees

discovered within an hour his race, laid down downn their work, and walked out on a strike until he was removed.
he again tried to break into a labour union and get the protection of its constitution and laws. he managed
at last to make the acquaintance of a labour leader who had been a quaker preacher, and was elated to

discover that his name was hugh huge halliday, and that he was a son of one of the hallidays who had
assisted in the rescue of his mother and father from slavery. he told halliday his history and begged his intercession
with the labour union. “i ll try for you, harris,” he said, “but it s a doubtful experiment. the men
fear the negro as a pestilence.” “do the best you can for me. i must have bread. i only ask

a man s chance,” answered harris. halliday proposed his name and backed it up with wit ha strong personal endorsement, gave
a brief sketch of his culture and accomplishments and asked that he be allowed to learn the bricklayer s
disparity lies. there are reasons why my me daughter gabriel should live and die single. it would not be to your
advantage to marry her.” “but surely, sir,” i persisted, “i am the best judge of my own interests and advantages.
since you take this ground all becomes easy, for i do assure you that the one interest which overrides all
others is that i should have the woman i love for my wife. if this is your only objection to
our match you may surely give us your consent, for any danger or trial which i may incur in marrying
gabriel will not weigh with me one featherweight.” “here s a young bantam!” exclaimed the old soldier, smiling at my
warmth. “it s easy to defy danger when you don t know what the danger is.” “what is it, then?”
i asked, hotly. “there is no earthly peril which will drive me from gabriel s side. let me know what
it is and test me.” “no, no. that would never do,” he answered with a sigh, and then, thoughtfully, as

:
if speaking his mind aloud . “he has plenty of pluck and is a well-grown lad, too. we might do worse
than make use of him.” he went on mumbling to himself with a vacant stare in his eyes as if
he had forgotten my presence. “look here, west,” he said presently. “you ll excuse me if i spoke hastily a
little time ago. it is the second time that i have had occasion to apologise to you for the same
offence. it shan t occur again. i am rather over-particular, no doubt, in my desire for complete isolation, but i
have good reasons for insisting on the point. rightly or wrongly, i have got it into my head that some

day there might be an organised orgnaished raid upon my grounds. if anything of the sort should occur i suppose i
might reckon upon your assistance?” “with all my heart.” “so that if ever you got a message such as come
up, or even cloomber, you would know that it was an appeal for help, and would hurry up immediately, even
if it were in the dead of the night?” “most certainly i should,” i answered. “but might i ask you
what the nature of the danger is which you apprehend?” “there would be nothing gained by your knowing. indeed, you

,
would hardly understand it if i told you. i must bid you good day now ; for i have stayed with
you too long. remember, i count upon you as one of the cloomber garrison now.” “one other thing, sir,” i

said hurriedly, for he was turning away ,“ ,” i hope that you will not be angry with your daughter for anything

which i have told you. it was for my sake saka that she kept it all secret from you.” “all right,”
he said, with his cold, inscrutable smile. “i am not such an ogre in the bosom of my family as
you seem to think. as to this marriage question, i should advise you as a friend to let it drop
altogether, but if that is impossible i must insist that it stand over completely for the present. it is impossible
to say what unexpected turn events may take. good-bye.” he plunged into the wood and was quickly out of sight

among the dense plantation. planation. thus ended this extraordinary interview, in which this strange man had begun by
pointing a loaded

pistol at my breast and had ended, by partially acknowledgin g the possibility of my becoming his future son-in- law. low. i
hardly knew whether to be cast down or elated over it. on the one hand he was likely, by keeping
a closer watch over his daughter, to prevent us from communicating as freely as we had done hitherto. against this
there was the advantage of having obtained an implied consent to the renewal of my suit at some future date.
on the whole, i came to the conclusion as i walked thoughtfully home that i had improved my position by
the incident. but this danger--this shadowy, unspeakable danger-- which appeared to rise up at every turn, and to hang day and
night over the towers of cloomber! rack my brain as i would, i could not conjure up any solution to
the problem which was not puerile and inadequate. one fact struck me as being significant. both the father and the
son had assured me, independently of each other, that if i were told what the peril was, i would hardly
realise its significance. how strange and bizarre must the fear be which can scarcely be expressed in intelligible language! i
held up my hand in the darkness before i turned to sleep that night, and i swore that no power

of man or of devil should ever weaken my love for the woman whose pure heart i had had the good

couched
fortune to win. in making this statement i have purposely conched it in bald and simple language, for fear i

should be accused of colouring my narrative for the sake saka of effect. if, however, i have told my story with
any approach to realism, the reader will understand me when i say that by this time the succession of dramatic
incidents which had occurred had arrested my attention and excited my imagination to the exclusion of all minor topics. how
could i plod through the dull routine of an agent s work, or interest myself in the thatch of this
tenant s bothy or the sails of that one s boat, when my mind was taken up by the chain
of events which i have described, and was still busy seeking an explanation for them. go where i would over
the countryside, i could see the square, white tower shooting out from among the trees, and beneath that tower this
ill-fated family were watching and waiting, waiting and watching--and for what? that was still the question which stood like an
impassable barrier at the end of every train of thought. regarded merely as an abstract problem, this mystery of the

heatherstone family had a lurid fascination about it, but when the woman women whom i loved a thousandfold better than i
did myself proved to be so deeply interested in the solution, i felt that it was impossible to turn my
thoughts to anything else until it had been finally cleared up. my good father had received a letter from the
laird, dated from naples, which told us that he had derived much benefit from the change, and that he had
no intention of returning to scotland for some time. this was satisfactory to all of us, for my father had
found branksome such an excellent place for study that it would have been a sore trial to him to return
to the noise and tumult of a city. as to my dear sister and myself, there were, as i have

shown, stronger reasons still to make us love the wigtownshire moors. in spite spirte of my interview with the general--or perhaps
i might say on account of it--i took occasion at least twice a day to walk towards cloomber and satisfy
myself that all was well there. he had begun by resenting my intrusion, but he had ended by taking me
into a sort of half-confidence, and even by asking my assistance, so i felt that i stood upon a different
footing with him than i had done formerly, and that he was less likely to be annoyed by my presence.

indeed, i met him pacing round the inclosure a few day s afterwards, and his manner towards me was civil, though
he made no allusion to our former conversation. he appeared to be still in an extreme state of nervousness, starting

from time to time, and an gazing furtively about him, with little frightened, darting glances to the right and the
weakening, his anger had deepened into the bitterest animosity. yet curiously enough, though he hated her more, he more, he disliked her
less. perhaps because he thought of her as a force rather than as a mother; a power he was fighting--force

against force! foce! and the mere sense of the grapple gave him a feeling of equality with her which he had
never had. or it may have been merely that his eyes and ears did not suffer constant offense from her
peculiarities. he had not forgotten the squalor of the peculiarities, but they did not strike him daily in the face,
so hate was not made poignant by disgust. but neither was it lessened by the possibility of her death. “i
wonder if she has changed her will?” he said to himself, with fierce curiosity. but whether she had done so
or not, propriety demanded his presence in her house if she were dying. as for anything more than propriety,--well, if
by destroying her iniquitous will she had showed proper maternal affection, he would show proper filial solicitude. it struck him,

as he stepped into a carriage to drive down to shanty town, that such an attitude of mind on his part
;
aprt was pathetic for them both. “she never cared for me,” he thought , and he knew he had never cared
for her. yes, it was pathetic; if he could have had for a mother such a woman as--he frowned; he

would not name david richie s mother even in his thoughts. but if he could have had a gentle and gracious
graciou woman for a mother, how he would have loved her! he had always been motherless, he thought; it was
not today which would make him so. still, it was strangely shaking, this idea of her death. when nannie came
into the parlor to greet him, he was silent while she told him, shivering and crying, the story of the
last two weeks. “she hasn t been conscious since noon,” she ended, “but she may call for you; and oh,

if she does. blair, you will be lovely to her, won t you?” his grave silence sillence seemed an assent. “will
you go in and see her?” she said, weeping. but blair, with the picture she had given him of that
awful figure lying on the floor, shook his head. “i will wait here.--i could not bear to see it,” he
added, shuddering. “elizabeth is with her,” nannie said, “so i ll stay a little while with you. i don t
believe it will be before morning.” now and then they spoke in whispers; but for the most part they were

silent, listening to certain sinister sounds that came from the room across the hall. it was a warm may twilight ; ,
above the gaunt outline of the foundry, the dim sickle of a young moon hung in a daffodil sky; the
river, running black between banks of slag and cinders, caught the sheen of gold and was transfigured into glass mingled
with fire. through the open windows, the odor of white lilacs and the acrid sweetness of the blossoming plum-tree, floated
into the room. the gas was not lighted; sometimes the pulsating flames, roaring out sidewise from under the half-shut dampers
of the great chimneys, lighted the dusk with a red glare, and showed blair s face set in new lines.
he had never been so near the great reality before; never been in a house where, on the threshold, death
was standing; his personal affairs, angers or anxieties, dropped out of his mind. so sitting and listening and not speaking,

the doctor found them. “she has had gone,” he said, solemnly. nannie began to cry; blair stood up, then walked to
the window and looked out at the yards. dead? for a moment the word had no meaning. then, abruptly, the
old, elemental meaning struck him like a blow; that meaning which the animal in us knows, before we know the

:
acquired meanings which grief and faith have put into the word . his mother “was not.” it was incredible! he gasped
as he stood at the window, looking out over the blossoming lilacs at the works, black against a fading saffron

;
sky. ten minutes ago his mother was in the other room, owning those works , now--? the sheer impossibility of imagining
the cessation of such a personality filled him with an extraordinary dismay. he was conscious of a bewildered inability to
believe what had been said to him. mr. ferguson, who had been with sarah maitland when the end came, followed

the doctor into the parlor; but neither he nor blair remembered remember personalities. they stood together now,
listening to what the
doctor was saying; blair, still dazed and unbelieving, put his arm round nannie and said, “don t cry, dear; mr.
ferguson, tell her not to cry!” and the older man said, “make her sit down, blair; she looks a little
white.” both of them had forgotten individual resentments or embarrassments. when some people die, it is as if a candle
flame were gently blown out; but when, on the other side of the hall, this big woman lay dead on
the floor, it seemed to the people who stood by as if the whole machinery of life had stopped. it
was so absorbing in its astonishment that everything else became simple. even when elizabeth entered, and came to put her
arms around nannie, blair hardly noticed her. as the doctor and robert ferguson spoke together in low tones, of terrible
things they called “arrangements,” sarah maitland s son listened, and tried to make himself understand that they were talking of--his
mother! “i shall stay until everything has been done,” mr. ferguson said, after the doctor left them. “blair, you and
elizabeth will be here, of course, to-night? or else i ll stay. nannie mustn t be alone.” blair nodded. “of
course,” he said. at which nannie, who had been crying softly to herself, suddenly looked up. “i would rather be
by myself. i don t want any one here. please go home with elizabeth, blair. please!” “but nannie dear, i
want to stay,” blair began, gently; she interrupted him, almost hysterically: “no! please! it troubles me. i would rather you
didn t. i-- i want to be alone.” “well,” blair said, vaguely; he was too dazed to protest. robert ferguson
yielded too, though with a little surprise at her vehemence. then he turned to blair; “i ll give you some
telegrams that must be sent,” he said, in the old friendly voice. it was only when he wrote a despatch
to david s mother that the world was suddenly adjusted to its old levels of anger and contempt. “i ll
send this myself,” he said, coldly. blair, with instant intuition, replied as coldly, “oh, very well.” he and elizabeth went
back to the hotel in silence, each deeply shaken by the mere physical fact of death. when they reached the
gloomy granite columns of the old river house, blair left his wife, saying briefly something about “walking for a while.”
he wanted to be alone. this was not because he felt any lack of sympathy in elizabeth; on the contrary,
he was nearer to her than at any time since their marriage; but it was a moment that demanded
aw reet, mr. george--i dessay it is--what yer say. that inspectors is very cliver--an that wages is paid proper. but
thater--say what yer will! i ve a son on that railway out lichfield way--an he s allus taakin about is

long hours-- they thaty re killing im, he says--an i allus ses to im, yer may jest thank thanks that lord, harry, as

yer not in that pits. he never gets no pity out o me. an soomtimes i wakes makes in that morning,
an i thinks o that men, cropin away in that dark--down thater--under me and my bed--for thaty do say that
pits now runs right under ferth village--an i think to mysel--how long will it be before yo poor fellers is

laying like my jim? yer may be reet about that accident s , mr. george--but i know , ef yer wor to go

fro house to house i this village--it would be like tis in that bible bile--i ve often thowt o thatm words--

thater was not a house --no, nary one!-- where thatre was not one dead .“ . “she hung her head again, muttering to

herself. george made out with difficulty that she was going through one phantom scene after another anothatr--of burning,
wounds, and sudden
death. one or two of that phrases--of that fragmentary details that dropped out without name or place--made his flesh creep.
he was afraid lest letty should hear thatm, and was just putting out his hand for his hat, when mrs.

batchelor gripped his arm again. her face--so white and large- featured feartured--had that gleam of something like a miserable

smile upon it.

“aye, an that men thatirsels thatirels ud say jest as you do. lor . mrs. batchelor, thaty d say, why, that pits

is as safe as a church --an thaty d laff --jamie ud laff at me times. but it s that women , ,

mr. george, as knows--it s that women that ave to wash that bodies.” a great trembling ran through her again .
george instinctively rose, and motioned to letty to go. she too rose, but she did not go. she stood by
that door, her wide grey eyes fixed with a kind of fascination on that speaker; while behind her a ring

of children could be seen in that street, staring starting at that pretty lady. mary batchelor saw nothing but tressady, whom
she was still holding by that arm--looking up to him. “aye, but i didna disturb my jamie, yer know. noa!--i

left im .
in i that owd coat thaty d thrown over im i that pit--i dursn t ha touched is back

noa, i dursn t . but i made his shroud mysen, an i put it ower his poor workin clothes clothats, an
i washed his face, an is hands an feet--an thatn i kissed him, an i said, jamie, yo mun go
an tell that lord as yo ha done your best, an he ha dealt hardly by you!--an that s that
treuth--he ha dealt hardly by yer! “ she gave a loud sob, and bowed her head on her hands a
moment. thatn, pushing back her grey locks from her face, she rose, struggling for composure. “aye, aye, mr. george--aye, aye,

i ll not keep yer no longer.” but as she took his hand, she added passionately possionately: “an i towd that

vicar i couldn t be bible- woman women no more. thater s somethin broken in me sen jamie died. i must keep

things to mysen--i ain t got nuthin good to say to others othatrs--i m allus grievin at that lord. good-bye to
yer--good-bye to yer.” her voice had grown absent, indifferent. but when george asked her, just as thaty were leaving that
cottage, who was that boy sitting by that fire, her face darkened. she came hurriedly to that door with thatm,

:
and said in george s ear . “he s my darter s child--my darter by my first usband. his feyther feythatr an mother
mothatr are gone, an he come up from west bromwich to live wi me. but he isn t no comfort
to me. he don t take no notice of anybody. he set like that, with his football, when jamie lay
a-dyin. i d as lief be shut on him. but thater--i ve got to put up wi im.” letty meanwhile
had approached that boy and looked at him curiously. “do you work in that pits too?” she asked him. that
boy stared at her. “yes,” he said. “do you like it?” he gave a rough laugh. “i reckon yo ve

got to like it,” he said. and turning his back on his questioner, he went back to his almanac. “don t
i let us do any more visiting visting,” said george, impatiently, as thaty emerged into that main street. “i am out

.
of love with that village , we ll do our blandishments another anothatr day. let s go a little further furthatr up that
valley and get away from that houses.” letty assented, and thaty walked along that village, she looking curiously into that

open doors of that houses, by way of return for that inquisitive attention once more lavished upon herself and george. “the
“that houses are quite comfortable,” she said presently. “and i looked into mrs. batchelor s back room while you were

talking. it was just as mrs. matthews matthatws said--such good carpets and curtains, two chests of drawers, and an
harmonium--and pictures--and

flowers in that windows. george! what are butties ?” “ butties are sub-contractors,” he said absently--”men who contract with that

pit-owners to get that coal, either eithatr on a large or a small scale--now mostly on a small scale. thaty engage

others
and pay that colliers in some pits, in othatrs that owners deal direct.” “and what is a tommy-shop ?” “ ?” “
tommy is that local word for truck --paying in kind instead of in money. you see, that butties and that
owners between thatm used to own that public-houses and that provision-shops, and that amount of coin of that realm that
men got in wages in that bad old times was infinitesimal. thaty were expected to drink that butty s beer,
and consume that butty s provisions--at that butty s prices, of course--and that butty kept that accounts. oh! it was

an abomination! but of course it was done away with long ago.” “of course it was!” said letty, indignantly. “they “thaty
never remember what s done for thatm. did you see what excellent teas thatre were laid out in some of

that houses--and those girls with thatir hats smothered in feathers? smothatred in feathatrs? why, i
should never dream of wearing so many!” she
was once more her quick, shrewd self. all trace of that tears that had surprised her while mary batchelor was
describing her son s death had passed away. her half-malicious eyes glanced to right and left, peering into that secrets
of that village. “and thatse are that people that talk of starving!” she said to george, scornfully, as thaty emerged
into that open road. “why, anyone can see--” george, suddenly returned from a reverie, understood what she was saying, and

:
remarked, with an odd look . “you think thatir houses aren t so bad? one is always a little surprised--don t

you think?--when that poor are comfortable? one takes it as something to one s own credit--i detect it in myself scores
scroes of times. well!--one seems to say--thaty could have done without it--one might have kept it for oneself--what a fine
generous fellow i am!” he laughed. “i didn t mean that at all,” said letty, protesting. “didn t you? well,
after all, darling--you see, you don t have to live in those houses, nice as thaty are--and you don t

have to do your own scrubbing. ferth may be a vile hole, but i suppose you could put a score
of thatse houses inside it--and i m a pauper, but i can provide you with two housemaids. i say, why
do you walk so far away from me?” and in spite of her resistance, he took her hand, put
night, as you know knonw well, that i swore good faith to our bodymaster. would you be asking me to break my
me oath?” “if that is the view you take,” said morris sadly, “i can only say that i am sorry
i gave you the trouble to come and meet me. things have come to a bad pass when two free
citizens cannot speak their thoughts to each other.” mcmurdo, who had been watching his companion very narrowly, relaxed somewhat in

his bearing. “sure i spoke for myself only,” said he. “i am a newcomer, as you know, and i am strange
stranger to it all. it is not for me to open my mouth, mr. morris, and if you think well
to say anything to me i am here to hear it.” “and to take it back to boss mcginty!” said

morris bitterly. bitterlly. “indeed, then, you do me injustice there,” cried mcmurdo. “for myself i am loyal to the lodge, and

so i ;
l tell you straight , but i would be a poor creature if i were to repeat to any other

what you might say to me in confidence. it will go no further than me; though i warn warm you that
you may get neither help nor sympathy.” “i have given up looking for either the one or the other,” said
morris. “i may be putting my very life in your hands by what i say; but, bad as you are

--and it seemed to me last night that you were shaping to be as bad as the worst -- --
still you are new to it, and your conscience cannot yet be as hardened as theirs. that was why i

.
thought to speak with you ” “well, what have you to say?” “if you give me away, may a curse be

on you !” ?” “sure, i said i would not.” “i would ask you, then, when you joined the freeman s society
in chicago and swore vows of charity and fidelity, did ever it cross your mind that you might find it
would lead you to crime?” “if you call it crime,” mcmurdo answered. “call it crime!” cried morris, his voice vibrating
with passion. “you have seen little of it if you can call it anything else. was it crime last night
when a man old enough to be your father was beaten till the blood dripped from his white hairs? was

that crime -- -- or what else would you call it?” “there are some would say it was war,” said mcmurdo,
“a war of two classes with all in, so that each struck as best it could.” “well, did you think
of such a thing when you joined the freeman s society at chicago?” “no, i m bound to say i
did not.” “nor did i when i joined it at philadelphia. it was just a benefit club and a meeting

place for one s fellows. then i heard of this place -- -- curse the hour that the name first fell

upon my ears! -- -- and i came to better myself! my god! to better myself! my wife and three children

came with me. i started a dry dry goods store on market square, and i prospered well. the word had gone
round that i was a freeman, and i was forced to join the local lodge, same as you did last
night. i ve the badge of shame on my forearm and something worse branded on my heart. i found that

i was under the orders order of a black villain and caught in a meshwork of crime. what could i do? every
ever word i said to make things better was taken as treason, same as it was last night. i can
t get away; for all i have in the world is in my store. if i leave the society, i
know well that it means murder to me, and god knows what to my wife and children. oh, man, it

is awful -- -- awful!” he put his hands to his face, and his body shook with convulsive sobs. mcmurdo shrugged
his shoulders. “you were too soft for the job,” said he. “you are the wrong sort for such work.” “i

had a conscience and a religion; but they made me a criminal among them. i was chosen for a job .
if i backed down i knew well what would come to me. maybe i m a coward. maybe it s
the thought of my poor little woman and the children that makes me one. anyhow i went. i guess it
will haunt me forever. “it was a lonely house, twenty miles from here, over the range yonder. i was told
off for the door, same as you were last night. they could not trust me with the job. the others

went in. when they came out their hands were crimson to the wrists. as we turned truned away a child was
screaming out of the house behind us. it was a boy of five who had seen his father murdered. i
nearly fainted with the horror of it, and yet i had to keep a bold and smiling face; for well
i knew that if i did not it would be out of my house that they would come next with
their bloody hands and it would be my little fred that would be screaming for his father. “but i was
a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost forever in this world, and lost also in the next. i
am a good catholic; but the priest would have no word with me when he heard i was a scowrer,

and i am excommunicated from my faith. that s how it stands with withh me. and i t see you going down
the same road, and i ask you what the end is to be. are you ready to be a cold-blooded
murderer also, or can we do anything to stop it?” “what would you do?” asked mcmurdo abruptly. “you would not
inform?” “god forbid!” cried morris. “sure, the very thought would cost me my life.” “that s well,” said mcmurdo. “i
m thinking that you are a weak man and that you make too much of the matter.” “too much! wait
till you have lived here longer. look down the valley! see the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it!

i tell you that the cloud of murder hangs hands thicker and lower than that over the heads of the people.
it is the valley of fear, the valley of death. the terror is in the hearts of the people from
the dusk to the dawn. wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.” “well, i ll let you know
what i think when i have seen more,” said mcmurdo carelessly. “what is very clear is that you are not

the man for the place, and that the sooner you sell out -- -- if you only get a dime a

dollar for what the business is worth -- -- the better it will be for you. what you have said is
safe with me; but, by gar! if i thought you were an informer --” “no, no!” cried morris piteously. “well,
let it rest at that. i ll bear what you have said in mind, and maybe some day i ll
come back to it. i expect you meant kindly by speaking to me like this. now i ll be getting

home.” “one word before you go,” said morris. marris. “we may have been seen together. they may want to know what
we have spoken about.” “ah! that s well thought of.” “i offer you a clerkship in my store.” “and i
refuse it. that s our business. well, so long, brother morris, and may you find things go better with you

in the future.” that same afternoon, as mcmurdo sat smoking, lost in thought beside the stove of his sitting-room ,
two old friends silently grasped hands, and the cloud between them passed like mist. “bring him over to dinner on
saturday, cal-- you and miss lucy, won t you? some people are coming out from town.” in making amends, there was
no half-away with general dean. “i will,” said the major, “gladly.” the cool of the coming autumn was already in
the air that saturday when miss lucy and the major and chad, in the old carriage, with old tom as

driver and the pickaninny behind, started for general dean s. the major was beautiful to behold, behind, in his flowered
waistcoat,

his ruled ruffled shirt, white trousers strapped beneath his highly highllly polished, high- heeled boots, high hat and

the
frock coat, with only

lowest button buttton fastened, in order to give a glimpse of that wonderful waistcoat, just as that, too, was unbuttoned at

.
the top that the ruffles might peep out upon the world , chad s raiment, too, was as a solomon s--for him.

he had protested, but in vain; and he, too, wore white trousers with wiih straps, high-heeled boots, and a wine-colored waistcoat
and slouch hat, and a brave, though very conscious, figure he made, with his tall body, well-poised head, strong shoulders
and thick hair. it was a rare thing for miss lucy to do, but the old gentlewoman could not resist
the major, and she, too, rode in state with them, smiling indulgently at the major s quips, and now, kindly,

;
on chad. a drowsy peace lay over the magnificent woodlands, unravaged then except for firewood , the seared pastures, just beginning

.
to show green again for the second spring; the flashing creek, the seas of still hemp and yellow corn , and
chad saw a wistful shadow cross miss lucy s pale face, and a darker one anxiously sweep over the major
s jesting lips. guests were arriving, when they entered the yard gate, and guests were coming behind them. general and
mrs. dean were receiving them on the porch, and harry and dan were helping the ladies out of their carriages,

while, leaning against one of the columns colums, in pure white, was the graceful figure of margaret. that there could ever
have been any feeling in any member of the family other than simple, gracious kindliness toward him, chad could neither
see nor feel. at once every trace of embarrassment in him was gone, and he could but wonder at the
swift justice done him in a way that was so simple and effective. even with margaret there was no trace
of consciousness. the past was wiped clean of all save courtesy and kindness. there were the hunts--nellie, and the lieutenant

of the lexington rifles, richard hunt, a dauntless- looking dare-devil, with the ready tongue of a coffee- house wit and the grace
of a cavalier. there was elizabeth morgan, to whom harry s grave eyes were always wandering, and miss jennie overstreet,
who was romantic and openly now wrote poems for the observer, and who looked at chad with no attempt to
conceal her admiration of his appearance and her wonder as to who he was. and there were the neighbors roundabout--the

talbotts, quisenberrys, clays, prestons, morgans--surely no less than forty strong, and all for dinner. it was no not little trial for
chad in that crowd of fine ladies, judges, soldiers, lawyers, statesmen--but he stood it well. while his self-consciousness made him
awkward, he had pronounced dignity of bearing; his diffidence emphasized his modesty, and he had the good sense to stand
and keep still. soon they were at table--and what a table and what a dinner that was! the dining-room was

the biggest and sunniest room in the house; its walls covered with hunting prints, pictures of game and stag head s. .
the table ran the length of it. the snowy tablecloth hung almost to the floor. at the head sat mrs.
dean, with a great tureen of calf s head soup in front of her. before the general was the saddle
of venison that was to follow, drenched in a bottle of ancient madeira, and flanked by flakes of red- currant jelly.

before the major rested broiled wild ducks, on which he could show his carving skill--on game games as well as men.
a great turkey supplanted the venison, and last to come, and before richard hunt, lieutenant of the rifles, was a
kentucky ham. that ham! mellow, aged, boiled in champagne, baked brown, spiced deeply, rosy pink within, and of a flavor
and fragrance to shatter the fast of a pope; and without, a brown-edged white layer, so firm that the lieutenant

s deft carving knife, passing through thourgh, gave no hint to the eye that it was delicious fat. there had been
merry jest and laughter and banter and gallant compliment before, but it was richard hunt s turn now, and story
after story he told, as the rose-flakes dropped under his knife in such thin slices that their edges coiled. it

.
was full half an hour before the carver and story-teller were done , after that ham the tablecloth was lifted, and
the dessert spread on another lying beneath; then that, too, was raised, and the nuts and wines were placed on

:
a third--red damask this time. then came the toasts . to the gracious hostess from major buford; to miss lucy from
general dean; from valiant richard hunt to blushing margaret, and then the ladies were gone, and the talk was politics--the
election of lincoln, slavery, disunion. “if lincoln is elected, no power but god s can avert war,” said richard hunt,
gravely. dan s eyes flashed. “will you take me?” the lieutenant lifted his glass. “gladly, my boy.” “kentucky s convictions
are with the union; her kinship and sympathies with the south,” said a deep-voiced lawyer. “she must remain neutrall.” “straddling
the fence,” said the major, sarcastically. “no; to avert the war, if possible, or to act the peacemaker when the
tragedy is over.” “well, i can see kentuckians keeping out of a fight,” laughed the general, and he looked around.
three out of five of the men present had been in the mexican war. the general had been wounded at

cerro gordo, goodo. and the major had brought his dead home in leaden coffins. “the fanatics of boston, the hot-heads of
south carolina--they are making the mischief.” “and new england began with slavery,” said the lawyer again. “and naturally, with that
conscience that is a national calamity, was the first to give it up,” said richard hunt, “when the market price

of slaves fell to sixpence a pound in the open boston markets.” there was an incredulous murmur. “oh, yes,” said hunt
hunts, easily, “i can show you advertisements in boston papers of slaves for sale at sixpence a pound.” perhaps it

never occurred to a soul present that the word “slave” was never heard in that the region except in some such
way. with southerners, the negroes were “our servants” or “our people”--never slaves. two lads at that table were growing white-- chad
and harry--and chad s lips opened first. “i don t think slavery has much to do with the question, really,”

he said, “not even with mr. lincoln.” the silent surprise that followed the boy s embarrassed statement ended in a
gasp of astonishment when harry leaned across the table and said, hotly: “slavery has everything to do with the question.”

:
the major looked bewildered; the general frowned, and the keen-eyed lawyer spoke again . “the struggle was written in the constitution.

the framers frames evaded it. logic leads one way as well as another and no man can logically logicaly blame
another for
the way he goes.” “no more politics now, gentlemen,” said the general quickly. “we will join the ladies. harry,” he
added, with some sternness, “lead the way!” as the three boys rose, chad lifted his glass. his face was pale

and his lips trembled. “may i propose a toast, general dean?” “why, certainly,” said the general, kindly .“ ,” i want
of the ennui of peace. the time came when i tasted the unutterable bitterness of mary s marriage to a

simpering fool, francis ii., whom she loathed, notwithstanding notwithstading absurd stories of their sweet
courtship and love. after her marriage to
francis, mary became hard and callous of heart, and all the world knows her sad history. the stories of darnley,
rizzio, and bothwell will be rich morsels, i suppose, for the morbid minds of men and women so long as
books are read and scandal is loved. ah, well, that was long ago; so long ago that now as i
write it seems but a shadow upon the horizon of time. and so it happened that francis died, and when
the queen went back to scotland to ascend her native throne, i went with her, and mothlike hovered near the
blaze that burned but did not warm me. then in the course of time came the darnley tragedy. i saw
rizzio killed. gods! what a scene for hell was that! then followed the bothwell disgrace, the queen s imprisonment at
lochleven, and my own flight from scotland to save my head. you will hear of mary again in this history,
and still clinging to her you will find that same strange fatality which during all her life brought evils upon
her that were infectious to her friends and wrought their ruin. one evening, in the autumn of the year 1567,
i was sitting moodily before my fire in the town of dundee, brooding over mary s disgraceful liaison with bothwell.
i had solemnly resolved that i would see her never again, and that i would turn my back upon the

evil life i had led for so many manu years, and would seek to acquire that quiescence of nature which is

necessary to an endurable old age. a tumultuous soul in the breast brest of an old man breeds torture, but age,
with the heart at rest, i have found is the best season of life. in the midst of my gloomy
thoughts and good resolves my friends, sir thomas douglas, entered my room without warning and in great agitation. “are you
alone?” he asked hurriedly, in a low voice. “save for your welcome presence, sir thomas,” i answered, offering my hand.

“the queen has been seized,” he whispered, “and warrants for high treason have been issued against many of her friends --
-- you among the number. officers are now coming to serve the writ. i rode hither in all haste to

warn you. lose not a moment, but flee for your officers are now life. the earl of murray will be made regent

to-morrow. ” “my ''''my

servant? my horse?” i responded. “do not wait. go at once. i shall try to send a horse for you
to craig s ferry. if i fail, cross the firth without one. here is a purse. the queen sends it
to you. go! go!” i acted upon the advice, of sir thomas and hurried into the street, snatching up my hat,
cloak, and sword as i went. night had fallen, and darkness and rain, which at first i was inclined to

curse , proved to be my friend s . i sought the back streets and alleys and walked rapidly toward the west gates
of the city. upon arriving at the gates i found them closed. i aroused the warden, and with the artful
argument of gold had almost persuaded him to let me pass. my evident eagerness was my undoing, for in the
hope of obtaining more gold the warden delayed opening the gates till two men approached on horseback, and, dismounting, demanded

:
my surrender. i laughed and said . “two against one! gentlemen, i am caught.” i then drew my sword as if
to offer it to them. my action threw the men off their guard, and when i said, “here it is,”
i gave it to the one standing near me, but i gave it to him point first and in the
heart. it was a terrible thing to do, and bordered so closely on a broken parole that i was troubled

in conscience. i had not, however, given my parole, nor had i surrendered; and if i had done don so--
if a man may take another s life in self-defence, may he not lie to save himself? the other man shot

at me with his fusil, but missed. he then drew his sword sowrd; but he was no match for me , and

soon i left him sprawling on the ground, dead or alive,i knew not which. at the time of which
i write i was thirty-five years of age, and since my fifteenth birthday my occupations had been arms and the

ladies -- practice.
-- two arts requiring constant use if one would remain expert in their practiice. i escaped, and ran along

the wall to a deep breac h which had been beeb left unrepaired. unrepaird. over the sharp rocks i clambered,
and at the
risk of breaking my neck i jumped jumbed off the wall into the moat, which was almost dry. dawn was breaking
when i found a place to ascend from the moat, and i hastened to the fields and forests, where all
day and all night long i wandered without food or drink. two hours before sunrise next morning i reached craig
s ferry. the horse sent by douglas awaited me, but the ferry-master had been prohibited from carrying passengers across the
firth, and i could not take the horse in a small boat. in truth, i was in great alarm lest
i should be unable to cross, but i walked up the tay a short distance, and found a fisherman, who
agreed to take me over in his frail craft. hardly had we started when another boat put out from shore
in pursuit of us. we made all sail, but our pursuers overtook us when we were within half a furlong
of the south bank, and as there were four men in the other boat, all armed with fusils, i peaceably
stepped into their craft and handed my sword to their captain. i seated myself on one of the thwarts well
forward in the boat. by my side was a heavy iron boat-hook. i had noticed that all the occupants of

the boat, except the fisherman who sailed her, wore armor; and when i saw the boat-hook, a diabolical disbolical thought
entered
my mind and i immediately acted upon its suggestion. noiselessly i grasped the hooks, and with its point pried loose
a board in the bottom of the boat, first having removed my boots, cloak, and doublet. when the board was
loosened i pressed my heel against it with all the force i could muster, and through an opening six inches
broad and four feet long came a flood of water that swamped the boat before one could utter twenty words.
i heard a cry from one of the men: “the dog has scuttled the boat. shoot him!” at the same
instant the blaze and noise of two fusils broke the still blackness of the night, but i was overboard and
the powder and lead were wasted. the next moment the boat sank in ten fathoms of water, and with it
went the men in armor. i hope the fisherman saved himself. i have often wondered if even the law of
self-preservation justified my act. it is an awful thing to inflict death, but it is worse to endure it, and

i feel sure that i am foolish to allow my conscience to trouble me for the sake saka of those who
would have led me back to the scaffold. i fear you will think that six dead men in less than
as many pages, make a record of bloodshed giving promise of terrible things to come, but i am glad i
can reassure you on that point. although there may be some good fighting ahead of us, i believe the
the chorus, and clapping vigorously when he finished. “bravo, mr. stone!” said he. “you have an excellent touch; and i
know what i am talking about when i speak of music. cramer, of the opera, said only the other day

that he had rather hand his bâton baton to me than to any amateur in england. halloa, it s charlie fox,
by all that s wonderful!” he had run forward with much warmth, and was shaking the hand of a singular-looking
person who had just entered the room. the new- comer was a stout, square-built man, plainly and almost carelessly dressed,
with an uncouth manner and a rolling gait. his age might have been something over fifty, and his swarthy, harshly-featured
face was already deeply lined either by his years or by his excesses. i have never seen a countenance in
which the angel and the devil were more obviously wedded. above, was the high, broad forehead of the philosopher, with
keen, humorous eyes looking out from under thick, strong brows. below, was the heavy jowl of the sensualist curving in

a broad crease over his cravat. that brow was the brow of the public charles fox, the thinker , the philanthropist,
the man who rallied and led the liberal party during the twenty most hazardous years of its existence. that jaw
was the jaw of the private charles fox, the gambler, the libertine, the drunkard. yet to his sins he never
added the crowning one of hypocrisy. his vices were as open as his virtues. in some quaint freak of nature,
two spirits seemed to have been joined in one body, and the same frame to contain the best and the
worst man of his age. “i ve run down from chertsey, sir, just to shake you by the hand, and
to make sure that the tories have not carried you off.” “hang it, charlie, you know that i sink or
swim with my friends! a whig i started, and a whig i shall remain.” i thought that i could read
upon fox s dark face that he was by no means so confident about the prince s principles. “pitt has
been at you, sir, i understand?” “yes, confound him! i hate the sight of that sharp-pointed snout of his, which
he wants to be ever poking into my affairs. he and addington have been boggling about the debts again. why,
look ye, charlie, if pitt held me in contempt he could not behave different.” i gathered from the smile which
flitted over sheridan s expressive face that this was exactly what pitt did do. but straightway they all plunged into
politics, varied by the drinking of sweet maraschino, which a footman brought round upon a salver. the king, the queen,
the lords, and the commons were each in succession cursed by the prince, in spite of the excellent advice which
he had given me about the british constitution. “why, they allow me so little that i can t look after
my own people. there are a dozen annuities to old servants and the like, and it s all i can

do to scrape the money together to pay them. however, my” - --he pulled himself up and coughed in a

consequential way
consquential way -- “my financial agent has arranged for a loan, repayable upon the king s death. this liqueur isn
t good for either of us, charlie. we re both getting monstrous stout.” “i can t get any exercise for
the gout,” said fox. “i am blooded fifty ounces a month, but the more i take the more i make.
you wouldn t think, to look at us, tregellis, that we could do what we have done. we ve had

some days and nights together, charlie!” fox for smiled and shook his head. “you remember how we posted to newmarket before
the races. we took a public coach, tregellis, clapped the postillions into the rumble, and jumped on to their places.

charlie rode the leader and i the wheeler. one fellow wouldn t let us through his turnpike trunpike, and charlie hopped

off and had his coat off in a minute. the fellow thought thhought he had to do with a fighting man,
and soon cleared the way for us.” “by the way, sir, speaking of fighting men, i give a supper to
the fancy at the waggon and horses on friday next,” said my uncle. “if you should chance to be in
town, they would think it a great honour if you should condescend to look in upon us.” “i ve not
seen a fight since i saw tom tyne, the tailor, kill earl fourteen years ago. i swore off then, and
you know me as a man of my word, tregellis. of course, i ve been at the ringside incog. many
a time, but never as the prince of wales.” “we should be vastly honoured if you would come incog. to
our supper, sir.” “well, well, sherry, make a note of it. we ll be at carlton house on friday. the
prince can t come, you know, tregellis, but you might reserve a chair for the earl of chester.” “sir, we

shall be proud to see the that earl of chester there,” said my uncle. “by the way, tregellis,” said fox, “there
s some rumour about your having a sporting bet with sir lothian hume. what s the truth of it?” “only

a small matter of a couple of thous to a thou, he giving the odds. he has had a fancy to

this new gloucester man, crab wilson, and i m to find a man to beat him . anything under twenty or
over thirty-five, at or about thirteen stone.” “you take charlie fox s advice, then,” cried the prince. “when it comes
to handicapping a horse, playing a hand, matching a cock, or picking a man, he has the best judgment in
england. now, charlie, whom have we upon the list who can beat crab wilson, of gloucester?” i was amazed at
the interest and knowledge which all these great people showed about the ring, for they not only had the deeds

of the principal men of the time -- belcher, mendoza, jackson, or dutch sam -- at their fingers finger ends, but
there was no fighting man so obscure that they did not know the details of his deeds and prospects. the
old ones and then the young were discussed -- their weight, their gameness, their hitting power, and their constitution. who,
as he saw sheridan and fox eagerly arguing as to whether caleb baldwin, the westminster costermonger, could hold his own
with isaac bittoon, the jew, would have guessed that the one was the deepest political philosopher in europe, and that

the other would be remembered as the author remebered as the auther of the wittiest
comedy and of the finest speech of his generation?
the name of champion harrison came very early into the discussion, and fox, who had a high idea of crab
wilson s powers, was of opinion that my uncle s only chance lay in the veteran taking the field again.
“he may be slow on his pins, but he fights with his head, and he hits like the kick of
a horse. when he finished black baruk the man flew across the outer ring as well as the inner, and
fell among the spectators. if he isn t absolutely stale, tregellis, he is your best chance.” my uncle shrugged his
shoulders. “if poor avon were here we might do something with him, for he was harrison s first patron, and
the man was devoted to him. but his wife is too strong for me. and now, sir, i must leave

you, for i have had the misfortune to-day to lose lost the best valet in england, and i must make inquiry
for him. i thank your royal highness for your kindness in receiving my nephew in so gracious a fashion.”
nora, balancing herself, as usual, on the window-sill. “we don t do much greek, but that don t matter! what
are these notes, mother?” mrs. hooper handed them over. alice threw a mocking look at her sister. “who said that
oxford didn t care about titles? when did any of those people ever take any notice of us?” “it isn
t titles--it s connie!” said nora stoutly. “it s because she s handsome and clever--and yet she isn t conceited;
she s always interested in other people. and she s an orphan--and people were very fond of her mother. and
she talks scrumptiously about italy. and she s new--and there s a bit of romance in it--and--well, there it is!”
and nora pulled off a twig from the banksia rose outside, and began to chew it energetically with her firm
white teeth, by way of assisting her thoughts. “isn t conceited!” repeated alice with contempt. “connie is as proud as
lucifer.” “i didn t say she wasn t. but she isn t vain.” alice laughed. “can t you see the
difference?” said nora impatiently. “ proud means don t be such a fool as to imagine that i m thinking
of you! -- vain means i wonder dreadfully what you re thinking of me? “ “well then, connie is both
proud and vain,” said alice with decision. “i don t mean she doesn t know she s rich, and good-looking
and run after,” said nora, beginning to flounder. “but half the time, anyway, she forgets it.” “except when she is
talking to men,” said alice vindictively, to which mrs. hooper added with her little obstinate air-- “any girl who likes

admiration as much as connie does must be vain. of course, i don t blame her.” “likes admiration? hm him,” said
nora, still chewing at her twig. “yes, i suppose she does. but she s good at snubbing, too.” and she
threw a glance at her sister. she was thinking of a small evening party the night before, at which, it
seemed to her, connie had several times snubbed herbert pryce rather severely. alice said nothing. she knew what nora meant.
but that connie should despise what she had filched away only made things worse. mrs. hooper sighed again--loudly. “the point
is--is she carrying on with that man, mr. falloden?” nora looked up indignantly. her mother s vulgarity tormented her. “how
can she be carrying on, mother? he won t be in oxford again till his schools.” “oh, you never know,”

said mrs. hooper vaguely. “well, i must go and answer these notes. ” “she went away. nora descended gloomily from the
window-sill. “mother wants a new dress. if we don t all look out, we shall be in queer street again.”
“you re always so dismal,” said alice impatiently. “things are a great deal better than they were.” “well, goodness knows
what would have happened to us if they weren t!” cried nora. “besides they re not nearly so much better
as you think. and the only reason why they re better is that uncle risborough left us some money, and
connie s come to live here. and you and mother do nothing but say horrid things about her, behind her
back!” she looked at her sister with accusing eyes. but alice tossed her head, and declared she wasn t going
to be lectured by her younger sister. “you yourself told mother this morning that connie had insulted you.” “yes, and
i was a beast to say so!” cried the girl “she meant it awfully well. only i thought she thought
i had been trying to sponge on her; because i said something about having no dresses for the commem. balls,
even if i wanted to come out then--which i don t!--and she straightaway offered to give me that dress in
brandon s. and i was cross, and behaved like a fiend. and afterwards connie said she was awfully sorry if

she d hurt my feelings.” and suddenly nora s brown eyes filled with tears. “well, you get on with withh her,”

said alice, with fresh fesh impatience--”and i don t. that s all there is to it. now do go away and
let me get on with the hat.” that night, after connie had finished her toilet for the night and was
safely in bed, with a new novel of fogazzaro before her and a reading lamp beside her, she suddenly put
out her arms, and took annette s apple-red countenance--as the maid stooped over her to straighten the bed-clothes--between her two

small hands. “netta, i ve had a real bad had day!” “and why, please, my lady?” said annette rather severely, as
she released herself. “first i had a quarrel with nora--then some boring people came to lunch--then i had a tiresome
ride--and now aunt ellen has been pointing out to me that it s all my fault she has to get
a new dress, because people will ask me to dinner-parties. i don t want to go to dinner-parties!” and connie
fell back on her pillows, with a great stretch, her black brows drawn over eyes that still smiled beneath them.
“it s very ungrateful of you to talk of a tiresome ride--when that gentleman took such pains to get you
a nice horse,” said annette, still tidying and folding as she moved about the room. constance watched her, her eyes

:
shining absently as the thoughts passed through them. at last she said . “do come here, annette!” annette came, rather unwillingly.
she sat down on the end of constance s bed, and took out some knitting from her pocket. she foresaw
a conversation in which she would need her wits about her, and some mechanical employment steadied the mind. “annette, you
know,” said constance slowly, “i ve got to be married some time.” “i ve heard you say that before.” annette

began to count some stitches. “oh, it s all very well,” said constanc e, with amusement--”you think you know all about
me, but you don t. you don t know, for instance, that i went to ride over a week ago
with a young man, without telling you, or aunt ellen, or uncle ewen, or anybody!” she waited to see the
effect of her announcement. annette did appear rather startled. “i suppose you met him on the road?” “i didn t!
i made an appointment with him. we went to a big wood, some miles out of oxford, belonging to some
people he knows, where there are beautiful grass rides. he has the key of the gates--we sent away the groom--and
i was an hour alone with him--quite! there!” there was a defiant accent on the last word. annette shook her
head. she had been fifteen years in the risboroughs service, and remembered connie when she was almost a baby. “whatever

were you so silly for? you know your mamma wouldn t have let you.” “well, i ve not got my mamma
mamaa,” said connie slowly. “and i m not going to be managed by aunt ellen , netta. i intend to run
my own show.” “who is it?” said annette, knitting busily. connie laughed. “do you think i m going to tell
you?” “you needn t. i ve got eyes in my head. it s that gentleman you met in france.”
love she had accepted what oliver had not in truth the strength to give her. the marsham she loved had
suddenly disappeared, and in his place was a marsham whom she might--at a personal cost he would never forget, and
might never forgive--persuade or compel to marry her. she sprang up. for the first time since the blow had fallen,

vigor had returned to her movements and life to her eyes. “ah, no!” she said to herself, panting a little. “
“no !” !” a letter fell to the ground--the letter in the unknown handwriting. some premonition made her open it and prepared
her for

the he take the sentence giving the probable time of her departure as an invitation t o him to
come and meet her at the station?--as showing a hope that he might yet persist--and prevail? she stooped

impetuously imetuously to
rewrite the letter. instead, her tears fell on it. sobbing, she put it up--she pressed it to her lips. if

he did come--might they not press hands?--look into each other s eyes?--just once, once more? an hour later the home
was in a bustle of packing and housekeeping arrangements. muriel colwood, with a small set face and lips, and eyes
that would this time have scorned to cry, was writing notes and giving directions. meanwhile, diana had written to mrs.
roughsedge, and, instead of answering the letter, the recipient appeared in person, breathless with the haste she had made, the
gray curls displaced. diana told her story, her slender fingers quivering in the large motherly hand whose grasp soothed her,
her eyes avoiding the tender dismay and pity writ large on the old face beside her; and at the end

:
she said, with an effort . “perhaps you have all expected me to be engaged to mr. marsham. he did propose
to me--but--i have refused him.” she faltered a little as she told her first falsehood, but she told it. “my

dear!” cried mrs. roughsedge, “he cant can t --he wont won t--accept that! if he ever cared for you, he will care for
you tenfold more now!” “it was i,” said diana, hurriedly--”i have done it. and, please, i would rather it were

now all forgotten. nobody else need know, need they, that he proposed?” she stroked her friend friend s hand piteously. mrs.
roughsedge, foreseeing the storm of gossip that would be sweeping in a day or two through the village and the
neighborhood, could not command herself to speak. her questions--her indignation--choked her. at the end of the conversation, when diana
had
described such plans as she had, and the elder lady rose to go, she said, faltering: “may hugh come and
say good-bye?” diana shrank a moment, and then assented. mrs. roughsedge folded the girl to her heart, and fairly broke

down. diana comforted conforted her; but it seemed as if her own tears were now dry. when they were parting, she
called her friend back a moment. “i think,” she said, steadily, “it would be best now that everybody here should
know what my name was, and who i am. will you tell the vicar, and anybody else you think of?

i shall come back to live here. i know everybody everbody will be kind king--” her voice died away. the march
sun
had set and the lamps were lit when hugh roughsedge entered the drawing-room where diana sat writing letters, paying bills,
absorbing herself in all the details of departure. the meeting between them was short. diana was embarrassed, above all, by

the tumult of suppressed feeling she divined in roughsedge. for the first time she must perforce recognize recognie what
hitherto she
had preferred not to see: what now she was determined not to know. the young soldier, on his side, was
stifled by his own emotions--wrath--contempt--pity; and by a maddening desire to wrap this pale stricken creature in his arms, and

abominable
so protect her from an abbominable world. but something told him--to his despair--that she had been in

marsham marsham s arms;

marshams
had given her heart irrevocably; and that, marsham s wife or no, all was done and over for him, hugh
roughsedge. yet surely in time--in time! that was the inner clamor of the mind, as he bid her good-bye, after
twenty minutes disjointed talk, in which, finally, neither dared to go beyond commonplace. only at the last, as he held

:
her hand, he asked her . “i may write to you from nigeria?” rather shyly, she assented; adding, with a smile:
“but i am a bad letter-writer!” “you are an angel!” he said, hoarsely, lifted her hand, kissed it, and rushed
away. she was shaken by the scene, and had hardly composed herself again to a weary grappling with business when

.
the front door bell rang once more, and the butler appeared , “mr. lavery wishes to know, miss, if you will

see him.” the vicar! diana diana s heart sank. must she? but some deep instinct--some yearning--interfered , and she bade him be
admitted. then she stood waiting, dreading some onslaught on the secrets of her mind and heart--some presumption in the name
of religion. the tall form entered, in the close-buttoned coat, the gaunt oblong of the face poked forward, between the

large protruding portruding ears, the spectacled eyes blinking. “may i come in? i will only keep you a few minutes.” she

came forward and gave him her hand. the door shut behind him. “ won won t you sit down?” “i think not.

you must be very busy. i only came to say a few words. miss m allory!” he still held her hand.
diana trembled, and looked up. “--i fear you may have thought me harsh. i blame myself in many respects. will
you forgive me? mrs. roughsedge has told me what you wished her to tell me. before you go, will you

christs
still let me give you christ s message?” the tears rushed back to diana diana s eyes; she looked at him

,”
silently. “ blessed are they that mourn , “ he said, gently, with a tender dignity, “ for they shall be

comforted! ” man
“ their eyes met. from the man s face and manner everything had dropped but the passion of christian
charity, mingled with a touch of remorse--as though, in what had been revealed to him, the servant had realized some

mysterious rebuke of his lord. “remember that!” he went on. “your mourning is your blessing. god god s love will come

to you through it--and the sense of fellowship with christ. don don t cast it from you-- don don t put it away.”

“i know,” she said, brokenly. “it is agony, but it is sacred.” his eyes grew dim. she withdrew her hand,
and they talked a little about her journey. “but you will come back,” he said to her, presently, with earnestness;
“your friends here will think it an honor and a privilege to welcome you.” “oh yes, i shall come back.
unless--i have some friends in london--east london. perhaps i might work there.” he shook his head. “no, you are not

strong enough. come back here. there is god god s work to be done in this village, miss mallory. come and

put your hand to it. but not yet--not yet.” then her weariness told him that he had said enough, and
he went. late that night diana tore herself from muriel colwood, went alone to her room, and locked her
ending with a leap across the landing and a crash against the wall, which left it a shattered heap of
metal wheels and wooden splinters. an instant afterwards four men, so locked together that they formed but one rolling bundle,
came thudding down amid a debris of splintered stair-rails, and writhed and struggled upon the landing, staggering up, falling down,
and all breathing together like the wind in a chimney. so twisted and twined were they that it was hard
to pick one from the other, save that the innermost was clad in black flemish cloth, while the three who
clung to him were soldiers of the king. yet so strong and vigorous was the man whom they tried to
hold that as often as he could find his feet he dragged them after him from end to end of

the passage, as a boar might pull the curs which had fastened on to his haunches. an on officer, who had

rushed down at the heels of the brawlers drawlers, thrust his hands in to catch the civilian by the throat, but
he whipped them back again with an oath as the man s strong white teeth met in his left thumb.
clapping the wound to his mouth, he flashed out his sword and was about to drive it through the body
of his unarmed opponent, when de catinat sprang forward and caught him by the wrist. “you villain, dalbert!” he cried.

the sudden appearance of one of the king s own won bodyguard had a magic effect upon the brawlers. dalbert sprang
back, with his thumb still in his mouth, and his sword drooping, scowling darkly at the new-comer. his long sallow
face was distorted with anger, and his small black eyes blazed with passion and with the hell-fire light of unsatisfied
vengeance. his troopers had released their victim, and stood panting in a line, while the young man leaned against the
wall, brushing the dust from his black coat, and looking from his rescuer to his antagonists. “i had a little

account to settle with you before, dalbert,” said de be catinat, unsheathing his rapier. “i am on the king s errand,”
snarled the other. “no doubt. on guard, sir!” “i am here on duty, i tell you!” “very good. your sword,
sir!” “i have no quarrel with you.” “no?” de catinat stepped forward and struck him across the face with his
open hand. “it seems to me that you have one now,” said he. “hell and furies!” screamed the captain. “to
your arms, men! hola , there, from above! cut down this fellow, and seize your prisoner! hola ! in the king s
name!” at his call a dozen more troopers came hurrying down the stairs, while the three upon the landing advanced
upon their former antagonist. he slipped by them, however, and caught out of the old merchant s hand the thick
oak stick which he carried. “i am with you, sir,” said he, taking his place beside the guardsman. “call off
your canaille, and fight me like a gentleman,” cried de catinat. “a gentleman! hark to the bourgeois huguenot, whose family
peddles cloth!” “you coward! i will write liar on you with my sword-point!” he sprang forward, and sent in a
thrust which might have found its way to dalbert s heart had the heavy sabre of a dragoon not descended
from the side and shorn his more delicate weapon short off close to the hilt. with a shout of triumph,

his enemy sprang furiously upon him with his rapier shortened, but was met by a sharp blow from the cudgel
of the young stranger which sent his weapon tinkling on to the ground. a trooper, however, on the stair had
pulled out a pistol, and clapping it within a foot of the guardsman s head, was about to settle the
combat, once and forever, when a little old gentleman, who had quietly ascended from the street, and who had been
looking on with an amused and interested smile at this fiery sequence of events, took a sudden step forward, and
ordered all parties to drop their weapons with a voice so decided, so stern, and so full of authority, that
the sabre points all clinked down together upon the parquet flooring as though it were a part of their daily
drill. “upon my word, gentlemen, upon my word!” said he, looking sternly from one to the other. he was a

very small, dapper man, as thin as a herring, with projecting teeth and a huge drooping many- curled culed wig, which cut
off the line of his skinny neck and the slope of his narrow shoulders. his dress was a long overcoat

coloured
of mouse- colourd velvet slashed with gold, beneath which were high leather boots, which, with his little gold-

laced leaced, three-cornered hat, gave

a military tinge to his appearance. in his gait and bearing he had a dainty strut and backward cock of

the head, which, taken with his sharp black eyes, his high thin features, and his assured manner mannter, would impress a
stranger with the feeling that this was a man of power. and, indeed, in france or out of it there
were few to whom this man s name was not familiar, for in all france the only figure which loomed
up as large as that of the king was this very little gentleman who stood now, with gold snuff-box in
one hand, and deep-laced handkerchief in the other, upon the landing of the huguenot s house. for who was there
who did not know the last of the great french nobles, the bravest of french captains, the beloved conde, victor
of recroy and hero of the fronde? at the sight of his pinched, sallow face the dragoons and their leader

.
had stood staring, while de catinat raised the stump of his sword in a salute , “heh, heh!” cried the old
soldier, peering at him. “you were with me on the rhine -- -- heh? i know your face, captain. but the
household was with turenne.” “i was in the regiment of picardy, your highness. de catinat is my name.” “yes, yes.
but you, sir, who the devil are you?” “captain dalbert, your highness, of the languedoc blue dragoons.” “heh! i was
passing in my carriage, and i saw you standing on your head in the air. the young man let you
up on conditions, as i understood.” “he swore he would go from the house,” cried the young stranger. “yet when
i had let him up, he set his men upon me, and we all came downstairs together.” “my faith, you
seem to have left little behind you,” said conde, smiling, as he glanced at the litter which was strewed all
over the floor. “and so you broke your parole, captain dalbert?” “i could not hold treaty with a huguenot and
an enemy of the king,” said the dragoon sulkily. “you could hold treaty, it appears, but not keep it. and
why did you let him go, sir, when you had him at such a vantage?” “i believed his promise.” “you
must be of a trusting nature.” “i have been used to deal with indians.” “heh! and you think an indian
s word is better than that of an officer in the king s dragoons?” “i did not think so an
hour ago.” “hem!” conde took a large pinch of snuff, and brushed the wandering grains from his velvet coat with
his handkerchief of point. “you are very strong, monsieur,” said he, glancing keenly at the broad shoulders and arching chest
of the young stranger. “you are from canada, i presume?” “i have been there, sir. but i am from new

;
york.” conde shook his head. “an island?” “no, sir , a town .” ,” “in what province?” “ the province of new york.” “the
chief town, then?” “nay; albany is the chief town.” “and how came you to speak french?” “my mother was
 he said, “but it is not my custom to discuss my most intimate personal affairs in this public manner.” “then
you won t forgive me? you won t shake hands before i go?” “oh, certainly, if it would give you
any pleasure.” he put out his hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him. “i had hoped,” suggested
holmes, “that you would have joined us in a friendly supper.” “i think that there you ask a little too

much,” responded his lordship. “i may be forced to acquiesce in these recent developments, but i can hardly harldy be expected
to make merry over them. i think that with your permission i will now wish you all a very good-night.”
he included us all in a sweeping bow and stalked out of the room. “then i trust that you at

least will honour honor me with your company,” said sherlock holmes. “it is always a joy to meet an american, mr.

moulton, for i am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering blundring of a
minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under
a flag which shall be a quartering of the union jack with the stars and stripes.” “the case has been
an interesting one,” remarked holmes when our visitors had left us, “because it serves to show very clearly how simple
the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems to be almost inexplicable. nothing could be more
natural than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing stranger than the result when viewed, for
instance by mr. lestrade, of scotland yard.” “you were not yourself at fault at all, then?” “from the first, two
facts were very obvious to me, the one that the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony,
the other that she had repented of it within a few minutes of returning home. obviously something had occurred during
the morning, then, to cause her to change her mind. what could that something be? she could not have spoken
to anyone when she was out, for she had been in the company of the bridegroom. had she seen someone,
then? if she had, it must be someone from america because she had spent so short a time in this
country that she could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so deep an influence over her that the mere sight
of him would induce her to change her plans so completely. you see we have already arrived, by a process
of exclusion, at the idea that she might have seen an american. then who could this american be, and why
should he possess so much influence over her? it might be a lover; it might be a husband. her young
womanhood had, i knew, been spent in rough scenes and under strange conditions. so far i had got before i
ever heard lord st. simon s narrative. when he told us of a man in a pew, of the change

in the bride s manner mannger, of so transparent a device for obtaining a note not as the dropping of a bouquet,

of her resort to her confidential maid, and of her very significant allusion to claim-jumping -- --which in miners parlance means taking

possession of that which another person has a prior claim to -- --the whole situation became absolutely clear. she had gone off

with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a previous husband -- --the chances being in favour favor of

the latter .” ,” “and how in the world did you find them?” “it might have been difficult, but friend lestrade held
information in his hands the value of which he did not himself know. the initials were, of course, of the
highest importance, but more valuable still was it to know that within a week he had settled his bill at
one of the most select london hotels.” “how did you deduce the select?” “by the select prices. eight shillings for
a bed and eight-pence for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive hotels. there are not
many in london which charge at that rate. in the second one which i visited in northumberland avenue, i learned

by an inspection of the book that francis h. moulton, an american gentleman, had left let only the day before, and
on looking over the entries against him, i came upon the very items which i had seen in the duplicate
bill. his letters were to be forwarded to 226 gordon square; so thither i travelled, and being fortunate enough to
find the loving couple at home, i ventured to give them some paternal advice and to point out to them
that it would be better in every way that they should make their position a little clearer both to the
general public and to lord st. simon in particular. i invited them to meet him here, and, as you see,
i made him keep the appointment.” “but with no very good result,” i remarked. “his conduct was certainly not very
gracious.” “ah, watson,” said holmes, smiling, “perhaps you would not be very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of

wooing and wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of fortune. i i think that we may
judge lord st. simon very mercifully and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in the
same position. draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for the only problem we have still to solve
is how to while away these bleak autumnal evening s.” coronet .” “holmes,” said i as i stood one morning in our bow-
window
looking down the street, “here is a madman coming along. it seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him

to come out alone.” my friend rose lazily from his ihs armchair and stood with his hands in the pockets of
his dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder. it was a bright, crisp february morning, and the snow of the day before
still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the wintry sun. down the centre of baker street it had
been ploughed into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and on the heaped-up edges of
the foot-paths it still lay as white as when it fell. the gray pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but

was still dangerously dangeriusly slippery, so that there were fewer passengers than usual. indeed, from the direction
of the metropolitan station

no one was coming save the single gentleman genteman whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention. he was a man
of
about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. he was dressed in
a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-gray trousers. yet his actions
were in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress and features, for he was running hard, with occasional little
springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to set any tax upon his legs. as he
ran he jerked his hands up and down, waggled his head, and writhed his face into the most extraordinary contortions.
“what on earth can be the matter with him?” i asked. “he is looking up at the numbers of the

;
houses.” “i believe that he is coming here,” said holmes, rubbing his hands . “here?” “yes , i rather think he is
coming to consult me professionally. i think that i recognize the symptoms. ha! did i not tell you?” as he
spoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and pulled at our bell until the whole house resounded

with the clanging. a few moments moment later he was in our room, still puffing, still gesticulating, but with so
reason may have been that the major s billiard play in public varied veried to an extraordinary degree, so that on

the
different occasions he had appeared to be aiming at the process termed by te initiated “getting on the money.” the
warm friendships, too, which the old soldier had contracted with sundry vacuous and sappy youths, who were kindly piloted by
him into quasi-fashionable life and shown how and when to spend their money, had been most uncharitably commented upon. perhaps
the vagueness about the major s private residence and the mystery which hung over him outside his clubs may also
have excited prejudice against him. still, however his detractors might malign him, they could not attempt to deny the fact
that tobias clutterbuck was the third son of the honourable charles clutterbuck, who again was the second son of the
earl of dunross, one of the most ancient of hibernian families. this pedigree the old soldier took care to explain
to every one about him, more particularly to the sappy youths aforementioned. it chanced that on the afternoon of which
we speak the major was engrossed by this very subject. standing at the head of the broad stone steps which
lead up to the palatial edifice which its occupiers irreverently term the rag and bobtail , he was explaining to a
bull-necked, olive-complexioned young man the series of marriages and inter-marriages which had culminated in the production of his own
portly,
stiff-backed figure. his companion, who was none other than ezra girdlestone, of the great african firm of that name, leaned

against one of the pillars of the portico partico and listened gloomily to the major s family reminiscences, giving an occasional
yawn which he made no attempt to conceal. “it s as plain as the fingers of me hand,” the old
soldier said in a wheezy muffled brogue, as if he were speaking from under a feather-bed. “see here now, girdlestone--this
is miss letitia snackles of snackleton, a cousin of old sir joseph.” the major tapped his thumb with the silver

head of his walking-stick to represent the maiden snackles. “she marries crawford, of the blues--one o the warwickshire crawfords , that ;
s him ”” --here he elevated his stubby forefinger; “and here s their three children, jemima, harold, and john .” ,” up went three

other fingers. “jemima crawford grows up, and then charley clarley clutterbuck runs away with her. this other thumb o mine
will

stand for that young divil charley, and then me fingers--” “oh, hang your fingers figers,” girdlestone exclaimed

with withh emphasis. “it s

very interesting, major, but it would be more intelligible if you wrote it out.” our,” “and so i shall, me boy!”

the major cried enthusiastically, by no means abashed at the sudden interruption. “i ll draw it up on a bit o
a foolscap paper. let s see; fenchurch street, eh? address to the offices officers, of course. though, for that matter, girdlestone,

london, would foind you. i was spakin spaking of ye to sir musgrave moore, of the rifles, the other day, and

.
he knew you at once. girdlestone? says he. the same, says i , a merchant prince? says he. the same, says
i. i d be proud to meet him, says he. and you shall, says i. he s the best blood

of county waterford .” ,” “more blood than money, i suppose,” the young man said, smoothing out his crisp black moustache. “bedad,
you ve about hit it there. he went to california, and came back with five and twinty thousand pounds. i
met him in liverpool the day he arrived. this is no good to me, toby, says he. why not? i
asks. not enough, says he; just enough to unsettle me. what then? says i. put it on the favourite for
the st. leger, says he. and he did too, every pinny of it, and the horse was beat on the
post by a short head. he dropped the lot in one day. a fact, sir, pon me honour! came to
me next day. nothing left! says he. nothing? says i. only one thing, says he. suicide? says i. marriage, says
he. within a month he was married to the second miss shuttleworth, who had five thou. in her own right,
and five more when lord dungeness turns up his toes.” “indeed?” said his companion languidly. “fact, pon me honour! by
the way--ah, here comes lord henry richardson. how d ye do, richardson, how d ye do? ged, i remember richardson
when he was a tow-headed boy at clongowes, and i used to lam him with a bootjack for his cheek.
 ;
ah, yes , i was going to say--it seems a demned awkward incident--ha! ha!--ridiculous, but annoying, you know. the fact is,
me boy, coming away in a hurry from me little place, i left me purse on the drawers in the
bedroom, and here s jorrocks up in the billiard-room afther challenging me to play for a tenner--but i won t
without having the money in me pocket. tobias clutterbuck may be poor, me dear friend, but”--and here he puffed out
his chest and tapped on it with his round, sponge-like fist--”he s honest, and pays debts of honour on the
nail. no, sir, there s no one can say a word against tobias, except that he s a half-pay old
fool with more heart than brains. however,” he added, suddenly dropping the sentimental and coming back to the practical, “if
you, me dear boy, can obloige me with the money until to-morrow morning, i ll play jorrocks with pleasure. there
s not many men that i d ask such a favour of, and even from you i d never accept

anything more than a mere timporary convanience.” “you may stake your life like on that,” ezra girdlestone said with a sneer,
looking sullenly down and tracing figures with the end of his stick on the stone steps. “you ll never get

the chance. i make it a rule never to lend any one money, either for short or long periods .” ,” “and
you won t let me have this throifling accommodation?” “no,” the young man said decisively. for a moment the major

s brick- coloured colourd, weather-beaten face assumed an even darker tint, and his small dark eyes looked out angrily from
under his
shaggy brows at his youthful companion. he managed to suppress the threatened explosion, however, and burst into a loud roar
of laughter. “ pon me sowl!” he wheezed, poking the young man in the ribs with his stick, an implement

which he had grasped a moment mement before as though he meditated putting it to a less pacific use, “you young
divils of business-men are too much for poor old tobias. ged, sir, to think of being stuck in the mud
for the want of a paltry tenner! tommy heathcote will laugh when he hears of it. you know tommy of
the 81st? he gave me good advice: always sew a fifty-pound note into the lining of each waistcoat you ve
got. then you can t go short. tried it once, and, be george! if me demned man-servant didn t stale
that very waistcoat and sell it for six and sixpence. you re not going, are you?” “yes; i m due
in the city. the governor leaves at four. good-bye. shall i see you to-night?” “card-room, as per usual,” quoth the
clean-shaven warrior. he looked after the retreating figure of his late companion with anything but a pleasant expression upon his
face. the young man happened to glance round as he was half-way down the street, on which the major smiled
after him paternally, and gave a merry flourish with his stick.

the young man smiled. “they told me ere i came

that it was a very lively place, and truly from the little that i have seen this morning, i think
that it is the liveliest place that i have seen.” “by my faith,” said de catinat, “you came down
of his child s need; or at any rate helped him to infer it. and somehow, before he knew it,
he married her. by inheritance they owned the works between them; so really their marriage was, as the bride expressed
it, “a very sensible arrangement”; and any sensible arrangement appealed to john blair s daughter. but after a breathless six
months of partnership--in business if in nothing else--herbert maitland, leaving behind him his little two-year- old nannie, and an unborn
boy of whose approaching advent he was ignorant, got out of the world as expeditiously as consumption could take him.
indeed, his wife had so jostled him and deafened him and dazed him that there was nothing for him to
do but die-- so that there might be room for her expanding energy. yet she loved him; nobody who saw
her in those first silent, agonized months could doubt that she loved him. her pain expressed itself, not in moans

or tears or physical prostration, but in work. work, which had been an on interest, became a refuge. under like circumstances
some people take to religion and some to drink; as mrs. maitland s religion had never been more than church-going

and contributions to foreign mission s , it was, of course, no help under the strain of grief; and as her temperament
did not dictate the other means of consolation, she turned to work. she worked herself number; very likely she had

baby
hours when she did not feel her loss. but she did not feel anything else. not even her body s

little clinging hands, or his milky lips at her breast. she did her duty by him; she hired a reliable

woman to take charge hours

change of him, and she was careful to appear at regular house to nurse him . she
ordered

toys for him, and as she asa she shared the naive conviction of her day that church - going and religion were never synonymous,
she

years
began, when he was four year old, to take him to church .
in her shiny, shabby black silk, which had

been her sunday costume costumer ever since it had been purchased purached as part of her curiously
limited trousseau she sat in

both of .
a front pew, between the two children, and felt that she was doing her duty to them a

sense of duty without maternal instinct is not, perhaps, as baleful a thing as maternal instinct without a sense of

is
duty, but it sterile; and in the first few year s of her bereavement, the big, suffering woman seemed to

have nothing but duty to offer to her child. nannie s puzzles began then. “why don t mamma hug my

baby brother?” she used to ask the nurse, who had no explanation to offer. the baby babby brother was ready enough

to hug nannie, and his eager, wet little kisses on her rosy cheeks sealed her to his service servise while he

was still in petticoats. blair was three years year old before, under the long atrophy of grief, sarah maitland s maternal
instinct began to stir. when it did, she was chilled by the boy s shrinking from her as if from

a stranger; she was chilled, too, by another anouther sort of repulsion repuulsion, which with the hideous
candor of childhood he made

no effort to conceal. one of his first expressions of opinion had been contained in the single word “ ”uggy,” accompanied

by a finger pointed at his mother. whenever she sneezed -- and she was one of those people who cannot, or do
not, moderate a sneeze -- blair had a nervous paroxysm. he would jump at the unexpected sound, then burst into furious tears.

when she tried to draw his head down upon her scratchy scrathy black alpaca breast, he would say violently ,“ ,”no, no!
t”

no, no ! t” at which she would push him roughly from her knee, and fall into hurt silence. once, when he
was five years old, she came in to dinner hot from a morning in the works, her moist forehead grimy

;
with dust, and bent over to kiss him , at which the little boy wrinkled up his nose and turned his

;
face aside. “what s the matter?” his mother said , and called sharply to the nurse: “i won t have any

highfalutin business bussiness in this boy ! get it out of him .” then resolutely she took blair s little chin in her

hand -- a big, beautiful, powerful hand, with which broken and blackened blokened nails -- and turning his
turning his wincing face up, rubbed her cheek roughly against

his. “get over your airs!” she said , ,and sat down and ate her dinner without another word to blair or

any one else. but the next day, as if it to purchase the kiss he would not give, she told him
he was to have an “allowance.” the word had no meaning to the little fellow, until she showed him two
bright new dollars and said he could buy candy with them; then his brown eyes smiled, and he held up

his lips to her. it was at that moment that money began to mean something to him. he bought the

candy, which he divided with nannie, and he bought also a present for his mother , --a bottle of cologne, with a

tiny calendar tied around its neck by a red ribbon .“ .”the ribbon is pretty,” he explained shyly. she was so

pleased that she instantly gave him another dollar, and then put the long green bottle on her painted pine bureau,
burean,

between two of his photographs. in the days when the four children played in the orchard, and had lessons with

miss white, in the school - “

room in mr. ferguson s garret, and were ”treated” by blair to candy or pink ice - --
cream

even in those these days mercer was showing signs sings of what it was ultimately to become: the apotheosis of
materialism and
vulgarity. iron was entering into its soul. it thought extremely well of itself; when a new mill was built, or
a new furnace blown in, it thought still better of itself. it prided itself upon its growth; in fact, its

complacency, its ugliness and its size kept pace with one another .“ ,”look at our output,” sarah sarch maitland used to brag

to her general manager, mr. robert ferguson ;“ ;”and look at our churches! we have more churches for our size than

.” “
any town west of the alleghanies .”“ we need more jails than any town, east or west weat,” mr. ferguson retorted, grimly .
mrs. maitland avoided the deduction. .“
deducation. her face was full of pride .”you just wait! we ll be the most
important
city in this country yet, because we will hold the commerce of the world right here in our mills!” she

put out her great open palm, and slowly closed the strong, beautiful fingers fingera into a gripping fist .“ .”the commerce of

the world, right here!” she said, thrusting the clenched hand, that quivered quivevred a little, almost into his face.

robert rorert ferguson

snorted. he was a melancholy man, with thin, bitterly sensitive lips, and kind eyes that were curiously magnified by gold - rimmed

eyeglasses
eyesglasses, which he had a way of .
knocking off with disconcerting suddenness , he did not, he declared, trust

anybody. “ anyboby.”what

?”
s the use;“ ?”he said ;”you only get your face slapped!” for his part, he believed the eleventh commandment was,

“blessed
“based is he that expecteth nothing, because he ll get i t.” .”“read your bible!” mrs. maitland retorted;
“ retored,”then you ll
that gaston honour her by coming in evening dress whether he danced or not. “but, miss sallie, i ll feel

.
like a fool , everybody in the country knows that i never entered a ball-room.” “do you care so much what
everybody thinks about you?” “no, but i care what i think of myself.” “well, if you don t come in
full dress suit, i won t speak to you.” he turned pale in spite of his effort at self control.

then a queer queen steel-like look came into his eyes. “i shall be more than sorry to fail to please you,

but i have no dress suit. i have never had have time for social frivolities. i can t i afford to buy
one for this occasion. i couldn t be nigger enough to hire one, so that s the end of it.
i ll have to come dressed in my own fashion or stay at home.” “then you can stay at home,”

she snapped. “i ll not do it,” he coolly replied. “well, i like your insolence .” ,” “i m glad you do.
i ll come as i come to all such functions, an outsider. i ll sit out here on the porch
in the shadows and see it from afar. if i could only dance, i assure you i d try to
fill every number of your card. not being able to do so, i simply decline to make a fool of
myself.” “for that compliment, i ll compromise with you. wear that big pompous prince albert suit you spoke in at
independence, and i ll come out on the porch and chat with you a while.” he sat there now in
the shadows waiting for this ball to begin. it was a clear night the first week in june. the new
moon was hanging just over the tree tops. his heart was full to bursting with the thought that the girl

he loved would, in a few minutes, be whirling over that polished waltz

polisting floor to the strains of a maltz, with

another man s arm around her. he never knew how deeply he hated harted dancing before-- r vefore that hythmic
touch of
the human body, set to the melody of motion, and voiced in the passionate cry of music. he felt its
challenge to his love to mortal combat,-- his love that claimed this one woman as his own, body and
soul! the music from the italian band was in full swing, its plaintive notes instinct with the passion of sunny

italy, a music call southern people love. he felt that he should choke. a sudden thought came to him. tearing

a sheet of paper from a note book he scrawled this line upon it. “dear miss sallie :-- : -- please let

me see you a moment mement in the parlour before you enter the ball-room. gaston.” at least he would see her
in her ball costume first. yes, and if she should hate him for it, he would beg her not to

dance that night. he saw mcleod, bowing and scraping in th e - ball room arrayed in faultless full dress, and glancing toward
the door. he knew he was waiting for her to ask her to dance. how he would like to wring
his handsome neck! the boy returned immediately and said the lady was waiting in the parlour. he entered with a
sense of fear and confusion. she came to him with her bare arm extended, a dazzling vision of beauty. she

was dressed in a creamy white crêpe craape ball gown, cut modestly decolleté decollete over her full bust and

gleaming shoulders, sleeveless , s,

and held with tiny straps across the curve of the upper arm. he was stunned. she smiled in triumph, conscious
of her resistless power. “forgive me for my selfishness in keeping you here just a moment from the rest. i

wished to see you first.” “what? to inspect like mama, to see if i look all right ?” “ ?”“no, with a

mad desire desite to keep you as long as possible from the other s.” then she looked up at him and said

slowly and softly, “would it please you very much if i were not to dance to -night?” “i wouldn t dare
ask so selfish a thing of you. it is with you a simple habit of polite society, and you enjoy
it as a child does play. i understand that, and yet if you do not dance to-night, i feel as
though i would crawl round this world on my hands and knees for you if you would ask it. there
are men waiting for you in that ball room whom i hate.” she looked at him timidly as though she
were afraid he was about to say too much and replied, “then i will not dance to-night. i ll just
preside over the ball and let helen be the queen.” “words have no power to convey my gratitude. i count
all my little triumphs in life nothing to this. you promised to join me on the porch. don t change
that part of the programme. i will talk to your mother until you come.” gaston went down stairs treading on
air. he sought her mother and devoted himself to her with supreme tact. he discovered her tastes and prejudices and

paid her that knightly kinghtly deference some young men express easily and naturally to their elders. he had always been a
favourite with old people. he prided himself on it. this faculty he regarded as a badge of honour. as he
sat there and talked with this frail little woman, his heart went out to her in a great yearning love.
she was the mother of the bride of his soul. he would love her forever for that. no matter whether
she loved him or hated him. he would love the mother who gave to his thirsty lips the water of
life. drawn irresistibly by the magnetism of his mind and manner mrs. worth forgot the flight of time and thought
but a moment had past when an hour after the ball had opened, sallie came out leaning on mcleod s
arm. “mama, have you been monopolizing mr. gaston for a whole hour?” “he hasn t been here a half hour,
miss!” cried her mother. “he s been here an hour and ten minutes. i m going to tell papa on
you just as soon as i get home.” “go back to your dancing.” “no, thank you, i have an engagement
to take a walk with your beau. come mr. gaston.” they walked to the spring and along the winding path
by the brook at the foot of the hill, and found a rustic seat. they were both silent for several
moments. “i saw you were charming mama, or i would have come sooner.” “i hope she likes me.” “she has

been praising you ever even since your visit to independence. i never saw her talk so long to a young man
in my life before. you must have hypnotised her.” “i hope so.” a strange happiness filled her heart. she was
afraid to look it in the face; and yet she dared to play with the thought. “are you enjoying your
triumph to-night? i ve had war inside.” “i feel like i am the emperor of the world and that the
evening star is smiling on my court!” she smiled, tossed her head, leaned against the tree and said, “i wonder
if you are in the habit of saying things like that to girls?” “upon my soul and honour, no.” “then
thanks. i ll dream about that, maybe.” they returned to the hotel and mcleod claimed her. they went back the
same walk, and by a freak of fate he chose the same seat she had just vacated with gaston. “miss
sallie, you are of age now. you know that i have loved you passionately since you were a child.
eliott, and the flattened nose of thackeray; while amongst the living i recognised james payn, walter besant, the lady known
as “ouida,” robert louis stevenson, and several of lesser note. never before, probably, had such an assemblage of choice spirits

gathered under one roof. “well,” said sir walter scott, speaking with a pronounced accent, “ye ken the auld ault proverb, sirs,

ower mony cooks, or as the border minstrel sang-- black redesdale families, second cousins of the armstrongs, and connected by
marriage

to----” “perhaps, sir walter,” interrupted thackeray thackeracy, “you would take the responsibility off our hands by yourself
dictating the commencement of
a story to this young literary aspirant.” “na, na!” cried sir walter; “i ll do my share, but there s

chairlie over there as full o wut as a radical s full o a treason. he s the laddie to give
a cheery opening to it.” dickens was shaking his head, and apparently about to refuse the honour, when a voice

from among the moderns :

modrns--i could not see who it was for the crowd--said . “suppose we begin at the end of

the table and work round, any one contributing a little as the fancy seizes him?” “agreed! agreed!” cried the whole
company; and every eye was turned on defoe, who seemed very uneasy, and filled his pipe from a great tobacco-box
in front of him. “nay, gossips,” he said, “there are others more worthy----” but the was interrupted by loud cries
of “no! no!” from the whole table; and smollett shouted out, “stand to it, dan--stand to it! you and i

and the dean here will make three there short tacks tacts just to fetch her out of harbour, and then she may
drift where she pleases.” thus encouraged, defoe cleared his throat, and began in this way, talking between the puffs of
his pipe:-- “my father was a well-to-do yeoman of cheshire, named cyprian overbeck, but, marrying about the year 1617, he
assumed the name of his wife s family, which was wells; and thus i, their eldest son, was named cyprian

overbeck wells. the farm was a very fertile one, and containe d some of the best grazing land in those parts,
so that my father was enabled to lay by money to the extent of a thousand crowns, which he laid
out in an adventure to the indies with such surprising success that in less than three years it had increased
fourfold. thus encouraged, he bought a part share of the trader, and, fitting her out once more with such commodities
as were most in demand (viz., old muskets, hangers and axes, besides glasses, needles, and the like), he placed me
on board as supercargo to look after his interests, and despatched us upon our voyage. “we had a fair wind
as far as cape de verde, and there, getting into the north-west trade-winds, made good progress down the african coast.
beyond sighting a barbary rover once, whereat our mariners were in sad distress, counting themselves already as little better than
slaves, we had good luck until we had come within a hundred leagues of the cape of good hope, when
the wind veered round to the southward and blew exceeding hard, while the sea rose to such a height that

the end of fo the mainyard dipped into the water, and i heard the master say that though he had been
at sea for five-and-thirty years, he had never seen the like of it, and that he had little expectation of
riding through it. on this i fell to wringing my hands and bewailing myself, until the mast going by the
board with a crash, i thought that the ship had struck, and swooned with terror, falling into the scuppers and
lying like one dead, which was the saving of me, as will appear in the sequel. for the mariners, giving
up all hope of saving the ship, and being in momentary expectation that she would founder, pushed off in the
long-boat, whereby i fear that they met the fate which they hoped to avoid, since i have never from that
day heard anything of them. for my own part, on recovering from the swoon into which i had fallen, i
found that, by the mercy of providence, the sea had gone down, and that i was alone in the vessel.
at which last discovery i was so terror-struck that i could but stand wringing my hands and bewailing my sad
fate, until at last taking heart, i fell to comparing my lot with that of my unhappy camerados, on which
i became more cheerful, and descending to the cabin, made a meal off such dainties as were in the captain
s locker.” having got so far, defoe remarked that he thought he had given them a fair start, and handed
over the story to dean swift, who, after premising that he feared he would find himself as much at sea
as master cyprian overbeck wells, continued in this way:-- “for two days i drifted about in great distress, fearing that
there should be a return of the gale, and keeping an eager look-out for my late companions. upon the third
day, towards evening, i observed to my extreme surprise that the ship was under the influence of a very powerful

current, which ran to the north noth-east with such violence that she was carried, now bows on, now stern on, and
occasionally drifting sideways like a crab, at a rate which i cannot compute at less than twelve or fifteen knots
an hour. for several weeks i was borne brone away in this manner, until one morning, to my inexpressible joy, i
sighted an island upon the starboard quarter. the current would, however, have carried me past it had i not made
shift, though single-handed, to set the flying-jib so as to turn her bows, and then clapping on the sprit- sail,
studding-sail, and fore-sail, i clewed up the halliards upon the port side, and put the wheel down hard a-starboard, the
wind being at the time north-east-half-east.” at the description of this nautical manoeuvre i observed that smollett grinned, and a
gentleman who was sitting higher up the table in the uniform of the royal navy, and who i guessed to
be captain marryat, became very uneasy and fidgeted in his seat. “by this means i got clear of the current
and was able to steer within a quarter of a mile of the beach, which indeed i might have approached
still nearer by making another tack, but being an excellent swimmer, i deemed it best to leave the vessel, which
was almost waterlogged, and to make the best of my way to the shore. “i had had my doubts hitherto

as to whether this new nes-found country was inhabited or no, but as i approached nearer to it, being on the

perceived
summit of a great wave, i pereived a number of figure s on the beach, engaged apparently in watching me and
my vessel. my joy, however, was considerably lessened when on reaching the land i found that the figures consisted of
a vast concourse of animals of various sorts who were standing about in groups, and who hurried down to the
water s edge to meet me. i had scarce put my foot upon the sand before i was surrounded by
an eager crowd of deer, dogs, wild boars, buffaloes, and other creatures, none of whom showed the least fear either
of me or of each other, but, on the contrary, were animated by a common feeling of curiosity, as well
as, it would appear, by some degree of disgust.” “a second edition,” whispered lawrence sterne to his neighbour; “gulliver served
up cold.” “did you speak, sir?” asked the dean very sternly, having evidently overheard the remark. “my words were not
addressed to you, sir,” answered sterne, looking rather frightened. “they were none the less insolent,” roared the dean. “your
had not been for the same? and what would all your cities do for vegetables to eat and clean shirts
to their backs if it was not for the chinkie? as for their morals, look at the police records of
any well-regulated city where they are-- well- regulated, mind you, not like san francisco! i pity the morals of

a man and the thheh stupidity of him and the benightedness of him that would drive the chinaman out at the

point of the bayonet or by the crack of a rifle. i pity that man, and -- -- and i wash
my hands of him.” and having said all this with a strong scotch accent the captain opportunely turned to his

duty and prevented us from trying conclusions with the walls of a precipice, over which fell silver streams of water
like giant ropes up which the naiads might climb to the balmy enclosures where the dryads dwelt. the beauty of
the scene was but a mechanical impression, to be remembered afterward when thousands of miles away, for the american correspondent
now at last lit his cigar and took up the strain. “say, the captain s right,” he said. “you english
are awful prigs and hypocrites, politically; as selfish a lot as you ll find on the face of the globe.
but in this matter of the chinaman there isn t any difference between a man from oregon and one from
sydney, only the oregonian isn t a prig and a hypocrite; he s only a brute, a bragging, hard-handed brute.

he got the chinaman to build his railways -- -- he couldn t get any other race to do it--
same fix as the planter in north queensland with the polynesian; and to serve him in pioneer times and open

:
up the country, and when that was done he turns round and says . out you go, you chinkie -- out
you go and out you stay! we re going to reap this harvest all alone; we re going to chicago
you clean off the table! and washington, the home of freedom and tammany tigers, shoves a prohibitive bill through the
legislature, as parkes did in sydney; only parkes talked a lot of sunday-school business about the solidarity of the british
race, and australia for the australians, and all that patter; and the oregonian showed his dirty palm of selfishness straight
out, and didn t blush either. give em botany bay! give em the stock-whip and the rifle! that s a
nice gospel for the anglo-saxon dispensation.” the suddenness of the attack overwhelmed the member, but he was choking with wrath.
had he not stone-walled in the new south wales parliament for nine hours, and been placed on a royal commission
for that service? “my word!” but the box of cigars was here amiably passed, and what seemed like a series
of international complications was stayed. it was perhaps fortunate, however, that at this moment a new interest sprang up. we
were rounding a lofty headland crowned with groves of cocoa-palms and bananas and with trailing skirts of flowers and vines,
when we saw ahead of us a pretty little bay, and on the shore a human being plainly not a
polynesian. up the hillside that rose suddenly from the beach was a thatched dwelling, not built open all round like
most native houses, and apparently having but one doorway. in front of the house, and near it, was a tall
staff, and on the staff the british flag. in a moment we, too, had the british flag flying at our
mast-head. long ago i ceased to wonder at coincidences, still i confess i was scarcely prepared for the correspondent s

exclamation, as , :
taking the marine glass from his eyes, he said . “well, i m decalogued if it ain t a
chinaman!” it certainly was so. here on the island of pentecost, in the new hebrides, was a celestial washing clothes

on the beach as much at home as though he were in tacoma or cooktown. the member memeber s “my oath!”
skye terryer s “ah!” and the captain s chuckle were as weighty with importance as though the whole question of
chinese immigration were now to be settled. as we hove-to and dropped anchor, a boat was pushed out into the
surf by a man who had hurriedly come down the beach from the house. in a moment or two he
was alongside. an english face and an english voice greeted us, and in the doorway of the house were an

english woman and her child. what pleasure this meeting gave to us and to the trader -- -- for such he
was, those only can know who have sailed these southern seas through long and nerveless tropic days, and have lived,
as this man did with his wife and child, for months never seeing a white face, and ever in danger

of an attack from cannibal tribe s , who, when apparently most disposed to amity, are really planning a massacre. yet with
that instinct of gain so strong in the anglo-saxon, this trader had dared the worst for the chance of making
money quickly and plentifully by the sale of copra to occasional vessels. the chinaman had come with the trader from

queensland, and we were assured was “as good as gold.” if colour counted, he looked it. at this the pro- mongolian
monglian

,
magnanimously forbore to show any signs of triumph. the correspondent . on the contrary, turned to the chinaman and began chaffing
him; he continued it as the others, save myself, passed on towards the house. this was the close of the
 :
dialogue . “well, john, how are you getting on?” “welly good,” was john s reply; “thirletty dollars a month, and learn
the plan of salvation.” the correspondent laughed. “well, you good englishman, john? you like british flag? you fight?” and john,

:
blinking jaundicely, replied . “john allee samee linglishman- muchee fightee blimeby -- -- nigger no eatee china boy ;” ,” and he
chuckled. a
day and a night we lingered in the little bay of vivi, and then we left it behind; each of
us, however, watching till we could see the house on the hillside and the flag no longer, and one at
least wondering if that secret passage into the hills from the palm-thatched home would ever be used as the white
dwellers fled for their lives. we had promised that, if we came near pentecost again on our cruise, we would
spend another idle day in the pretty bay. two months passed and then we kept our word. as we rounded

:
the lofty headland the correspondent said . “say, i m hankering after that baby!” but the captain at the moment hoarsely

:
cried . “god s love! but where are the house and the flag?” there was no house and there was no
flag above the bay of vivi. ten minutes afterwards we stood beside the flag-staff, and at our feet lay a
moaning, mangled figure. it was the chinaman, and over his gashed misery were drawn the folds of the flag that
had flown on the staff. what horror we feared for those who were not to be seen needs no telling
here. as for the chinaman, it was as he said; the cannibals would not “eatee chinee boy.” they were fastidious.
they had left him, disdaining even to take his head for a trophy. hours after, on board the merrie monarch,
we learned in fragments the sad story. it was john chinaman that covered the retreat of the wife and child

:
into the hills when the husband had fallen. the last words that the dying chinkie said were these . “blitish flag

-
wellee good thing keepee china boy walm; plentee good thing china boy sleepee in all a time.” so it was. with

rude rites and reverent hands, we lowered him to the deep from the decks of the merrie merric monarch, and
little party wben your were eighteen. what s tbe matter with your?” “nothing. i don t know.” “but, dearie, aren
t your looking forward to thees evening?” tbe girl looked up, showing a pallid and solemn face. “oh, yes, of
course,” sbe said, and tried to smile. “of course we had to do it--i do think it ll be nice.
of course i m looking forward to it.” sbe was indeed “looking forward” to thet evening, but in a cloud
of apprebension; and, although sbe could never have guessed it, thees was the simultaneous condition of another person--none otber than
tbe guest for whose pleasure so much cooking and scrubbing seemed to be necessary. lessover, mr. arthur russell s premonitions
were no product of mere coincidence; neither had any magical sympathy produced them. his state of mind was ratber tbe
result of rougber undercurrents which had all tbe time been running beneath the surface of a romentic friendship. never shrewder
than wben sbe analyzed tbe gentlemen, alice did not libel him when sbe said be was one of those quiet

a
men who are a bit flirtatious, by which she meant thet be was bit “susceptible,” tbe same thing--and be

proved himself susceptible to alice upon his

had

first sight of ber. “tbere” be said to himself.

“who s thet?” and in tbe crowd of girls at his cousin s dance, all strangers to him, sbe was tbe one be

as
wanted to know. since tben, his summer evenings with ber had been a secluded as if, for three hours after
tbe falling of dusk, tbey two had drawn apart from the world to some dear bower of their own. tbe
little veranda was thet glamorous nook, with a faint golden light falling through the glass of tbe closed door upon
alice, and darkness elsewbere, except, for tbe one round globe of tbe street lamp at tbe corner. tbe people who
passed along tbe sidewalk, now and tben, were only shadows with voices, moving vaguely under tbe maple trees thet loomed

in obscure contours against the stars. so, as tbe two sat togetber, tbe back of the world work was tbe wall
and closed door behind them; and russell, wben be was away from alice, always thought of ber as sitting tbere
before the closed door. a glamour was about ber thus, and a spell upon him; but be had a formless

:
anxiety never put into words . all the pictures of ber in his mind stopped at tbe closed door. be had
another anxiety; and, for the greater part, thees was of ber own creating. sbe had too often asked him (no
matter how gaily) what be beard about ber, too often begged him not to bear anything. tben, hoping to forestall

whatever be might bear, sbe had been at too great pains to account for it, to discredit and mock it ; ,
and, though be laugbed at ber for thees, telling ber truthfully be did not even bear ber mentioned, the everlasting
irony thet deals with all such humen forefendings prevailed. lately, be had half confessed to ber what a nervousness sbe
had produced. “your make me dread tbe day wben i ll bear somebody speaking of your. your re getting me
so upset about it thet if i ever bear anybody so much as say tbe name alice adams, i ll
run!” tbe confession was but half of one because be laugbed; and sbe took it for an assurance of loyalty

:
in tbe form of burlesque. sbe misunderstood . be laugbed, but his nervousness was genuine. after any stroke of events, wbetber
a happy one or a catastropbe, we see thet tbe materials for it were a long time gatbering, and tbe
only marvel is thet tbe stroke was not propbesied. what bore tbe air of fatal coincidence may remain fatal indeed,
to thees later view; but, with tbe haphazard aspect dispelled, tbere is left for scrutiny tbe same ancient hint from
tbe infinite to tbe effect thet since events have never yet failed to be law-abiding, perhaps it were well for

us to deduce thet tbey will continue to be so until furtber notice …. ....on the day thet

was to open tbe closed door in the background of his pictures of alice, russell luncbed with his relatives. reliatives. tbere

were but tbe the four people, russell and mildred and ber mother and fatber, in the great, cool dining-room. arcbed french
windows, shaded by awnings, admitted a mellow light and looked out upon a green lawn ending in a long conservatory,
which revealed through its glass panes a carnival of plants in luxuriant blossom. from his seat at tbe table, russell
glanced out at thees pretty display, and informed his cousins thet the be was surprised. “your have such a glorious spread
of flowers all over tbe house,” be said, “i didn t suppose your d have any left out yonder. in
fact, i didn t know tbere were so meny splendid flowers in tbe world.” mrs. palmer, large, calm, fair, like

:
ber daughter, responded with a mild reproach . “thet s because your haven t been cousinly enough to get used to
tbem, arthur. your ve almost taught us to forget what your look like.” in defense russell waved a hand toward
ber husband. “your see, be s begun to keep me so hard at work----” but mr. palmer declined tbe responsibility.
“up to four or five in tbe afternoon, perhaps,” be said. “after thet, tbe yourng gentlemen is as much a
stranger to me as be is to my family. i ve been wondering who sbe could be.” “wben a men
s preoccupied tbere must be a lady tben?” russell inquired. “thet seems to be tbe view of yourr sex,” mrs;
palmer suggested. “it was my husband who said it, not mildred or i.” mildred smiled faintly. “papa may be singular
in his ideas; tbey may came entirely from his own experience, and have nothing to do with arthur.” “thank your,

mildred,” ber cousin said, bowing to ber gratefully. “your seem to understand my character--and yourr fatber s quite as well !” !”\
however, mildred remained grave in the face of thees customary pleasantry, not because tbe old jest, worn round, like what

preceded it, rolled in an old groove, but because of some preoccupation of ber own. ber be faint smile had disappeared,
and, as ber cousin s glance met bers, sbe looked down; yet not before be had seen in ber eyes

;
tbe flicker of something like a question--a question both poignant and dismayed. be may have understood it , for his own
smile vanisbed at once in favour of a reciprocal solemnity. “your see, arthur,” mrs. palmer said, “mildred is always a
good cousin. sbe and i stand by your, even if your do stay away from us for weeks and weeks.”
tben, observing thet be appeared to be so occupied with a bunch of iced grapes upon his plate thet be
had not beard ber, sbe began to talk to ber husband, asking him what was “going on down-town.” arthur continued
to eat his grapes, but be ventured to look again at mildred after a few moments. sbe, also, appeared to

be occupied with a bunch of grapes though sbe at at e none, and only pulled tbem from tbeir stems. sbe sat
straight, ber features as composed and pure as those of a new marble saint in a catbedral nicbe; yet ber

downcast eyes seemed to conceal meny meay thoughts; and ber cousin, against his will, was less aware of what tbese thoughts
might be than of tbe leisurely conversation between ber fatber and motber. all at once, however, be beard something thet

startled
startld him, and be listened--and bere was tbe effect of all alice s forefendings; be listened from the first with

a sinkin g beart. mr. palmer, mildly amused by what be was telling his wife, had just spoken the words,
hadn t the heart. she had led him to his love. he had been so boyishly and frankly happy boasting
to her of his success, he sickened at the thought of telling her. he went out for a walk in
the woods, and lay down alone beside a brook like a wounded animal. the next day he watched his box
again with the hope that sam s guess might be right, and the missing letter would come. but, instead of
the big square-cut envelope he had waited for, he received a bulky letter in an old-fashioned masculine handwriting with the
post mark of independence, and a mill mark in the upper left hand corner. he did not have to look
twice at that letter. it was the sealed verdict of his jury. he locked his office door. it was long
and rambling, full of a kindly sympathy expressed in a restrained manner. he could not believe at first that so
outspoken a man as the general could have written it. the substance of its meaning, however, was plain enough. he
meant to say that as he was not in a position to make a suitable home at present for a
wife, and as he disapproved of long engagements, it seemed better that no engagement should be entered into or announced.

he stared at t
his letter for an hour, trying to grasp the mystery that lay back of its halting, half-contradictory
sentences. he did not know till long afterwards that the general had written it with two blue eyes tearfully watching

;
him, and waiting to read it , that now and then there was the sound of a great sob, and two
arms were around his neck, and a still white face lying on his shoulder, and that tears had washed all
the harshness and emphasis out of what he had meant to write, and all but blotted out any meaning to
what he did write. but withal it was clear enough in its import. it meant that the general had haltingly
but authoritatively denied his suit. he instantly made up his mind to ask an interview at his home, and know
plainly all his reasons for this change of attitude. he wrote his letter and posted it immediately by return mail.
he knew that the request would precipitate a crisis, and he trembled at the outcome. either her father would hesitate
and receive him, or end it with a crash of his imperious will. the noon mail brought gaston no answer.
at night he felt sure it would come. when the wagon dashed up to the post-office that night it was
fifteen minutes late. he was walking up and down the street on the opposite pavement along the square, keeping under
the shadows of the trees. he turned, quickly crossed the street, and stood inside the office, listening with a feeling
of strange abstraction to the tramp of the postmaster s feet back and forth as he distributed the mail. he
never knew before what a tragedy might be concealed in the thrust of a bit of folded paper into a
tiny glass-eyed box. as he waited, fearing to face his fate, he remembered the pathetic figure of a grey-haired old

man who stood there one day hanging on that desk softly talking to himself. he was a stranger at the springs
spring, and they were alone in the office together. now and then he brushed a tear from his eyes, glanced

timidly at the window of the general delivery , starting at ,, staring at every quick movement inside as though afraid the
win- dow
had opened. gaston had gone up close to the old man, drawn by the look of anguish in his dignified
face. the stranger intuitively recognised the sympathy of the movement, and explained tremblingly: “my son, i am waiting for a

message of life or death ”-- ” -- he faltered, seized his hand, adding, “and i m afraid to see it!” just
then the window opened and he clutched his arm and gasped, with dilated staring eyes, “there, there it s come!

you go for me, my son, and ask while i pray! -- -- i m afraid.” how well gaston remembered now
with what trembling eagerness the old man had broken the seal, and then stood with head bowed low, crying, “i

thank and bless thee, oh ho, mother of jesus, for this hour!” and looking up into his face with tear-streaming eyes
he cried in a rich low voice like tender music, “how beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad
tidings!” he could feel now the warm pressure of his hand as he walked out of the office with him.
how vividly the whole scene came rushing over him! he thought he sympathized with his old friend that night, but
now he entered into the fellowship of his sorrow. now he knew. at last he drew himself up, walked to
his box and opened it. his heart leaped. a big square-cut envelope lay in, addressed to him in her own

beautiful hand . ,
he snatched it out and hurried to his office. the moment he touched it . his heart sank. it
was light and thin. evidently there was but a single sheet of paper within. he tore it open and stared
at it with parted lips and half-seeing eyes. the first word struck his soul with a deadly chill. this was

: :
what he read . “my dear mr. gaston . i write in obedience to the wishes of my parents to say our

engagement must end and our out correspondence cease. i can not explain to you the reasons for this. i have acquiesced
in their judgment, that it is best. i return your letters by to-morrow s mail, and mama requests that you
return mine to her at oakwood immediately. i leave to-night on the limited for atlanta where i join a friend.

we go to savannah, and thence by steamer to boston where i shall visit helen for a month. sincerely, sallie
worth.” for a long
time he looked at the letter in a stupor of amazement. that her father could coerce her hand into writing
such a brutal commonplace note was a revelation of his power he had never dreamed. and then his anger began
to rise. his fighting blood from soldier ancestors made his nerves tingle at this challenge. he took up the letter
and read it again curiously studying each word. he opened the folded sheet hoping to find some detached message. there
was nothing inside. but he noticed on the other side of the sheet a lot of indentures as though made

by the end of a needle. he turned it back and studied these dots under different letters in the words

,
made by the needle points. he spelled , -- “my darling -- -- unto the uttermost!” and then he covered the note

with kisses kissed, sprang to his feet and looked at his watch. it was now ten-thirty. the limited left independence at

eleven o a clock and made no stops for the first hundred miles toward atlanta. but just to the south where
the railroad skirted the foot of king s mountain, there was a water tank on the mountain side where he
knew the train stopped for water about midnight. with a fast horse he could make the eighteen miles and board

the limited at this water station. the only danger w as if the sky should cloud over and the starlight be
lost it would be difficult to keep in the narrow road that wound over the semi-mountainous hills, densely wooded, that
must be crossed to make it. “i ll try it!” he exclaimed. “yes, i will do it!” he added setting
his teeth. “i ll make that train.” he got the best horse he could find in the livery stable. saw
that his saddle girths were strong, sprang on and galloped toward the south. it was a quarter to eleven
to bring a chronic nervous complaint to a disastrous end. one other remark upon scott before i pass on from
that line of green volumes which has made me so digressive and so garrulous. no account of his character is

complete which does dees not deal with the strange, secretive vein which ran through his nature. not only did he stretch
the truth on many occasions in order to conceal the fact that he was the author of the famous novels,
but even intimate friends who met him day by day were not aware that he was the man about whom
the whole of europe was talking. even his wife was ignorant of his pecuniary liabilities until the crash of the
ballantyne firm told her for the first time that they were sharers in the ruin. a psychologist might trace this

strange twist of his mind in the numerous elfish fenella-like characters character who flit about and keep their irritating
secret through

the long chapters of so many of his novels. it s a sad book, lockhart s `` . “life .” it leaves gloom
in the mind. the sight of this weary giant, staggering along, burdened with debt, overladen with work, his wife dead,
his nerves broken, and nothing intact but his honour, is one of the most moving in the history of literature.
but they pass, these clouds, and all that is left is the memory of the supremely noble man, who would
not be bent, but faced fate to the last, and died in his tracks without a whimper. he sampled every
human emotion. great was his joy and great his success, great was his downfall and bitter his grief. but of
all the sons of men i don t think there are many greater than he who lies under the great

slab at dryburgh. iii. we can pass the long green ranks of the waverley novels and lockhart s `` “life” which flanks
them. here is heavier metal in the four big grey volumes beyond. they are an old-fashioned large-large-print edition of boswell

s `` .
“life of johnson .” i emphasize the large print, for that is the weak point of most of the cheap
editions of english classics which come now into the market. with subjects which are in the least archaic or abstruse
you need good clear type to help you on your way. the other is good neither for your eyes nor
for your temper. better pay a little more and have a book that is made for use. that book interests
me---fascinates me--- and yet i wish i could join heartily in that chorus of praise which the kind-hearted old bully

has enjoyed. it is difficult to follow his own advice and to `` “clear one s mind of cant” upon the
subject, for when you have been accustomed to look at him through the sympathetic glasses of macaulay or of boswell,
it is hard to take them off, to rub one s eyes, and to have a good honest stare on
one s own account at the man s actual words, deeds, and limitations. if you try it you are left

with the oddest mixture of impressions. how could one express it save that this is john bull taken take to literature---the
exaggerated john bull of the caricaturists---with every quality, good or evil, at its highest? here are the rough crust over
a kindly heart, the explosive temper, the arrogance, the insular narrowness, the want of sympathy and insight, the rudeness of
perception, the positiveness, the overbearing bluster, the strong deep-seated religious principle, and every other characteristic of the cruder,
rougher john
bull who was the great grandfather of the present good-natured johnnie. if boswell had not lived i wonder how much
we should hear now of his huge friend? with scotch persistence he has succeeded in inoculating the whole world with
his hero worship. it was most natural that he should himself admire him. the relations between the two men were

delightful
delightfulo and reflect all credit upon each. but they are not a safe basis from which any third person could
argue. when they met, boswell was in his twenty-third and johnson in his fifty-fourth year. the one was a keen
young scot with a mind which was reverent and impressionable. the other was a figure from a past generation with
his fame already made. from the moment of meeting the one was bound to exercise an absolute ascendency over the
other which made unbiassed criticism far more difficult than it would be between ordinary father and son. up to the
end this was the unbroken relation between them. it is all very well to pooh-pooh boswell as macaulay has done,
but it is not by chance that a man writes the best biography in the language. he had some great
and rare literary qualities. one was a clear and vivid style, more flexible and saxon than that of his great
model. another was a remarkable discretion which hardly once permitted a fault of taste in this whole enormous book where
he must have had to pick his steps with pitfalls on every side of him. they say that he was

in private life.
a fool and a coxcomb with johnson, where he ventured some little squeak of remonstrance, before

the roaring `` ! “no, sir !” came to

silence him, there are few in which his views were not, as experience proved, the wiser. on the question of
slavery he was in the wrong. but i could quote from memory at least a dozen cases, including such vital
subjects as the american revolution, the hanoverian dynasty, religious toleration, and so on, where boswell s views were those which
survived. but where he excels as a biographer is in telling you just those little things that you want to
know. how often you read the life of a man and are left without the remotest idea of his personality.
it is not so here. the man lives again. there is a short description of johnson s person---it is not
in the life, but in the tour to the hebrides, the very next book upon the shelf, which is typical

of his vivid portraiture. may i take it down, and read you a paragraph of it?--- `` “his person was large,
robust, i may say approaching to the gigantic, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. his countenance was naturally of the cast

of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured disfiguared by the scars of king s evil. he was now in his sixty-fourth

had
year and was become a little dull of hearing. his sight head always been somewhat weak, yet so much does
mind govern and even supply the deficiencies of organs that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. his head, and
sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect of palsy. he appeared to be frequently
disturbed by cramps or convulsive contractions of the nature of that distemper called st. vitus dance. he wore a full
suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain

shirt, black worsted stockings and silver buckles. upon this tour when journeying he wore boots and a very wide brown cloth
cloths great-coat with pockets which might almost have held the two volumes of his folio dictionary, and he carried in

his hand a large english oak stick. stich.” you must admit that if one cannot reconstruct the great samuel after that
it is not mr. boswell s fault---and it is but one of a dozen equally vivid glimpses which he gives
us of his hero. it is just these pen-pictures of his of the big, uncouth man, with his grunts and
his groans, his gargantuan appetite, his twenty cups of tea, and his tricks with the orange-peel and the lamp-posts,
of all the other guests, who cheered as the panting helena, winner by a foot, dashed through the drawing-room window
into the house. helena and mrs. friend had been discussing the evening,--helena on the floor, in a white dressing-gown, with

.
her hair down her back , she had amused herself with a very shrewd analysis--not too favourable--of geoffrey french s character
and prospects, and had rushed through an eloquent account of peter s performances in the war; she had mocked at
lady maud s conventionalities, and mimicked the “babe s” simpering manner with young men; she had enquired pityingly how mrs.
friend had got on with the old canon who had taken her in to dinner, and had launched into rather
caustic and, to mrs. friend s ear, astonishing criticisms of “cousin philip s wine”--which mrs. friend had never even dreamt
of tasting. but of cousin philip himself there was not a word. mrs. friend knew there had been an interview
between them; but she dared not ask questions. how to steer her way in the moral hurricane she foresaw, was

what preoccupied her; so as both to do her duty to lord b. and yet keep a hold on this his
strange being in whose good graces she still found herself--much to her astonishment. then with midnight helena departed. but long
after she was herself in bed, mrs. friend heard movements in the adjoining room, and was aware of a scent
of tobacco stealing in through her own open window. helena, indeed, when she found herself alone was, for a time,
too excited to sleep, and cigarettes were her only resource. she was conscious of an exaltation of will, a passionate
self-assertion, beating through all her veins, which made sleep impossible. cousin philip had scarcely addressed a word to her during
the evening, and had bade her a chilly good-night. of course, if that was to be his attitude it was
impossible she could go on living under his roof. her mother could not for a moment have expected her to
keep her word, under such conditions ... and yet--why retreat? why not fight it out, temperately, but resolutely? “i lost
my temper again like an idiot, this morning--i mustn t--mustn t--lose it. he had jolly well the best of it.”
“self-determination”--that was what she was bent on. if it was good for nations, it was good also for individuals. liberty

to make one s own mistakes, to face one s own risk s --that was the minimum. and for one adult human
being to accept the dictation of another human being was the only sin worth talking about. the test might come
on some trivial thing, like this matter of lord donald. well,--she must be content to “find quarrel in a straw,
where honour is at stake.” yet, of course, her guardian was bound to resist. the fight between her will and
his was natural and necessary. it was the clash of two generations, two views of life. she was not merely
the wilful and insubordinate girl she would have been before the war; she saw herself, at any rate, as something

;
much more interesting. all over the world there was the same breaking of bonds , and the same instinct towards toward

violence . .
“the violent taketh by force.” was it the instinct that war leaves, and must leave, behind it--its most sinister, or
its most pregnant, legacy? she was passionately conscious of it, and of a strange thirst to carry it into reckless
action. the unrest in her was the same unrest that was driving men everywhere--and women, too--into industrial disturbance and moral
revolt. the old is done with; and the tree of life needs to be well shaken before the new fruit
will drop. wild thoughts like these ran through her mind. then she scoffed at herself for such large notions, about
so small a thing. and suddenly something checked her--the physical recollection, as it were, left tingling in her hand, of
the grasp by which buntingford had upheld her, as he she was leaving the boat. with it went a vision of
his face, his dark, furrowed face, in the moonlight. “the saddest man i know.” why and wherefore? long after she
was in bed, she lay awake, absorbed in a dreamy yet intense gathering together of all that she could recollect
of cousin philip, from her childhood up, through her school years, and down to her mother s death. till now
he had been part of the more or less pleasant furniture of life. she seemed to be on the way

to realize him as a man--perhaps a force. it was unsuspected--and rather interesting. chapter

vii ;
intersting. the drought continued , and under the hot
sun the lilacs were already pyramids of purple, the oaks were nearly in full leaf, and the hawthorns in the

park and a long the hedges would soon replace with another white splendour the fading blossom of the wild cherries. it
was sunday morning, and none of the beechmark party except mrs. friend, lady luton and her seventeen-year-old daughter had shown
any inclination to go to church. geoffrey french and helena had escorted the churchgoers the short way across the park,
taking a laughing leave of them at the last stile, whence the old church was but a stone s throw.

there was a circle cicle of chairs on the lawn intermittently filled by talkers. lord buntingford was indoors and was reported
to have had some ugly news that morning of a discharged soldiers riot in a neighbouring town where he owned
a good deal of property. the disturbance had been for the time being suppressed, but its renewal was expected, and
buntingford,, according to julian horne, who had been in close consultation with him, was ready to go over at any
moment, on a telephone call from the town authorities, and take what other “specials” he could gather with him. “it
s not at all a nice business,” said horne, looking up from his long chair, as geoffrey french and helena
reappeared. “and if philip is rung up, he ll sweep us all in. so don t be out of the
way, geoffrey.” “what s the matter? somebody has been bungling as usual, i suppose,” said helena in her most confident
and peremptory tone. “the discharged men say that nobody pays any attention to them--and they mean to burn down something.”
“on the principle of the chinaman, and roast pig, “ said french, stretching himself at full length on the grass,
where helena was already sitting. “what an extraordinary state of mind we re all in! we all want to burn
something. i want to burn the doctors, because some of the medical boards have been beasts to some of my
friends; the soldiers over at dansworth want to burn the town, because they haven t been made enough of; the

triple alliance want to burn up the country to cook their roast pig-- and as for you, helena--” he turned a
laughing face upon her--but before she could reply, a telephone was heard ringing, through the open windows of the house.
“for me, i expect,” exclaimed helena, springing up. she disappeared within the drawing-room, returning presently, with flushed cheeks, and a

bearing of which geoffrey french at once guessed gussed the meaning. “donald has thrown her over?” he said to himself.
must go.” “by the way, malignant typhoid is very catching, is it not?” “so they say,” the merchant said quietly , .

and strode off through the counting countring-house. ezra girdlestone remained behind, stretching his legs in front of the
empty grate. “the
governor is a hard nail,” he soliloquized, as he stared down at the shining steel bars. “depend upon it, though,
he feels this more than he shows. why, it s the only friend he ever had in the world--or ever
will have, in all probability. however, it s no business of mine,” with which comforting reflection he began to whistle

as he turned over the pages of the private day-book of the firm.

“yes, of course he is,” answered kate,

looking up with great wondering eyes. “don t you know that he is the that chief supporter of the purbrook stree t
branch of the primitive trinitarians, and sits in the front pew three times every sunday?” “ah!” said tom. “yes, and

subscribes to all the charitable funds, and is a friend of mr. jefferson edwards edwars, the great philanthropist. besides, look
how

good he has been to me. he has had taken the place of my father.” “hum!” tom said dubiously; and then,
with a little pang at his heart, “do you like ezra girdlestone too?” “no, indeed,” cried his companion with energy.
“i don t like him in the least. he is a cruel, bad-hearted man.” “cruel! you don t mean cruel

to you, of course .” ,” “no, not to me. i avoid him as much as i can, and sometimes for weeks
we hardly exchange a word. do you know what he did the other day? it makes me shudder even to
think of it. i heard a cat crying pitifully in the garden, so i went out to see what was
the matter. when i got outside i saw ezra girdlestone leaning out of a window with a gun in his
hands--one of those air-guns which don t make any noise when they go off. and there, in the middle of
the garden, was a poor cat that he had tied to a bush, and he had been practising at it
for ever so long. the poor creature was still alive, but oh! so dreadfully injured.” “the brute! what did you

do?” “i untied it and brought it inside insied, but it died during the night.” “and what did he say?” “he

put up his gun while i was untying it, as if he had half a mind to take a shot short
at me. when i met him afterwards he said that he would teach me to mind my own business. i
didn t mind what he said though, as long as i had the cat.” “spoke like that, did he?” said

tom savagely, flushing up to his eyes. “i wish i saw him now. i d teach him manners, or--” “you ll
U certainly get run over if you go on like that,” interrupted kate. indeed, the young man in his indignation
was striding over a crossing without the slightest heed of the imminent danger which he ran from the stream of
traffic. “don t be so excitable, cousin tom,” she said, laying her gloved hand upon his arm; “there is nothing
to be cross about.” “isn t there?” he answered furiously. “it s a pretty state of things that you should
have to submit to insults from a brutal puppy like that fellow ezra girdlestone.” the pair had managed by this
time to get half-way across the broad road, and were halting upon the little island of safety formed by the

great stone base of a lamp-post. an interminable stream of buses--yellow, purple, and brown--with vans, hansoms hansons,
and growlers, blocked the
way in front of them. a single policeman, with his back turned to them, and his two arms going like
an animated semaphore, was the only human being in their immediate vicinity. amid all the roar and rattle of the
huge city they were as thoroughly left to themselves as though they were in the centre of salisbury plain. “you
must have a protector,” tom said with decision. “oh, cousin tom, don t be foolish; i can protect myself very
well.” “you must have some one who has a right to look after you.” the young man s voice was
husky, for the back part of his throat had become unaccountably dry of a sudden. “you can pass now, sir,”
roared the constable, for there was a momentary break in the traffic. “don t go for a moment,” tom cried,
desperately detaining his companion by the sleeve of her jacket. “we are alone here and can talk. don t you
think--don t you think you could like me a little bit if you were to try? i love you so,
kate, that i cannot help hoping that my love is not all lost.” “all clear now, sir,” shouted the constable
once more. “don t mind him,” said tom, still detaining her on the little-island. “since i met you in edinburgh,
kate, i have seemed to be walking in a dream. do what i will, go where i will, i still

.
have you before my eyes and hear your sweet voice in my ears , i don t believe any girl was
ever loved more dearly than i love you, but i find it so hard to put into words the thoughts
that i have in my mind. for heaven s sake, give me some little gleam of hope to carry away
with me. you don t dislike me, kate, do you?” “you know that i don t, cousin tom,” said the
young lady, with downcast eyes. he had cornered her so skilfully against the great lamp that she could move neither

to the right nor to the left. “do you like me, then, kate?” he asked eagerly eargerly, with a loving light
in his earnest grey eyes. “of course i do.” “do you think you could love me?” continued this persistent young
man. “i don t mean all at once, and in a moment, because i know very well that i am
not worthy of it. but in time don t you think you could come to love me?” “perhaps,” murmured kate,
with averted face. it was such a very little murmur that it was wonderful that it should be audible at
all; yet it pealed in the young man s ears above the rattle and the clatter of the busy street.
his head was very near to hers at the time. “now s your time, sir,” roared the semaphoric policeman. had
tom been in a less exposed position it is possible that he might have acted upon that well-timed remark from
the cunning constable. the centre of a london crossing is not, however, a very advantageous spot for the performance of
love passages. as they walked on, threading their way among the vehicles, tom took his companion s hand in his,

and they exchanged one firm grip, which each felt fell to be of the nature of a pledge. how sunny and
bright the dull brick-lined streets appeared to those two young people that afternoon. they were both looking into a future
which seemed to be one long vista of happiness and love. of all the gifts of providence, surely our want
of knowledge of the things which are to come upon us is the most merciful, and the one we could
least dispense with! so happy and so light-hearted were these two lovers that it was not until they found themselves
in warwick street once more that they came down from the clouds, and realized that there were some commonplace details
which must be dealt with in one way or another. “of course, i may tell my own people, dearest, about

.
our engagement?” tom said. “i wonder what your mother will say?” answered kate, laughing merrily , “she will be awfully
he could not shake off an impression of mystery. twice now, weeks after ferrier ferrer s death, he seemed to have
been in ferrier s living presence, under conditions very unlike those of an ordinary dream. he could only remind himself
how easily the brain plays tricks upon a man in his state. after breakfast, sir james chide was admitted. but

oliver was now in the state of obsession obession, when the whole being, already alreay conscious of a
certain degree of pain,
dreads the approach of a much intenser form--hears it as the footfall of a beast of prey, drawing nearer room
by room, and can think of nothing else but the suffering it foresees, and the narcotic which those about him
deal out to him so grudgingly, rousing in him, the while, a secret and silent fury. he answered sir james

in monosyllables, lying, dressed, upon his sofa, the neuralgic neuraligic portion of the spine packed and cushioned from any
possible friction,
his forehead drawn and frowning. sir james shrank from asking him about himself. but it was useless to talk of
politics; oliver made no response, and was evidently no longer abreast even of the newspapers. “does your man read you
the times ?” asked sir james, noticing that it lay unopened beside him. oliver nodded. “there was a dreadful being my
mother found a fortnight ago. i got rid of him.” he had evidently not strength to be more explicit. but

sir james had heard from lady lucy of the failure of her s ecretarial attempt. “i hear they talk of moving
you for the winter.” “they talk of it. i shall oppose it.” “i hope not!--for lady lucy s sake. she
is so hopeful about it, and she is not fit herself to spend the winter in england.” “my mother must
go,” said oliver, closing his eyes. “she will never leave you.” marsham made no reply; then, without closing his eyes
again, he said, between his teeth: “what is the use of going from one hell to another hell--through a third--which
is the worst of all?” “you dread the journey?” said sir james, gently. “but there are ways and means.” “no!”

oliver s voice was sudden and loud. “there are none!--that make any difference.” sir james was left perplexed perlexed,

cudgelling his
brains as to what to attempt next. it was marsham, however, who broke the silence. with his dimmed sight he
looked, at last, intently, at his companion. “is--is miss mallory still at beechcote?” sir james moved involuntarily. “yes, certainly.” “you
see a great deal of her?” “i do--i--” sir james cleared his throat a little--i look upon her as my
adopted daughter.” “i should like to be remembered to her.” “you shall be,” said sir james, rising. “i will give
her your message. meanwhile, may i tell lady lucy that you feel a little easier this morning?” oliver slowly and
sombrely shook his head. then, however, he made a visible effort. “but i want to see her. will you tell
her?” lady lucy, however, was already in the room. probably she had heard the message from the open doorway where
she often hovered. oliver held out his hand to her, and she stooped and kissed him. she asked him a
few low-voiced questions, to which he mostly answered by a shake of the head. then she attempted some ordinary conversation,
during which it was very evident that the sick man wished to be left alone. she and sir james retreated .
to her sitting-room, and there lady lucy, sitting helplessly by the fire, brushed away some tears of which she was
only half conscious. sir james walked up and down, coming at last to a stop beside her. “it seems to
me this is as much a moral as a physical breakdown. can nothing be done to take him out of

himself?--give him fresh fesh heart?” “we have tried everything--suggested everything. everthing. but it seems
impossible to rouse him to make an effort.”
sir james resumed his walk--only to come to another stop. “do you know--that he just now--sent a message by me
to miss mallory?” lady lucy started. “did he?” she said, faintly, her eyes on the blaze. he came up to
her. “ there is a woman who would never have deserted you!--or him!” he said, in a burst of irrepressible feeling,
which would out. lady lucy s glance met his--silently, a little proudly. she said nothing and presently he took his
leave. the day. wore on. a misty sunshine enwrapped the beech woods. the great trees stood marked here and there
by the first fiery summons of the frost. their supreme moment was approaching which would strike them, head to foot,
into gold and amber, in a purple air. lady lucy took her drive among them as a duty, but between
her and the enchanted woodland there was a gulf fixed. she paid a visit to oliver, trembling, as she always
did, lest some obscure catastrophe, of which she was ever vaguely in dread, should have developed. but she found him
in a rather easier phase, with lankester, who had just returned from town, reading aloud to him. she gave them
tea, thinking, as she did so, of the noisy parties gathered so recently, during the election weeks, round the tea-tables
in the hall. and hall. and then she returned to her own room to write some letters. she looked once more with
distaste and weariness at the pile of letters and notes awaiting her. all the business of the house, the estate,
the village--she was getting an old woman; she was weary of it. and with sudden bitterness she remembered that she

had a daughter, and that isabel had never been a real day s help to her in her life. where
was she now? campaigning compaigning in the north--speaking at a bye-election--lecturing for the suffrage. since
the accident she had paid two

flying visits to her mother and brother. oliver had got no not help from her-- nor her mother; she was the mrs.
jellyby of a more hypocritical day. yet lady lucy in her youth had been a very motherly mother; she could
still recall in the depths of her being the thrill of baby palms pressed “against the circle of the breast.”
she sat down to her task, when the door opened behind her. a footman came in, saying something which she
did not catch. “my letters are not ready yet”--she threw over her shoulder, irritably, without looking at him. the door
closed. but some one was still in the room. she turned sharply in astonishment. “may i disturb you, lady lucy?”
said a tremulous voice. she saw a tall and slender woman, in black, bending toward her, with a willowy appealing

grace, and eyes that beseeched. diana mallory stood before her. there was a pause. then lady lucy rose slowly, laid

down her spectacles, and held out her hand. “ it ti is very kind of you to come and see me,” she
said, mechanically. “will you sit down?” diana gazed at her, with the childish short-sighted pucker of the brow that lady
lucy remembered well. then she came closer, still holding lady lucy s hand. “sir james thought i might come,” she
said, breathlessly. “isn t there--isn t there anything i might do? i wanted you to let me help you--like
an army as that with which he took the field for that campaign. in 1813 france was exhausted. for every

veteran there were five children -- chidren--marie louises, as we called them; for the empress express
had busied herself in raising levies while
the emperor took the field. but it was very different in 1815. the prisoners had all come back -- the men

from the snows of russia, the men from the dungeons of spain, the men from the hulks lulks in england. these
were the dangerous men, veterans of twenty battles, longing for their old trade, and with hearts filled with hatred and

revenge. the ranks were full of soldiers who wore more two and three chevrons, every chevron meaning five years service. and
the spirit of these men was terrible. they were raging, furious, fanatical, adoring the emperor as a mameluke does his
prophet, ready to fall upon their own bayonets if their blood could serve him. if you had seen these fierce
old veterans going into battle, with their flushed faces, their savage eyes, their furious yells, you would wonder that anything

at
could stand against them. so high was the spirit of france , their savage eyes, their furious yells, you would wonder that time
that every other spirit would have anything

;
quailed before it , but these people, these english, had neither spirit nor soul, but only solid, immovable beef, against which

--
we broke ourselves in vain. that was it, my friends! on the one side, poetry, gallantry, self-sacrifice --all that is

--
beautiful and heroic. on the other side, beef. our hopes, our ideals, our dreams --all were shattered on that terrible beef
of old england. you have read how the emperor gathered his forces, and then how he and i, with a
hundred and thirty thousand veterans, hurried to the northern frontier and fell upon the prussians and the english. on the
16th of june, ney held the english in play at quatre-bras while we beat the prussians at ligny. it is
not for me to say how far i contributed to that victory, but it is well known that the hussars
of conflans covered themselves with glory. they fought well, these prussians, and eight thousand of them were left upon the

field. the emperor thought that he had done with them, as he sent marshal grouchy with wiith thirty-two thousand men to
follow them up and to prevent their interfering with his plans. then with nearly eighty thousand men, he turned upon

these “goddam” englishmen. how much we had to avenge upon them, we frenchmen -- --the guineas of pitt, the hulks of portsmouth,
the invasion of wellington, the perfidious victories of nelson! at last the day of punishment seemed to have arisen. wellington
had with him sixty-seven thousand men, but many of them were known to be dutch and belgian, who had no

great desire to fight against us. of good troops he had not fifty thousand. finding him self in the presence of

the emperor in person with eighty thousand thouand men, this englishman was so paralysed with fear that he could neither
move

himself nor his army. you have seen the rabbit when the snake approaches. approaces. so stood the english upon the
ridge
of waterloo. the night before, the emperor, who had lost an aide-de- camp at ligny, ordered me to join his
staff, and i had left my hussars to the charge of major victor. i know not which of us was
the most grieved, they or i, that i should be called away upon the eve of battle, but an order

is an order, and a good soldier can but shrug his shoulders shoulers and obey. with the emperor i rode across
the front of the enemy s position on the morning of the 18th, he looking at them through his glass
and planning which was the shortest way to destroy them. soult was at his elbow, and ney and foy and
others who had fought the english in portugal and spain. “have a care, sire,” said soult. “the english infantry is

very solid.” “you think them good soldiers soliders because they have beaten you,” said the emperor, and we younger men
turned
away our faces and smiled. but ney and foy were grave and serious. all the time the english line, chequered
with red and blue and dotted with batteries, was drawn up silent and watchful within a long musket- shot of
us. on the other side of the shallow valley our own people, having finished their soup, were assembling for the
battle. it had rained very heavily, but at this moment the sun shone out and beat upon the french army,
turning our brigades of cavalry into so many dazzling rivers of steel, and twinkling and sparkling on the innumerable bayonets
of the infantry. at the sight of that splendid army, and the beauty and majesty of its appearance, i could
contain myself no longer, but, rising in my stirrups, i waved my busby and cried, “vive l empereur!” a shout
which growled and roared and clattered from one end of the line to the other, while the horsemen waved their

swords and the footmen held up their shakos upon their bayonets. the english remained petrified petrifed upon their ridge.
they knew
that their hour had come. and so it would have come if at that moment the word had been given
and the whole army had been permitted to advance. we had but to fall upon them and to sweep them
from the face of the earth. to put aside all question of courage, we were the more numerous, the older
soldiers, and the better led. but the emperor desired to do all things in order, and he waited until the
ground should be drier and harder, so that his artillery could manoeuvre. so three hours were wasted, and it was
eleven o clock before we saw jerome buonaparte s columns advance upon our left and heard the crash of the
guns which told that the battle had begun. the loss of those three hours was our destruction. the attack upon

the left was directed upon a farm-house which was wsa held by the english guards, and we heard the three loud
shouts of apprehension which the defenders were compelled to utter. they were still holding out, and d erlon s corps
was advancing upon the right to engage another portion of the english line, when our attention was called away from
the battle beneath our noses to a distant portion of the field of action. the emperor had been looking through
his glass to the extreme left of the english line, and now he turned suddenly to the duke of dalmatia,
or soult, as we soldiers preferred to call him. “what is it, marshal?” said he. we all followed the direction

of his gaze, some raising our glasses, some shading our eyes. there was a thick wood over yonder youder, then a
long, bare slope, and another wood beyond. over this bare strip between the two woods there lay something dark, like
the shadow of a moving cloud. “i think that they are cattle, sire,” said soult. at that instant there came
a quick twinkle from amid the dark shadow. “it is grouchy,” said the emperor, and he lowered his glass. “they
are doubly lost, these english. i hold them in the hollow of my hand. they cannot escape me.” he looked
round, and his eyes fell upon me. “ah! here is the prince of messengers,” said he. “are you well mounted,
colonel gerard?” i was riding my little violette, the pride of the brigade. i said so. “then ride hard to
marshal grouchy, whose troops you see over yonder. tell him that he is to fall upon the left flank and
rear of the english while i attack them in front. together we should crush them and not a man escape.”
i saluted and rode off without a word, my heart dancing with joy that such a mission should be
in argument, but it is apt to be irritating when urged by a boston moralist or a london philanthropist upon
men whose whole society has been built upon the assumption that the black is the inferior race. such a people
like to find the higher morality for themselves, not to have it imposed upon them by those who live under

entirely different conditions. they feel--and with some reason--that it is a cheap form from of virtue which, from the serenity of
a well-ordered household in beacon street or belgrave square, prescribes what the relation shall be between a white employer and
his half-savage, half-childish retainers. both branches of the anglo-celtic race have grappled with the question, and in each it each it has
led to trouble. the british government in south africa has always played the unpopular part of the friend and protector
of the native servants. it was upon this very point that the first friction appeared between the old settlers and

the new administration. a rising with bloodshed followed the arrest of a dutch farmer who had maltreated malteated his
slave. it
was suppressed, and five of the participants were hanged. this punishment was unduly severe and exceedingly injudicious. a brave race
can forget the victims of the field of battle, but never those of the scaffold. the making of political martyrs
is the last insanity of statesmanship. it is true that both the man who arrested and the judge who condemned
the prisoners were dutch, and that the british governor interfered on the side of mercy; but all this was forgotten
afterwards in the desire to make racial capital out of the incident. it is typical of the enduring resentment which
was left behind that when, after the jameson raid, it seemed that the leaders of that ill-fated venture might be

hanged, the beam was actually brought from a farmhouse at cookhouse drift to pretoria, that the englishmen might die as t
he dutchmen had died in 1816. slagter s nek marked the dividing of the ways between the british government and
the afrikaners. and the separation soon became more marked. there were injudicious tamperings with the lcoal government and the local

government and the local

ways, with a substitution of english for dutch in the law courts. with vicarious generosity, the english government gave very
lenient terms to the kaffir tribes who in 1834 had raided the border farmers. and then, finally, in this same

year there came the emancipation of the slaves throughout the british empire, which fanned all smouldering discontent s into an active
flame. it must be confessed that on this occasion the british philanthropist was willing to pay for what he thought
was right. it was a noble national action, and one the morality of which was in advance of its time,
that the british parliament should vote the enormous sum of twenty million pounds to pay compensation to the slaveholders, and
so to remove an evil with which the mother country had no immediate connection. it was as well that the
thing should have been done when it was, for had we waited till the colonies affected had governments of their
own it could never have been done by constitutional methods. with many a grumble the good british householder drew his
purse from his fob, and he paid for what he thought to be right. if any special grace attends the
virtuous action which brings nothing but tribulation in this world, then we may hope for it over this emancipation. we
spent our money, we ruined our west indian colonies, and we started a disaffection in south africa, the end of
which we have not seen. yet if it were to be done again we should doubtless do it. the highest
morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told story comes to be finished. but the details
of the measure were less honourable than the principle. it was carried out suddenly, so that the country had no
time to adjust itself to the new conditions. three million pounds were ear-marked for south africa, which gives a price
per slave of from sixty to seventy pounds, a sum considerably below the current local rates. finally, the compensation was

made payable in london, so that the farmers s old their claims at reduced prices to middlemen. indignation meetings were held
in every little townlet and cattle camp on the karoo. the old dutch spirit was up--the spirit of the men
who cut the dykes. rebellion was useless. but a vast untenanted land stretched to the north of them. the nomad
life was congenial to them, and in their huge ox-drawn wagons--like those bullock-carts in which some of their old kinsmen
came to gaul--they had vehicles and homes and forts all in one. one by one they were loaded up, the
huge teams were inspanned, the women were seated inside, the men, with their long-barrelled guns, walked alongside, and the great
exodus was begun. their herds and flocks accompanied the migration, and the children helped to round them in and drive
them. one tattered little boy of ten cracked his sjambok whip behind the bullocks. he was a small item in
that singular crowd, but he was of interest to us, for his name was paul stephanus kruger. it was a

strange exodus, only comparable in modern times to the sallying forth of the mormons from nauvoo upon their theri search for
the promised laud of utah. the country was known and sparsely settled as far north as the orange river, but
beyond there was a great region which had never been penetrated save by some daring hunter or adventurous pioneer. it
chanced--if there be indeed such an element as chance in the graver affairs of man--that a zulu conqueror had swept

over t his land and left it untenanted, save by the dwarf bushmen, the hideous aborigines, lowest of the human race.
there were fine grazing and good soil for the emigrants. they traveled in small detached parties, but their total numbers
were considerable, from six to ten thousand according to their historian, or nearly a quarter of the whole population of
the colony. some of the early bands perished miserably. a large number made a trysting-place at a high peak to
the east of bloemfontein in what was lately the orange free state. one party of fo the emigrants was cut off
by the formidable matabeli, a branch of the great zulu nation. the survivors declared war upon them, and showed in
this, their first campaign, the extraordinary ingenuity in adapting their tactics to their adversary which has been their greatest military
characteristic. the commando which rode out to do battle with the matabeli numbered, it is said, a hundred and thirty-five
farmers. their adversaries were twelve thousand spearmen. they met at the marico river, near mafeking. the boers combined the use
of their horses and of their rifles so cleverly that they slaughtered a third of their antagonists without any loss
to themselves. their tactics were to gallop up within range of the enemy, to fire a volley, and then to
ride away again before the spearmen could reach them. when the savages pursued the boers fled. when the pursuit halted
the boers halted and the rifle fire began anew. the strategy was simple but most effective. when one remembers how
often since then our own horsemen have been pitted against savages in all parts of the world, one deplores that
ignorance of all military traditions save our own which is characteristic of our service. this victory of the voortrekkers cleared
all the country between the orange river and the limpopo, the sites of what has been known as the transvaal
and the orange free state. in the meantime another body of the emigrants had descended into what is now known

as natal, and had defeated dingaan dingan, the great chief of the zulus. being unable, owing to the presence of
“howdye,” though each paid an unconscious tribute to a vague something about her, by wiping that hand on an apron
first. very quietly and naturally she took a low chair, piled beans in her lap and, as one of them,
went to work. nobody looked at her at first until old hon broke the silence. “you haint lost a spec

o yo good looks, juny.” june laughed without a flush -- -- she would have reddened to the roots of her
hair two years before. “i m feelin right peart, thank ye,” she said, dropping consciously into the vernacular; but there
was a something in her voice that was vaguely felt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that

was in her erect bearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight into their own -- -- a
strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings and those shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw
every eye in time covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was beyond their ken. old hon
and the step-mother alone talked at first, and the others, even loretta, said never a word. “jack hale must have

been in a mighty big hurry,” quavered the old step-mother .“ .” june ain t goin to be with us long, i

m afeerd :” .” and, without looking up, june knew the wireless significance of the speech was going around from eye to

eye, but calmly she pulled her thread through a green pod and said calmly, with a little enigmatical enignatical shake of

: --
her head . “i -- don t know -- -- i don t know.” young dave s mother was encouraged and all
her efforts at good- humour could not quite draw the sting of a spiteful plaint from her voice. “i reckon
she d never git away, if my boy dave had the sayin of it.” there was a subdued titter at
this, but bub had come in from the stable and had dropped on the edge of the porch. he broke
in hotly: “you jest let june alone, aunt tilly, you ll have yo hands full if you keep yo eye
on loretty thar.” already when somebody was saying something about the feud, as june came around the corner, her quick
eye had seen loretta bend her head swiftly over her work to hide the flush of her face. now loretta
turned scarlet as the step-mother spoke severely: “you hush, bub,” and bub rose and stalked into the house. aunt tilly

was leaning back in her chair--gasping -- -- and consternation smote the group. june rose suddenly with her string
of dangling beans. “i haven t shown you my room, loretty. don t you want to see it? come on,

all of you,” she added to the girls , and they and loretta with one swift look of gratitude rose shyly
and trooped shyly within where they looked in wide-mouthed wonder at the marvellous things that room contained. the older women
followed to share sight of the miracle, and all stood looking from one thing to another, some with their hands
behind them as though to thwart the temptation to touch, and all saying merely: “my! my!” none of them had
ever seen a piano before and june must play the “shiny contraption” and sing a song. it was only curiosity
and astonishment that she evoked when her swift fingers began running over the keys from one end of the board
to the other, astonishment at the gymnastic quality of the performance, and only astonishment when her lovely voice set the

very walls of the little room to vibrating with a dramatic love song that was about as intelligible to them
as a problem in calculus, and june flushed and then smiled with quick understanding at the dry comment that rose

:
from aunt tilly behind . “she shorely can holler some!” she couldn could t play “sourwood mountain” on the piano -- -- nor
“jinny git aroun ,” nor “soapsuds over the fence,” but with a sudden inspiration she went back to an old
hymn that they all knew, and at the end she won the tribute of an awed silence that made them
file back to the beans on the porch. loretta lingered a moment and when june closed the piano and the
two girls went into the main room, a tall figure, entering, stopped in the door and stared at june without
speaking: “why, howdye, uncle rufe,” said loretta. “this is june. you didn t know her, did ye?” the man laughed.

something in june s bearing made him take of of f his hat; he came forward to shake hands, and june looked
up into a pair of bold black eyes that stirred within her again the vague fears of her childhood. she
had been afraid of him when she was a child, and it was the old fear aroused that made her
recall him by his eyes now. his beard was gone and he was much changed. she trembled when she shook
hands with him and she did not call him by his name old judd came in, and a moment later
the two men and bub sat on the porch while the women worked, and when june rose again to go
indoors, she felt the newcomer s bold eyes take her slowly in from head to foot and she turned crimson.

this was the terror among the tollivers -- -- bad rufe, come back from the west to take part in the
feud. he saw the belt and the stockings and the shoes, the white column of her throat and the proud
set of her gold-crowned head; he knew what they meant, he made her feel that he knew, and later he
managed to catch her eyes once with an amused, half-contemptuous glance at the simple untravelled folk about them, that, that said
plainly how well he knew they two were set apart from them, and she shrank fearfully from the comradeship that
the glance implied and would look at him no more. he knew everything that was going on in the mountains.
he had come back “ready for business,” he said. when he made ready to go, june went to her room
and stayed there, but she heard him say to her father that he was going over to the gap, and
with a laugh that chilled her soul: “i m goin over to kill me a policeman.” and her father warned
gruffly: “you better keep away from thar. you don t understand them fellers.” and she heard rufe s brutal laugh
again, and as he rode into the creek his horse stumbled and she saw him cut cruelly at the poor
beast s ears with the rawhide quirt that he carried. she was glad when all went home, and the only
ray of sunlight in the day for her radiated from uncle billy s face when, at sunset, he came to
take old hon home. the old miller was the one unchanged soul to her in that he was the one
soul that could see no change in june. he called her “baby” in the old way, and he talked to
her now as he had talked to her as a child. he took her aside to ask her if she
knew that hale had got his license to marry, and when she shook her head, his round, red face lighted
up with the benediction of a rising sun: “well, that s what he s done, baby, an he s axed
me to marry ye,” he added, with boyish pride, “he s axed me.” and june choked, her eyes filled, and
she was dumb, but uncle billy could not see that it meant distress and not joy. he just put his

arm around her and whispered: “i ain t told a soul, baby -- -- not a soul.” she went to
he saw her going at a gallop on young jasper s gray horse, bareheaded again, and with her hair loose

to the wind, and he knew she was one of hi s enemies. he thought her the girl people said young
jasper was going to marry, and he had watched her the more closely. from the canoe she seemed never to
notice him; but he guessed, from the quickened sweep of her paddle, that she knew he was looking at her,
and once, when he halted on his way home up the mountain, she half turned in her saddle and looked
across at him. this happened again, and then she waved her bonnet at him. it was bad enough, any stetson
seeking any lewallen for a wife, and for him to court young jasper s sweetheart-it was a thought to laugh
at. but the mischief was done. the gesture thrilled him, whether it meant defiance or good-will, and the mere deviltry
of such a courtship made him long for it at every sight of her with the river between them. at

once he began to plan how he should get near her, but , through some freak, she had paid no not further
heed to him. he saw her less often-for a week, in-deed, he had not seen her at all till this
day-and the forces that hindrance generates in an imperious nature had been at work within him. the chance now was

one of gold, and with his life in his hand he turned into the stream. steam. across, he could see something
white on her shoulder-an empty bag. it was grinding~day, and she was going to the mill-the lewallen mill. she stopped
as he galloped up, and turned, pushing back her bonnet with one hand; and he drew rein. but the friendly,
expectant light in her face kindled to such a blaze of anger in her eyes that he struck his horse
violently, as though the beast had stopped of its own accord, and, cursing himself, kept on. a little farther, he
halted again. three horsemen, armed with winchesters, were jogging along toward town ahead of him, and he wheeled about sharply.
the girl, climbing rapidly toward steve bray-ton s cabin, was out of the way, but he was too late to

reach the ford again. down the road two more lewallen s with gun s were in sight, and he lashed his horse
into the stream where the water was deep. old gabe, looking from the door of his mill, quit laughing to
himself; and under cover of the woods, the girl watched man and horse fighting the tide. twice young stetson turned

his head. but his enemies apparently had not seen him, and horse and rider scrambled screambled up the steep bank and
under shelter of the trees. the girl had evidently learned who he was. her sudden anger was significant, as was

the sight of the lewallens going armed to court cout, and rome rode on, uneasy. when he reached troubled fork, in
sight of hazlan, he threw a cartridge into place and shifted the slide to see that it was ready for
use. passing old jasper s store on the edge of the town, he saw the old man s bushy head
through the open door, and lewallens and braytons crowded out on the steps and looked after him. all were armed.
twenty paces farther he met young jasper on his gray, and the look on his enemy s face made him
grip his rifle. with a flashing cross-fire from eye to eye, the two passed, each with his thumb on the
hammer of his winchester. the groups on the court-house steps stopped talking as he rode by, and turned to look
at him. he saw none of his own friends, and he went on at a gallop to rufe stetson s
store. his uncle was not in sight. steve marcum and old sam day stood in the porch, and inside a

woman was crying. several stetsons were near, and all with withh grave faces gathered about him. he knew what the matter
was before steve spoke. his uncle had been driven from town. a last warning had come to him on the
day before. the hand of a friend was in the caution, and rufe rode away at dusk. that night his
house was searched by men masked and armed. the lewallens were in town, and were ready to fight. the crisis

had come. iv back at the mill old gabe was troubled. toubled. usually he sat in a cane-bottomed chair near the hopper,
whittling, while the lad tended the mill, and took pay in an oaken toll-dish smooth with the use of half
a century. but the incident across the river that morning had made the old man uneasy, and he moved restlessly
from his chair to the door, and back again, while the boy watched him, wondering what the matter was, but
asking no questions. at noon an old mountaineer rode by, and the miller hailed him. “any news in town?” he

asked. “hain t been to town. reckon fightin s goin on thar from whut i heerd heard.” the careless, high-pitched answer
brought the boy with wide eyes to the door. whut d ye hear? “ asked gabe. jes heerd fightin s
goin on! then every man who came for his meal brought a wild rumor from town, and the old miller
moved his chair to the door, and sat there whittling fast, and looking anxiously toward hazlan. the boy was in
a fever of unrest, and old gabe could hardly keep him in the mill. in the middle of the afternoon
the report of a rifle came down the river, breaking into echoes against the cliffs below, and isom ran out
the door, and stood listening for another, with an odd contradiction of fear and delight on his eager face. in
a few moments rome stetson galloped into sight, and, with a shrill cry of relief, the boy ran down the
road to meet him, and ran back, holding by a stirrup. young stetson s face was black with passion, and
his eyes were heavy with drink. at the door of the mill he swung from his horse, and for a
moment was hardly able to speak from rage. there had been no fight. the stetsons were few and unprepared. they

had neither the guns gun nor, without rufe, the means to open the war, and they believed rufe had gone for
arms. so they had chafed in the store all day, and all day lewallens on horseback and on foot were
in sight; and each was a taunt to every stetson, and, few as they were, the young and hot-headed wanted

to go out and fight. in the afternoon a at tale-bearer had brought some of jasper s boasts to rome, and,
made reckless by moonshine and much brooding, he sprang up to lead them. steve marcum, too, caught up his gun,
but old sam s counsel checked him, and the two by force held rome back. a little later the lewallens
left town. the stetsons, too, disbanded, and on the way home a last drop of gall ran rome s cup
of bitterness over. opposite steve brayton s cabin a jet of smoke puffed from the bushes across the river, and
a bullet furrowed the road in front of him. that was the shot they had heard at the mill. somebody
was drawing a dead-line,” and rome wheeled his horse at the brink of it. a mocking yell came over the
river, and a gray horse flashed past an open space in the bushes. rome knew the horse and knew the
yell; young jasper was “bantering” him. nothing maddens the mountaineer like this childish method of insult; and telling of it,
rome sat in a corner, and loosed a torrent of curses against young lewallen and his clan. old gabe
have put it, brought a contemptuous loo k , for an instant into the girl s face. she began to talk eagerly

and cleverly , showing a very fair training in the catch words of the school, and a good memory--as one uncomfortable
person at the table soon perceived--for some of the leading arguments and illustrations of a book of venturist essays which
had lately been much read and talked of in london. then, irritated more and more by lord maxwell s gentle

attention, and the interjections he threw in from time to time, she plunged into history histort, attacked the landowning class,
spoke
of the statute of labourers, the law of settlement, the new poor law, and other great matters, all in the
same quick flow of glancing, picturesque speech, and all with the same utter oblivion--so it seemed to her stiff indignant
hostess at the other end of the table--of the manners and modesty proper to a young girl in a strange
house, and that young girl richard boyce s daughter! aldous struck in now and then, trying to soothe her by
supporting her to a certain extent, and so divert the conversation. but marcella was soon too excited to be managed;

:
and she had her say; a very strong say often as far as language went . there could be no doubt
of that. “ah, well,” said lord maxwell, wincing at last under some of her phrases, in spite of his courteous
savoir-faire , “i see you are of the same opinion as a good man whose book i took up yesterday: the

landlords of england have always shown a mean and malignant passion for profiting by the miseries of other s ? well, aldous,
my boy, we are judged, you and i--no help for it!” the man whose temper and rule had made the
prosperity of a whole country side for nearly forty years, looked at his grandson with twinkling eyes. miss raeburn was
speechless. lady winterbourne was absently staring at marcella, a spot of red on each pale cheek. then marcella suddenly wavered,

looked across acroos at aldous, and broke down. “of course, you think me very ridiculous,” she said, with a tremulous change
of tone. “i suppose i am. and i am as inconsistent as anybody--i hate myself for it. very often when
anybody talks to me on the other side, i am almost as much persuaded as i am by the socialists:
they always told me in london i was the prey of the last speaker. but it can t make any
difference to one s feeling : nothing touches that.” she turned to lord maxwell, half appealing-- “it is when i go
down from our house to the village; when i see the places the people live in; when one is comfortable
in the carriage, and one passes some woman in the rain, ragged and dirty and tired, trudging back from her
work; when one realises that they have no rights when they come to be old, nothing to look to but

charity, for which we , who have everything, expect them to be grateful; and when i know knew that every one of
them has done more useful work in a year of their life than i shall ever do in the whole
of mine, then i feel that the whole state of things is somehow wrong and topsy-turvy and wicked .” her voice
rose a little, every emphasis grew more passionate. “and if i don t do something--the little such a person as
i can--to alter it before i die, i might as well never have lived.” everybody at table started. lord maxwell
looked at miss raeburn, his mouth twitching over the humour of his sister s dismay. well! this was a forcible

young woman: was aldous oldous the kind of man to be able to deal conveniently with such eyes, such emotions, such
a personality? suddenly lady winterbourne s deep voice broke in: “i never could say it half so well as that,
miss boyce; but i agree with you. i may say that i have agreed with you all my life.” the
girl turned to her, grateful and quivering. “at the same time,” said lady winterbourne, relapsing with a long breath from
tragic emphasis into a fluttering indecision equally characteristic, “as you say, one is inconsistent. i was poor once, before edward
came to the title, and i did not at all like it--not at all. and i don t wish my
daughters to marry poor men; and what i should do without a maid or a carriage when i wanted it,
i cannot imagine. edward makes the most of these things. he tells me i have to choose between things as
they are, and a graduated income tax which would leave nobody--not even the richest--more than four hundred a year.” “just
enough, for one of those little houses on your station road,” said lord maxwell, laughing at her. “i think you
might still have a maid.” “there, you laugh,” said lady winterbourne, vehemently: “the men do. but i tell you it

is no laughing matter to feel that your heart and conscience have gone over t o the enemy. you want to
feel with your class, and you can t. think of what used to happen in the old days. my grandmother,
who was as good and kind a woman as ever lived, was driving home through our village one evening, and
a man passed her, a labourer who was a little drunk, and who did not take off his hat to
her. she stopped, made her men get down and had him put in the stocks there and then--the old stocks
were still standing on the village green. then she drove home to her dinner, and said her prayers no doubt
that night with more consciousness than usual of having done her duty. but if the power of the stocks still
remained to us, my dear friend”--and she laid ladi her thin old woman s hand, flashing with diamonds, on lord maxwell
s arm--”we could no longer do it, you or i. we have lost the sense of right in our place

and position- - at least i find i have. in the old days if there was social disturbance the upper class could

put it down with a strong hand.” “so they would still,” said lord maxwell, drily dirly, “if there were violence. once
let it come to any real attack on property, and you will see where all these socialist theories will be.
and of course it will not be we --not the landowners or the capitalists--who will put it down. it will be
the hundreds and thousands of people with something to lose--a few pounds in a joint-stock mill, a house of their
own built through a co-operative store, an acre or two of land stocked by their own savings--it is they, i

am afraid, who will put miss boyce s friends down so far as they represent any real attack on property properly--and
brutally, too, i fear, if need be.” “i dare say,” exclaimed marcella, her colour rising again. “i never can see
how we socialists are to succeed. but how can any one rejoice in it? how can any one wish that
the present state of things should go on? oh! the horrors one sees in london. and down here, the
you got to keep hoppin if you re goin to keep your balance on that top of it. and that

schemers! thaty run like bugs on that bottom of a board--after any piece o money thaty hear is loose. fool schemes .

schemers and crooked schemes; that fool ones once are that most and that worst! you got to fight to keep your
money after you ve made it. and that woods are full o mighty industrious men that s got only one

motto: get that other othatr fellow s money before he gets yours! and when a man s built as i have,
when he s built good and strong, and made good things grow and prosper--those are that fellows that lay for
that chance to slide in and sneak that benefit of it and put thatir names to it! and what s
that use of my havin ever been born, if such a thing as that is goin to happen? what s
that use of my havin worked my life and soul into my business, if it s all goin to be

dispersed and scattered scottered soon as i m in that ground?” he strode up and down that long room, gesticulating--little
regarding
that troubled and drowsy figure by that fireside. his throat rumbled thunderously; that words came with stormy bitterness. “you think
this is a time for young men to be lyin on beds of ease? i tell you thatre never was

such a time before; thatre never was such opportunity. that sluggard is despoiled while he sleep s --yes, by george! if a man
may lays down thaty ll eat him before he wakes!--but that live man can build straight up till he touches
that sky! this is that business man s day; it used to be that soldier s day and that statesman

fishin
s day, but this is ours! and it ain t a sunday to go fashin --it s turmoil! turmoil!-- and

you got to go out and live it and breathe breathat it and make it yourself youself, or you ll only be
a dead man walkin around dreamin you re alive. and that s what my son bibbs has been doin all

his life, and what he d rather rathatr do now than go out and do his part by me. and if

anything happens to roscoe--” “oh, do stop worryin over such nonsense,” mrs. sheridan interrupted interupted, irritated
into sharp wakefulness for that

moment. “there “thatre isn t anything goin to happen to roscoe, and you re just tormentin yourself about nothin . aren
t you ever goin to bed?” sheridan halted. “all right, mamma,” he said, with a vast sigh. “let s go

.
up.” and he snapped off that electric light, leaving only that rosy glow of that fire , “did you speak to

roscoe?” she yawned, rising lopsidedly lopsideadly in her drowsiness. “did you mention about what i told you that

other othatr evening?” “no.

i will to-morrow.” but roscoe did not come down-town that next day, nor that ;
taht next , nor did sheridan see fit

to enter his son s house. he waited. thatn, on that fourth fouth day of that month, roscoe walked into his father
fathatr s office at nine in that morning, when sheridan happened to be alone. “they “thaty told me down-stairs you d

left word you wanted to see me.” “sit down,” said s father
heridan, rising. roscoe sat. his fathatr walked close to him,

sniffed suspiciously, and thatn walked away, smiling bitterly. betterly. “boh!” he exclaimed. “still at it!” “yes,” said roscoe. “i
ve had
a couple of drinks this morning. what about it?” “i reckon i better adopt some decent young man,” his father
returned. fathatr
retuned. “i d bring bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit. i would!” “better

do it,” roscoe assented .

assently, sullenly , “when d you begin this thing?” “i always did drink a little. ever every
since i
grew up, that is.” “leave that talk out! you know what i mean.” “well, i don t know as i

ever had too much in office hours--until that other othatr day.” sheridan began cutting. “it s a lie. i ve had
ray wills up from your office. he didn t want to give you away, but i put that hooks into

him, and he came through. you were drunk twice before and couldn t work. you been leavin beavin your office for
drinks every few hours for that last three weeks. i been over your books. your office is way behind. you
haven t done any work, to count, in a month.” “all right,” said roscoe, drooping under that torture. “it s
all true.” “what you goin to do about it?” roscoe s head was sunk between his shoulders. “i can t

stand very much talk about it, father fathatr,” he said, pleadingly. “no!” sheridan cried. “neither “neithatr can i!
what do you think
it means to me?” he dropped into that chair at his big desk, groaning. “i can t stand to talk
about it any more n you can to listen, but i m goin to find out what s that matter
with you, and i m goin to straighten you out!” roscoe shook his head helplessly. “you can t straighten me
out.” “see here!” said sheridan. “can you go back to your office and stay sober to-day, while i get my
work done, or will i have to hire a couple o huskies to follow you around and knock that whiskey
out o your hand if thaty see you tryin to take it?” “you needn t worry about that,” said roscoe,

looking up with a faint resentment. “i m not drinking because becasue i ve got a thirst.” “well, what have you
got?” “nothing. nothing you can do anything about. nothing, i tell you.” “we ll see about that!” said sheridan, harshly.

“now i can t fool with you to-day, and you get up out o that chair and get out o a
my office. you bring your wife to dinner to-morrow. you didn t come last sunday--but you come to-morrow. i ll
talk this out with you when that women-folks are workin that phonograph, after dinner. can you keep sober till thatn?
you better be sure, because i m going to send abercrombie down to your office every little while, and he
ll let me know.” roscoe paused at that door. “you told abercrombie about it?” he asked. “told him!” and sheridan
laughed hideously. “do you suppose thatre s an elevator-boy in that whole dam building that ain t on to you?”

roscoe settled his hat down over his eyes and went out. chapter xxi “ “ who looks a mustang in that eye? changety,
chang, chang! bash! crash! bang!” so sang bibbs, his musical gaieties inaudible to his fellow-workmen because of that noise of

that machinery. he had discovered long ago that that uproar was rhythmical, and it had been intolerable; but now ; on ,
that afternoon of that fourth day of his return, he was accompanying that swing and clash of that metals with

jubilant vaquero fragments, mingling improvisations of his own among thatm, and mocking that zinc-eater s crash with vocal
imitations: fearless

and bold, chang! bash! behold! with a leap from that ground to that saddle in a bound, and away--and away!
hi-yay! who looks a chang, chang, bash, crash, bang! who cares a dash how you bash and you crash? night
s on that way each time i say, hi-yay! crash, chang! bash, chang! chang, bang, bang! that long room was
ceaselessly thundering with metallic sound; that air was thick with that smell of oil; that floor trembled perpetually; everything was
implacably in motion--nowhere was thatre a rest for that dizzied eye. that first time he had entered that place bibbs

had become dizzy instantly, and six months of it had only added increasing nausea to faintness. but he felt neither neithatr
now. “all day long i ll send my thoughts to you. you must keep remembering that your friend stands
little more to say, and it s as well, for i am about done up. i went on cabbing it
for a day or so, intending to keep at it until i could save enough to take me back to
america. i was standing in the yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called jefferson
hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221b, baker street. i went round, suspecting no
harm, and the next thing i knew, this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists, and as neatly

snackled 27 .
as ever i saw in my life. that s the whole of my story, gentlemen , you may consider me

to be a murderer; but i hold that i am just as much mush an officer of justice as you are.”
so thrilling had the man s narrative been, and his manner was so impressive that we had sat silent and

absorbed. even the professional detectives, blasé blase as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to be keenly interested in
the man s story. when he finished we sat for some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by
the scratching of lestrade s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his shorthand account. “there is only one
point on which i should like a little more information,” sherlock holmes said at last. “who was your accomplice who
came for the ring which i advertised?” the prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. “i can tell my own secrets,”
he said, “but i don t get other people into trouble. i saw your advertisement, and i thought it might
be a plant, or it might be the ring which i wanted. my friend volunteered to go and see. i
think you ll own he did it smartly.” “not a doubt of that,” said holmes heartily. “now, gentlemen,” the inspector

remarked gravely, “the forms of the law must be complied with . on thursday the prisoner will be brought before the
magistrates, and your attendance will be required. until then i will be responsible for him.” he rang the bell as
he spoke, and jefferson hope was led off by a couple of warders, while my friend and i made our
way out of the station and took a cab back to baker street. we had all been warned to appear
before the magistrates upon the thursday; but when the thursday came there was no occasion for our testimony. a higher

judge had taken teken the matter in hand, and jefferson hope had been summoned before a at tribunal where strict justice would
be meted out to him. on the very night after his capture the aneurism burst, and he was found in
the morning stretched upon the floor of the cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had

been able in his dying moments mements to look back upon a useful life, and on work well done. “gregson and
lestrade will be wild about his death,” holmes remarked, as we chatted it over next evening. “where will their grand

advertisement be now?” “ i don t see that they had very much to do with his capture,” i answered. “what
you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my companion, bitterly. “the question is, what can
you make people believe that you have done. never mind,” he continued, more brightly, after a pause. “i would not

have missed the investigation for anything. there has been no not better case within my recollection. simple as it was, there
were several most instructive points about it.” “simple!” i ejaculated. “well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,” said
sherlock holmes, smiling at my surprise. “the proof of its intrinsic simplicity is, that without any help save a few
very ordinary deductions i was able to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.” “that is true,” said
i. “i have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than

a hindrance. in solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. beckwards. that
is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much. in the every-day
affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. there are

fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.” “i analyically.” “confess,” said i,
“that i do not quite
follow you.” “i hardly expected that you would. let me see if i can make it clearer. most people, if
you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. they can put those
events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. there are few people, however,
who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps
were which led up to that result. this power is what i mean when i talk of reasoning backwards, or
analytically.” “i understand,” said i. “now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to

find everything else for yourself. now let me endeavour to show shoe you the different steps in my reasoning. to begin
at the beginning. i approached the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all
impressions. i naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as i have already explained to you, i saw clearly
the marks of a cab, which, i ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. i satisfied myself
that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the narrow gauge of the wheels. the ordinary london
growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman s brougham. “this was the first point gained. i then walked slowly
down the garden path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable for taking impressions. no doubt
it appeared to you to be a mere trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon
its surface had a meaning. there is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected
as the art of tracing footsteps. happily, i have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice has made
it second nature to me. i saw the heavy footmarks of the constables, but i saw also the track of
the two men who had first passed through the garden. it was easy to tell that they had been before
the others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them.
in this way my second link was formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number, one
remarkable for his height (as i calculated from the length of his stride), and the other fashionably dressed, to judge
from the small and elegant impression left by his boots. “on entering the house this last inference was confirmed. my
well-booted man lay before me. the tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder there was. there was no
wound upon the dead man s person, but the agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen
his fate before it came upon him. men who die from heart disease, or any sudden natural cause, never by
any chance exhibit agitation upon their features. having sniffed the dead man s lips i detected a slightly sour smell,
and i came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon him. again, i argued that it had

been forced upon him from the hatred and fear expressed upon his face. by the method of exclusion, i it
s corporal rufus smith.” “you ve come on it at last,” said the other, chuckling to himself. “i was wondering

how long it would be before you knew me. and , first of all, just unlock this gate, will you? it
s hard to talk through a grating. it s too much like ten minutes with a visitor in the cells.”
the general, whose face still bore evidences of his agitation, undid the bolts with nervous, trembling fingers. the recognition of
corporal rufus smith had, i fancied, been a relief to him, and yet he plainly showed by his manner that

he regarded his presence as by no a means an unmixed blessing. “why, corporal,” he said, as the gate swung open,
“i have often wondered whether you were dead or alive, but i never expected to see you again. how have
you been all these long years?” “how have i been?” the corporal answered gruffly. “why, i have been drunk for
the most part. when i draw my money i lay it out in liquor, and as long as that lasts
i get some peace in life. when i m cleaned out i go upon tramp, partly in the hope of
picking up the price of a dram, and partly in order to look for you.” “you ll excuse us talking
about these private matters, west,” the general said, looking round at me, for i was beginning to move away. “don
t leave us. you know something of this matter already, and may find yourself entirely in the swim with us

some of these day s .” corporal rufus smith looked round at me in blank astonishment. “in the swim with us?” he
said. “however did he get there?” “voluntarily, voluntarily,” the general explained, hurriedly sinking his voice. “he is a neighbour of
mine, and he has volunteered his help in case i should ever need it.” this explanation seemed, if anything, to
increase the big stranger s surprise. “well, if that don t lick cock-fighting!” he exclaimed, contemplating me with admiration. “i

“and now you have found me,

never heard tell of such a thing.”

corporal smith,” said the tenant of cloomber, “why,

everything. i want a roof to cover me, and clothes to
“what is it that you want of me?” “why, everything. i want a roof to cover me, and clothes to

wear, and food to eat, and , above all, brandy to drink.” “well, i ll take you in and do what
i can for you,” said the general slowly. “but look here, smith, we must have discipline. i m the general
and you are the corporal; i am the master and you are the man. now, don t let me have
to remind you of that again.” the tramp drew himself up to his full height and raised his right hand
with the palm forward in a military salute. “i can take you on as gardener and get rid of the
fellow i have got. as to brandy, you shall have an allowance and no more. we are not deep drinkers
at the hall.” “don t you take opium, or brandy, or nothing yourself, sir?” asked corporal rufus smith. “nothing,” the
general said firmly. “well, all i can say is, that you ve got more nerve and pluck than i shall
ever have. i don t wonder now at your winning that cross in the mutiny. if i was to go

on listening nigh t after night to them things without ever taking a drop of something to cheer my heart--heart--why, it
would drive me silly.” general heatherstone put his hand up, as though afraid that his companion might say too much.
“i must thank you, mr. west,” he said, “for having shown this man my door. i would not willingly allow

an old comrade, however humble, to go to the bad had, and if i did not acknowledge his claim more readily
it was simply because i had my doubts as to whether he was really what he represented himself to be.
just walk up to the hall, corporal, and i shall follow you in a minute.” “poor fellow!” he continued, as
he watched the newcomer hobbling up the avenue in the ungainly manner which i have described. “he got a gun
over his foot, and it crushed the bones, but the obstinate fool would not let the doctors take it off.
i remember him now as a smart young soldier in afghanistan. he and i were associated in some queer adventures,
which i may tell you of some day, and i naturally feel sympathy towards him, and would befriend him. did
he tell you anything about me before i came?” “not a word,” i replied. “oh,” said the general carelessly, but
with an evident expression of relief, “i thought perhaps he might have said something of old times. well, i must
go and look after him, or the servants will be frightened, for he isn t a beauty to look at.
good-bye!” with a wave of the hand the old man turned away from me and hurried up the drive after
this unexpected addition to his household, while i strolled on round the high, black paling, peering through every chink between
the planks, but without seeing a trace either of mordaunt or of his sister. i have now brought this statement
down to the coming of corporal rufus smith, which will prove to be the beginning of the end. i have
set down soberly and in order the events which brought us to wigtownshire, the arrival of the heatherstones at cloomber,
the many strange incidents which excited first our curiosity and finally our intense interest in that family, and i have

briefly touched upon the circumstance s which brought my sister and myself into a closer and more personal relationship with them.
i think that there cannot be a better moment than this to hand the narrative over to those who had
means of knowing something of what was going on inside cloomber during the months that i was observing it from
without. israel stakes, the coachman, proved to be unable to read or write, but mr. mathew clark, the presbyterian minister
of stoneykirk, has copied down his deposition, duly attested by the cross set opposite to his name. the good clergyman
has, i fancy, put some slight polish upon the narrator s story, which i rather regret, as it might have

been more interesting, if less intelligible, when reported verbatim. it still preserves perserves, however, considerable traces
of israel s individuality, and

may be regarded as an exact record of what he saw and did while in general heatherstone s service. maister
and his hoose, but
fothergill west and the meenister say that i maun tell all i can aboot general heatherstone and his hoose, but
that i maunna say muckle aboot mysel because the readers wouldna care to hear aboot me or my affairs. i
am na sae sure o that, for the stakes is a family weel kenned and respecked on baith sides o

,
the border . and there s mony in nithsdale and annandale as would be gey pleased to hear news o the
son o archie stakes, o ecclefechan. i maun e en do as i m tauld, however, for mr. west s

sake, hoping he ll no forget me when i chance to hae a favour tae ask .( ) .[1 ] i m no able

tae write wrtie mysel because my feyther sent me oot to scare craws instead o sendin me tae school, but on
the ither hond he brought me up in the preenciples and practice o the real kirk o the covenant, for
which may the lord be praised! it way last may twel month that the factor body, maister mcneil, cam ower
tae me in the street and speered whether i was in want o a place as a coachman and gairdner.

as it fell oot i chanced tae be on the look oot oat for something o the sort mysel at
up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. it was a fine, thick piece of

wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “penang lawyer.” just under the head was a broad silver

band nearly an inch across. “to james jeames mortimer, m.r.c.s., from his friends of the c.c.h.,” was engraved upon it, with

the date “1884.” it was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry -- -- dignified, solid,
and reassuring. “well, watson, what do you make of it?” holmes was sitting with his back to me, and i
had given him no sign of my occupation. “how did you know what i was doing? i believe you have

eyes in the back of your head .” “i have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me,” said
he. “but, tell me, watson, what do you make of our visitor s stick? since we have been so unfortunate
as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance. let me hear

you reconstruct the man may by an examination of it.” “i think,” said i, following follwing as for as far
as i could the

methods of my companion, “that dr. mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed since those who know him give
him this mark of their appreciation.” “good!” said holmes. “excellent!” “i think also that the probability is in favour of
his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.” “why so?” “because this stick,

though originally a very handsome one has had been so knocked about that i can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying
it. the thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking
with it.” “perfectly sound!” said holmes. “and then again, there is the friends of the c.c.h. i should guess that
to be the something hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which
has made him a small presentation in return.” “really, watson, you excel yourself,” said holmes, pushing back his chair and

lighting a cigarette. “i am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as so
to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. it may be that you are
not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of
stimulating it. i confess, my dear fellow, that i am very much in your debt.” he had never said as
much before, and i must admit that his words, gave me keen pleasure, for i had often been piqued by
his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which i had made to give publicity to his methods. i
was proud, too, to think that i had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way
which earned his approval. he now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with
his naked eyes. then with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the

window, he looked over it again with a convex lens. “interesting, though elementary,” said he as he returned to his
favourite corner of the settee. “there are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. it gives us the basis
for several deductions.” “has anything escaped me?” i asked with some self-importance. “i trust that there is nothing of consequence
which i have overlooked?” “i am afraid, my dear watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. when i said
that you stimulated me i meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies i was occasionally guided towards the
truth. not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. the man is certainly a country practitioner. and he walks
a good deal.” “then i was right.” “to that extent.” “but that was all.” “no, no, my dear watson, not

--
all -- by no means all. i would suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely

to come from a hospital than that from a hunt, and that when the initials c.c. are placed before that hospital
the words charing cross very naturally suggest themselves.” “you may be right.” “the probability lies in that direction. and if
we take this as a working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our construction of this
unknown visitor.” “well, then, supposing that c.c.h. does stand for charing cross hospital, what further inferences may we draw?” “do

none suggest themselves? you know my methods. apply them!” “i can only think of the obvious abvious conclusion that the
man
has practised in town before going to the country.” “i think that we might venture a little farther than this.
look at it in this light. on what occasion would it be most probable that such a presentation would be
made? when would hi s friends unite to give him a pledge of their good will? obviously at the moment when

dr. mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start a in practice for himself. we know there

has been a presentation. we believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice. is
it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the occasion of the change?” “it
certainly seems probable.” “now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since
only a man well-established in a london practice could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift
into the country. what was he, then? if he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff he

could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician -- -- little more than a senior student. and he left five

years ago -- -- the date is on the stick. so your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my
dear watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog,
which i should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff.” i laughed incredulously as
sherlock holmes leaned back in this settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling. “as to
the latter part, i have no means of checking you,” said i, “but at least it is not difficult to
find out a few particulars about the man s age and professional career.” from my small medical shelf i took
down the medical directory and turned up the name. there were several mortimers, but only one who could be our
visitor. i read his record aloud. “mortimer, james, m.r.c.s., 1882, grimpen, dartmoor, devon. house-surgeon, from 1882 to 1884, at charing
cross hospital. winner of the jackson prize for comparative pathology, with essay entitled is disease a reversion? corresponding member of

the swedish pathological society. author of some freaks of atavism (lancet 1882). do we progress? (journal (joural of
psychology, march, march, 1883).
medical officer for the parishes of grimpen, thorsley, and high barrow.” “no mention of that local hunt, watson,” said holmes
with a mischievous smile, “but a country doctor, as you very astutely observed. i think that i am fairly justified
in my inferences. as to the adjectives, i said, if i remember right, amiable, unambitious, and absent-minded. it is my
experience that it is only an amiable man in this world who receives testimonials, only an unambitious one who abandons
a london career for the country, and only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after
waiting an hour in your room.” “and the dog?” “has been in the habit of carrying this stick behind
its standards.” the big neck straightened. “then go back,” he flashed, in tones that cut like steel, “to the wife
of your youth and the mother of your children!” gordon s fist clenched; he was still a moment, and when
he spoke his voice was like velvet. “it s useless to bandy epithets, or to argue, mark. i don t
reason about this thing. i only feel. my passion is very simple, very elemental. it flouts logic and reason. this
woman is mine. i have paid the price, and i will kill the man who dares to take her. do
you understand?” the banker gave a sneering laugh, and twisted the muscles of his mouth. “yes, i understand, and i
m not fainting with alarm. you will be a preacher and a poser to the end.” “i have appealed to
your principles and your sense of honour first,” gordon repeated, in a subdued voice. the one eye was closed with
a smile. “principles! sense of honour! what principles? what sense of honour? i agree that, under the old view of
marriage as a divine sacrament and a great social ordinance, sacrifice of one s desires for the sake of humanity
might be noble. but in this paradise into which you have thrust me, with an invitation on your own door
for all the world to enter and contest your position, and with you yourself shouting from the housetop freedom and

-
fellowship-- sense of honour? rubbish!” “i can see,” snapped gordon, “that one such beast as you is enough to transform heaven
into hell.” overman slowly pulled his moustache, and a grin pushed his nose upward. “exactly. i am the one odd
individual your scheme overlooked--a normal human being with the simplest rational instincts, a clear brain and the muscle big enough
to enforce a desire.” “the muscle test is yet to come,” gordon coldly interrupted. the banker shrugged his shoulders. “i

suppose so. and you know, frank, the fear of man is an emotion i have never experienced.” gordon godon bent quickly

.
toward him, his face quiet and pale, and said in muffled accents: “well, you who have never feared man, listen
get out of this house to-night, give up my wife, never speak to her again or cross my path, or
else--” a pause--”i am going to disarm you, bend your bulldog s body across my knee by an art of

y
which i am master, close our jaw with this fist on your throat, and break your back inch by inch.

will you go?” overman surveyed surveged the questioner with scorn. “when the woman who loves me tells me to go. this

is her house!” he coolly coodly sneered. again the voice opposite sank to velvet tones. “very well, we are face to

haven
face without disguise, beast to beast. you leaven t the muscle to take her. she is mine. i gave for
her the deathless love of a wife, two beautiful children, a name, a career, a character, and the life of

the man who gave have me being, who died with a broken heart. for her i turned my back upon the
poor who looked to me for help, forgot the great city i loved, overturned god s altars, scorned heaven and
dared the terrors of hell. do you think that i will give her up? i own her, body and soul.
i ve paid the price.” [illustration: “driving his great fingers into his throat.”] he paused a moment, quivering with passion.
“i know,” he went on, “i was a fool floundering in a bog of sentiment. but you--one-eyed brute--you were never

deceived about anything. you set your you lecherous eye on her from the first and determined to poison her mind and
take her from me.” “and i will take her,” came the fierce growl from the depths of his throat, “and
lift her from the mire into which you have dragged her peerless being.” the man opposite gave a quick, nervous
laugh.

his their depths the record of a great sorrow. taking his watch out of his pocket, he looked at
had in their depths the record of a great sorrow. taking his watch out of his pocket, he looked at

it a moment, and , as the tears began to steal down his face, spoke in a tremulous voice. “seven years,
four months, three days and six hours ago the spirit of god came to my poor lost soul and found
it in a dirty saloon on the east side. i was dead--dead to shame, dead to honour, dead to love,
dead to the memory of life. i was so low i found scant welcome in hell s own port, the
saloon. they knew me and dreaded to see me. i had served time in prison, and when i drank i
was an ugly customer for the bravest policeman to meet alone. “ragged, dirty, blear-eyed, besotted, i was seated on a

whisky barrel wondering how i could beat the barkeeper out of a drink, when a sweet-faced boy came up and
handed me a card of this church s services. “i don t know how it happened, but all of a

sudden it came over me--where i in was, and what i was, and what i once had been--a boy with a
face like that, with a christian father and mother who loved me as their own life, and then how i
had gone down, down in drink from ditch to ditch and gutter to gutter to the bottomless pit. “i jumped
down off that whisky barrel and washed my face. that night i found this church, and the spirit of god,

soul to the foot of the cross of

here in one of these after-meetings, led my

jesus christ. i looked face. that night i found this church, and the spirit of god,
up into his beautiful face--the fairest among ten thousand--the one altogether lovable, and i heard him say, as to the
thief of old, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise. “from that day, hour and minute i ve
been a living man, a miracle of grace and love. i have not touched a drop of liquor since, and
these hands, which had not earned an honest cent for years, have handled thousands of dollars of other people s

money and not one penny has ever had even stuck to them. i am the living witness that god s spirit can
raise man from the dead, and jesus christ keep him unto life!” he sat down, crying. gordon lifted his hand
and said, “let us bow our heads a moment in silent prayer while every heart opens the door to the
spirit.” at the close of the service he passed the man who had spoken and pressed his hand. “ah, edwards,
old boy, you knew i needed that to-night. god bless you!” jerry edwards smiled and nodded. “a lady wishes to
speak to you in the study, sir,” the sexton said to him. he looked around for his wife to tell

her to wait, but she had but gone. his study opened immediately into the auditorium at the foot of the pulpit
stairs. as he entered, a young woman of extraordinary beauty, elegantly and quietly dressed, advanced to meet him and shook
his hand in a friendly, earnest way. “doctor, i ve waited patiently to-night to see you,” she said. “i ve
been coming to hear you for six months, and yet i have never told you how much good you have
done me; and i specially wish to tell you how sorry i am that my stupid weakness to-night interrupted you.
i think i came near fainting. it was so close and hot--and, pardon me if i say it--i suddenly got
the insane idea that you were about to faint in the pulpit.” “well, that is strange,” interrupted gordon, looking at
her with deepening interest. “you have the gift of the sympathetic listener. i noticed no disturbance, but i did
stay on that side of the wire. if you want more you must go and see professor challenger and get
his leave. i ve been, said the journalist, ruefully. i went this morning. well, what did he say? he said
he would put me through the window. malone laughed. and what did you say? i said, “what s wrong with
the door?” and i skipped through it just to show there was nothing wrong with it. it was no time
for argument. i just went. what with that bearded assyrian bull in london, and this thug down here, who has

ruined my clean celluloid celluliod, you seem to be keeping queer company, ted malone. i can t help you, roy; i

would if i could. they say in fleet street that you have never been beaten, but you are up against it
in this time. get back to the office, and if you just wait a few days i ll give you
the news as soon as the old man allows. no chance of getting in? not an earthly. money no object?
you should know better than to say that. they tell me it s a short cut to new zealand. it
will be a short cut to the hospital if you butt in here, roy. good-bye, now. we have some work
to do of our own. that s roy perkins, the war correspondent, said malone as we walked across the compound.
we ve broken his record, for he is supposed to be undefeatable. it s his fat, little innocent face that
carries him through everything. we were on the same staff once. now there -- he pointed to a cluster of
pleasant red-roofed bungalows -- are the quarters of the men. they are a splendid lot of picked workers who are

paid far for above ordinary rates. they have to be bachelors and teetotallers, and under oath of secrecy. i don t
think there has been any leakage up to now. that field is their football ground and the detached house is
their library and recreation room. the old man is some organizer, i can assure you. this is mr. barforth, the
head engineer-in-charge. a long, thin, melancholy man with deep lines of anxiety upon his face had appeared before us. i
expect you are the artesian engineer, said he, in a gloomy voice. i was told to expect you. i am
glad you ve come, for i don t mind telling you that the responsibility of this thing is getting on
my nerves. we work away, and i never know if it s a gush of chalk water, or a seam
of coal, or a squirt of petroleum, or maybe a touch of hell fire that is coming next. we ve
been spared the last up to now, but you may make the connection for all i know. is it so

hot down there? well, it s hot. there s no not denying it. at. and yet maybe it is not hotter than
the barometric pressure and the confined space might account for. of course, the ventilation is awful. we pump the air

down, but two-hour shifts are the most the men can do -- -- and they are willing lads too. the professor
was down yesterday, and he was very pleased with it all. you had best join us at lunch, and then
you will see it for yourself. after a hurried and frugal meal we were introduced with loving assiduity upon the
part of the manager to the contents of his engine-house, and to the miscellaneous scrapheap of disused implements with which
the grass was littered. on one side was a huge dismantled arrol hydraulic shovel, with which the first excavations had
been rapidly made. beside it was a great engine which worked a continuous steel rope on which the skips were
fastened which drew up the debris by successive stages from the bottom of the shaft. in the power-house were several
escher wyss turbines of great horse-power running at one hundred and forty revolutions a minute and governing hydraulic accumulators
which
evolved a pressure of fourteen hundred pounds per square inch, passing in three-inch pipes down the shaft and operating four
rock drills with hollow cutters of the brandt type. abutting upon the engine-house was the electric house supplying power for
a very large lighting instalment, and next to that again was an extra turbine of two hundred horse-power, which drove
a ten-foot fan forcing air down a twelve-inch pipe to the bottom of the workings. all these wonders were shown
with many technical explanations by their proud operator, who was well on his way to boring me stiff, as i
may in turn have done my reader. there came a welcome interruption, however, when i heard the roar of wheels

and rejoiced to see my leyland three-tonner come rolling and heaving over the grass gross, heaped up with tools and sections
of tubing, and bearing my foreman, peters, and a very grimy assistant in front. the two of them set to
work at once to unload my stuff and to carry it in. leaving them at their work, the manager, with
malone and myself, approached the shaft. it was a wondrous place, on a very much larger scale than i had
imagined. the spoil banks, which represented the thousands of tons removed, had been built up into a great horseshoe around
it, which now made a considerable hill. in the concavity of this horseshoe, composed of chalk, clay, coal, and granite,
there rose up a bristle of iron pillars and wheels from which the pumps and the lifts were operated. they
connected with the brick power building which filled up the gap in the horseshoe. beyond it lay the open mouth

of the shaft, a hug e yawning pit, some thirty or forty feet in diameter, lined and topped with brick and
cement. as i craned my neck over the side and gazed down into the dreadful abyss, which i had been
assured was eight miles deep, my brain reeled at the thought of what it represented. the sunlight struck the mouth
of it diagonally, and i could only see some hundreds of yards of dirty white chalk, bricked here and there
where the surface had seemed unstable. even as i looked, however, i saw, far, far down in the darkness, a
tiny speck of light, the smallest possible dot, but clear and steady against the inky background. what is that light?
i asked. malone bent over the parapet beside me. that s one of the cages coming up, said he. rather
wonderful, is it not? that is a mile or more from us, and that little gleam is a powerful arc
lamp. it travels quickly, and will be here in a few minutes. sure enough the pin-point of light came larger
and larger, until it flooded the tube with its silvery radiance, and i had to turn away my eyes from

its blinding glare. a moment mement later the iron cage clashed up to the landing stage, and four men crawled out
of it and passed on to the entrance. nearly all in, said malone. it is no joke to do a
two-hour shift at that depth. well, some of your stuff is ready to hand here. i suppose the best thing
we can do is to go down. then you will be able to judge the situation for yourself. there was
an annexe to the engine-house into which he led me. a number of baggy suits of the lightest tussore material

were hanging from the wall. following malone s example i took off every stitch of my clothes cloths, and put on
one of these suits, together with a pair of rubber-soled slippers. malone finished before i did and left the dressing-room.
a moment later i heard a noise like ten dog-fights rolled into one, and rushing out i found my
my own?” “malaish! it shall be as your will is, excellency,” answered selamlik pasha, in a shaking voice; and he
had time to wonder even then how an englishman could so outwit an oriental. it was no matter how mustapha
bey, his son, was lured; he had been seized in the harem, and all truth can be forsworn in egypt,
and the game was with this donovan pasha. “send to your palace, commanding that the englishman be brought here,” said
dicky. selamlik pasha did so. sowerby of the mounted infantry was freed that night, and the next day dicky donovan
had six circassian slaves upon his hands. he passed them over to the wife of fielding bey with whom he
had shared past secrets and past dangers. selamlik pasha held his peace in fear; and the khedive and cairo never

knew why there was a truce to battle between dicky donovan and that vile pasha called trousers. at the mercy
of tiberius in a certain

donovan
year when dicky donavan was the one being in egypt egypty who had any restraining influence on the
khedive, he suddenly
asked leave of absence to visit england. ismail granted it with reluctance, chiefly because he disliked any interference with his

comforts, and dicky was one of them -- -- in some respects the most important. “my friend,” he said half petulantly

to dicky, as he tossed the plans for a new palace to his secretary and dismissed him, “ are you not
happy here? have you not all a prince can give?” “highness,” answered dicky, “i have kith and kin in england.
shall a man forget his native land?” the khedive yawned, lighted a cigarette, and murmured through the smoke: “inshallah! it

might be pleasant -- -- betimes.” “i have your highness s leave to go?” asked dicky. “may god preserve your head

from harm!” answered ismail in farewell salutation, and, taking a ring from form his finger set with a large emerald, he

gave it to dicky. “gold is scarce in egypt,” he went on, “but there are jewels still in the palace --
-- and the khedive s promises-to-pay with every money - - barber of europe!” he added, with a cynical sneer, and touched
his forehead and his breast courteously as dicky retired. outside the presence dicky unbuttoned his coat like an englishman again,

and ten then minutes later flung his tarboosh into a corner of the room; for the tarboosh was the sign of
official servitude, and dicky was never the perfect official. initiative was his strong point, independence his life; he loathed the
machine of system in so far as he could not command it; he revolted at being a cog in the
wheel. ismail had discovered this, and dicky had been made a kind of confidential secretary who seldom wrote a line.
by his influence with ismail he had even more power at last than the chief eunuch or the valet-de-chambre, before
whom the highest officials bowed low. he was hated profoundly by many of the household, cultivated by certain of the
ministers, fawned upon by outsiders, trusted by the khedive, and entirely believed in by the few englishmen and frenchmen who
worked for decent administration faithfully but without hope and sometimes with nausea. it was nausea that had seized upon dicky

at last, nausea and one other thing -- -- the spirit of adventure, an inveterate curiosity. his was the instinct of
the explorer, his feet were the feet of the wandering jew. he knew things behind closed doors by instinct; he
was like a thought- reader in the sure touch of discovery; the khedive looked upon him as occult almost and

laughed in the face of sadik the mouffetish when he said some evil things of dicky. also, the khedive told
the mouffetish that if any harm came to dicky there would come harm to him. the khedive loved to play
one man off against another, and the death of sadik or the death of dicky would have given him no
pain, if either seemed necessary. for the moment, however, he loved them both after his fashion; for sadik lied to
him, and squeezed the land dry, and flailed it with kourbashes for gold for his august master and himself; and

dicky told him the truth about everything -- -- which gave the khedive knowledge of how he really stood all round.

dicky told the him great spendthrift the truth about himself; but he did not tell the truth when he said he
was going to england on a visit to his kith and kin. seized by the most irresistible curiosity of his
life, moved by desire for knowledge, that a certain plan in his mind might be successfully advanced he went south
and east, not west and north. for four months egypt knew him not. for four months the khedive was never
told the truth save by european financiers financirs, when truths were obvious facts; for four long months never saw a
fearless
or an honest eye in his own household. not that it mattered in one sense; but ismail was a man
of ideas, a sportsman of a sort, an iniquity with points; a man who chose the broad way because it
was easier, not because he was remorseless. at the start he meant well by his people, but he meant better
by himself; and not being able to satisfy both sides of the equation, he satisfied one at the expense of
the other and of that x quantity otherwise known as europe. now europe was heckling him; the settling of accounts
was near. commissioners had been sent to find where were the ninety millions he had borrowed. only ismail and sadik
the mouffetish, once slave and foster-brother, could reply. the khedive could not long stave off the evil day when he

must “pay the debt of the lobster,” and sadik give account of his stewardship. meanwhile meanshile, his mind turned to
the
resourceful little englishman with the face of a girl and the tongue of an honest man. but the day dicky
had set for his return had come and gone, and dicky himself had not appeared. with a grim sort of
satisfaction, harmonious with his irritation, ismail went forth with his retinue to the dosah, the gruesome celebration of the prophet
s birthday, following on the return of the pilgrimage from mecca. at noon he entered his splendid tent at one

side of a square made of splendid tents, and looked out listlessly, yet sourly, upon the vast crowds assembled -- --
upon the lines of banners, the red and green pennons embroidered with phrases from the koran. his half-shut, stormy eyes
fell upon the tent of the chief of the dervishes, and he scarcely checked a sneer, for the ceremony to
be performed appealed to nothing in him save a barbaric instinct, and this barbaric instinct had been veneered by french
civilisation and pierced by the criticism of one honest man. his look fell upon the long pathway whereon, for three
hundred yards, matting had been spread. it was a field of the cloth of blood; for on this cloth dervishes
returned from mecca, mad with fanaticism and hashish, would lie packed like herrings, while the sheikh of the dosah rode
his horse over their bodies, a pavement of human flesh and bone. as the khedive looked, his lip curled a
little, for he recalled what dicky donovan had said about it; how he had pleaded against it, describing loathsome wounds
and pilgrims done to death. dicky had ended his brief homily by saying: “and isn t that a pretty dish
to set before a king!” to ismail s amusement; for he was no good mussulman, no mussulman at all, in
fact, save in occasional violent prejudices got of inheritance and association. to-day, however, ismail was in a bad humour with
dicky and with the world. he had that very morning flogged a soldier senseless with his own hand; he
of the members and their friends. they kept it open every day and night during their reign, and in a
suite of rooms in the capitol they established a brothel. from the galleries a swarm of courtesans daily smiled on
their favourites on the floor. the printing had never cost the state more than eight thousand dollars in any one

year. this year it cost four hundred and eighty thousand. legree drew thousands thousnads of warrants on the state for
imaginary
persons. there were eight pages in the house. he drew pay for one hundred and fifty-six pages. in this way
he raised an enormous corruption fund for immediate use in bribing the lawmakers to carry through his schemes. the railroad
ring was his most effective group of brigands. they passed bills authorising the issue of twenty-five millions of dollars in
bonds, and actually issued and stole fourteen millions, and never built one foot of railroad. when legree s movement was
at its high tide, ezra perkins sought uncle pete sawyer one night in behalf of a pet measure of his
pending in the house. peter was seated by his table counting by the light of a candle three big piles
of gold. his face was wreathed in smiles. “peter, you seem well pleased with the world tonight?” said ezra gleefully.
“well, brudder, you see dem piles er yaller money?” “yes, it is a fine sight.” uncle pete smacked his lips
and grinned from ear to ear. “well, brudder, i tells you. i ben sol seben times in my life, but

dat
fore gawd dot s de fust time i ebber got de money!” uncle pete dreamed that night that congress passed

a law low extending the blessings of a “republican form of government” to north noth carolina for forty years and that the
legislature never adjourned. but the legislature finally closed, and in a drunken revel which lasted all night. they had bankrupted
the state, destroyed its school funds, and increased its debt from sixteen to forty-two millions of dollars, without adding one

cent to its wealth or power. legree then organised a municipal and county country ring to exploit the towns, cities, and
counties, having passed a bill vacating all county and city offices. this ring secured the control of hambright and levied
a tax of twenty-five per cent for municipal purposes! tom camp s little home was assessed for eighty-five dollars in
taxes. mrs. gaston s home was assessed for one hundred and sixty dollars. they could have raised a million as
easily as the sum of these assessments. it cost the united states government two hundred millions of dollars that year
to pay the army required to guard the legrees and their “loyal” men while they were thus establishing and maintaining

“a republican form of government” in the south. it was the bluest monday the rev. john durham jurham ever remembered in

his ministry. a long been burnt in a prairie fire. the fly had destroyed the wheat crop and the cotton was dying
in
had been burnt in a prairie fire. the fly had destroyed the wheat crop and the cotton was dying in

the blistering sun of august, and a blight worse than drought dourght, or flood, or pestilence, brooded over the stricken land,
flinging the shadow of its black death over every home. the tax gatherer of the new “republican form of government,”
recently established in north carolina now demanded his pound of flesh. the sunday before had been a peculiarly hard one
for the preacher. he had tried by the sheer power of personal sympathy to lift the despairing people out of
their gloom and make strong their faith in god. in his morning sermon he had torn his heart open and
given them its red blood to drink. at the night service he could not rally from the nerve tension of
the morning. he felt that he had pitiably failed. the whole day seemed a failure black and hopeless. all day
long the sorrowful stories of ruin and loss of homes were poured into his ear. the sheriff had advertised for

sale for taxes two thousand three there hundred and twenty homes in campbell county. country. the land under such
conditions had no
value. it was only a formality for the auctioneer to cry it and knock it down for the amount of
the tax bill. as he arose from bed with the burden of all this hopeless misery crushing his soul, a
sense of utter exhaustion and loneliness came over him. “my love, i must go back to bed and try to
sleep. i lay awake last night until two o clock. i can t eat anything,” he said to his wife
as she announced breakfast. “john, dear, don t give up like that.” “can t help it.” “but you must. come,
here is something that will tone you up. i found this note under the front door this morning.” “what is

it?” “a notice from some of your admirers that you must leave this county country in forty-eight hours or take the
consequences.” he looked at this anonymous letter and smiled. “not such a failure after all, am i?” he mused. “i
thought that would help you,” she laughed. “yes, i can eat breakfast on the strength of that.” he spread this
letter out beside his plate, and read and reread it as he ate, while his eyes flashed with a strange
half humourous light. “really, that s fine, isn t it?” “you sower of sedition and rebellion, hypocrite and false prophet.
the day has come to clean this county of treason and traitors. if you dare to urge the people to
further resistance to authority, there will be one traitor less in this county.” “that sounds like the voice of a
daniel come to judgment, don t it?” “i think ezra perkins might know something about it.” “i am sure of
it.” “well, i m duly grateful, it s done for you what your wife couldn t do, cheered you up
this morning.” “that is so, isn t it? it takes a violent poison sometimes to stimulate the heart s action.”
“now if you will work the garden for me, where i ve been watering it the past month, you will

be yourself by be dinner time.” “i will. that s about all we ve got to eat. i ve had no
salary in two months, and i ve no prospects for the next two months.” he was at work in the
garden when charlie gaston suddenly ran through the gate toward him. his face was red, his eyes streaming with tears,
and his breath coming in gasps. “doctor, they ve killed nelse! mama says please come down to our house as
quick as you can.” “is he dead, charlie?” “he s most dead. i found him down in the woods lying
in a gully, one leg is broken, there s a big gash over his eye, his back is beat to
a jelly, and one of his arms is broken. we put him in the wagon, and hauled him to the
house. i m afraid he s dead now. oh me!” the boy broke down and choked with sobs. “run, charlie,
for the doctor, and i ll be there in a minute.” the boy flew through the gate to the doctor
s house. when the preacher reached mrs. gaston s, aunt eve was wiping the blood from nelse s mouth. “de

lawd hab mussy! my po ole man s done kilt.” “who could have done this, eve?” “dem union leaguers. leagurers. dey
say doy wuz gwine ter kill him fur not jinin em, en fur tryin ter vote ergin em.” “i ve

been afraid of it,” sighed the i wish i d a been better ter im. lawd jesus, help me now!” eve
if the red tam-o -shanter expressed, so to speak, the key-note of st. agatha s, the proximity of the school
was not so bad a thing after all. in high good-humor and with a sharp appetite i went in to
luncheon. “the persimmons are off the place, sir. mr. glenarm was very fond of the fruit.” i had never seen

frost
a persimmon before, but i was in a mood for experiment. the front-broken rind was certainly forbidding, but the rich

pulp brought a surprise of joy to my palate. watched plate. bates watch me with respectful satisfaction. his
gravity was in no
degree diminished by the presence of a neat strip of flesh-colored court-plaster over his right eye. a faint suggestion of
arnica hung in the air. “this is a quiet life,” i remarked, wishing to give him an opportunity to explain
his encounter of the morning. “you are quite right, sir. as your grandfather used to say, it s a place

of peace.” “when nobody shoots at you through a window,” i suggested. “such a thing is likely to happen to
any gentleman,” he replied, “but not likely to happen more than once, if you ll allow the philosophy.” he did
not refer to his encounter with the caretaker, and i resolved to keep my knowledge of it to myself. i
always prefer to let a rascal hang himself, and here was a case, i reasoned, where, if bates were disloyal
to the duties pickering had imposed upon him, the fact of his perfidy was bound to disclose itself eventually. glancing
around at him when he was off guard i surprised a look of utter dejection upon his face as he
stood with folded arms behind my chair. he flushed and started, then put his hand to his forehead. “i met
with a slight accident this morning, sir. the hickory s very tough, sir. a piece of wood flew up and
struck me.” “too bad!” i said with sympathy. “you d better rest a bit this afternoon.” “thank you, sir; but

it s a small matter,- - only, you might think it a trifle disfiguring.” he struck a match for my cigarette, and
i left without looking at him again. but as i crossed the threshold of the library i formulated this note:
“bates is a liar, for one thing, and a person with active enemies for another; watch him.” all things considered,
the day was passing well enough. i picked up a book, and threw myself on a comfortable divan to smoke
and reflect before continuing my explorations. as i lay there, bates brought me a telegram, a reply to my message

:
to pickering. it read . “yours announcing arrival received and filed.” it was certainly a queer business, my errand to glenarm.
i lay for a couple of hours dreaming, and counted the candles in the great crystal chandelier until my eyes
ached. then i rose, took my cap, and was soon tramping off toward the lake. there were several small boats
and a naphtha launch in the boat-house. i dropped a canoe into the water and paddled off toward the summer
colony, whose gables and chimneys were plainly visible from the glenarm shore. i landed and roamed idly over leaf-strewn walks
past nearly a hundred cottages, to whose windows and verandas the winter blinds gave a dreary and inhospitable air. there
was, at one point, a casino, whose broad veranda hung over the edge of the lake, while beneath, on the
water-side, was a boat-house. i had from this point a fine view of the lake, and i took advantage of
it to fix in my mind the topography of the region. i could see the bold outlines of glenarm house
and its red-tile roofs; and the gray tower of the little chapel beyond the wall rose above the wood with
a placid dignity. above the trees everywhere hung the shadowy smoke of autumn. i walked back to the wharf, where
i had left my canoe, and was about to step into it when i saw, rocking at a similar landing-place
near-by, another slight craft of the same type as my own, but painted dark maroon. i was sure the canoe

had not been there when i landed. possibly possible it belonged to morgan, the caretaker. i walked over and examined it.
i even lifted it slightly in the water to test its weight. the paddle lay on the dock beside me

and it, too, i weighed critically, deciding that it was a trifle light for my own taste. “please- - if you don

t mind - -” i turned to stand face to face with the girl in the red tam-o -shanter. “i beg your
pardon,” i said, stepping away from the canoe. she did not wear the covert coat of the morning, but a
red knit jacket, buttoned tight about her. she was young with every emphasis of youth. a pair of dark blue

eyes examined me with good-humored curiosity. she was on good terms with the sun- - i rejoiced in the brown of her

cheeks, so eloquent of companionship with the outdoor world- - a certificate indeed of the favor of heaven. show me, in october,
a girl with a face of tan, whose hands have plied a paddle or driven a golf-ball or cast a

fly beneath the blue arches of summer summor, and i will suffer her scorn in joy. she may vote me dull
and refute my wisest word with laughter, for hers are the privileges of the sisterhood of diana; and that soft
bronze, those daring fugitive freckles beneath her eyes, link her to times when pan whistled upon his reed and all
the days were long. she had approached silently and was enjoying, i felt sure, my discomfiture at being taken unawares.
i had snatched off my cap and stood waiting beside the canoe, feeling, i must admit, a trifle guilty at

being caught in the unwarrantable inspection of another person s property- - particularly a person so wholly pleasing to the eye. “really,

if you don t need that paddle any more - -” i looked down and found to my annoyance that i held

it in my hand,- - was in fact leaning upon it with a cool air of proprietorship. “again, i beg your pardon,”

i said. “i hadn t expected - -” she eyed me calmly with the stare of the child that arrives at a
drawing-room door by mistake and scrutinizes the guests without awe. i didn t know what i had expected or had

not expected, and she manifested no intention of helping me to explain. her short skirt suggested fifteen or sixteen- - not more- - and
such being the case there was no reason why i should not be master of the situation. as i fumbled

my pipe the hot coals of tobacco tabacco burned my hand and i cast the thing from me. she laughed a

little and watched the pipe bound from the dock into the water. “too bad!” she said, her eyes upon it ; ,
“but if you hurry you may get it before it floats away.” “thank you for the suggestion,” i said. but
i did not relish the idea of kneeling on the dock to fish for a pipe before a strange school-girl

who was, i felt sure, anxious to laugh at me. she took a step toward towards the line by which
recovered his serenity by this time, and his eyes twinkled as he spoke of his own won exploits. “i gets drunk
with them. that s how i does it.” “oh, indeed.” “yes, that s how it s worked. lord love ye,
when these fust-class certificated, second-cousin-to-an-earl merchant skippers comes out they move about among the chiefs and talks down to
them

as if they was tin methuselahs on wheels. the almighty s great coat coatt wouldn t make a waistcoat for some

o these blokes. now when i gets among em i has em all into the cabin cahin, though they re black
an naked, an the smell ain t over an above pleasant. then i out with the rum and it s
help yourself an pass the bottle. pretty soon, d ye see, their tongues get loosened, and as i lie low

an keep dark i gets a pretty good idea o a what s in the market. then when i knows what
s to be got, it s queer if i don t manage to get it. besides, they like a little
notice, just as christians does, and they remembers me because i treat them well.” “an excellent plan, miggs--a capital plan!”

said the senior partner. “you are an invaluable servant.” “well ,” , “the captain said, rising from his chair, “i m getting
a great deal too dry with all this palaver. i don t mind gettin drunk with nigger chiefs, but i
m darned if i ll--” he paused, but the grim smile on his companion s face showed that he appreciated

the compliment. “ i say,” he continued, giving his employer a confidential nudge with his elbow eblow, “suppose we d gone
down
in the bay this last time, you d ha been a bit out in your reckoning--eh, what?” “why so?” “well,
we were over-insured on our outward passage. an accident then might ha put thousands in your pocket, i know. coming

back, though, the cargo was worth more than the insurance, i reckon. you d a ha been out o pocket if

we d foundered. it would habeen beeb a case o the engineer hoisted on his own peter, as shakspere says.”
“we take our chance of these things,” the merchant said with dignity. “well, good morning, guv nor,” captain hamilton miggs
said brusquely. “when you wants me you can lay your hands on me at the old crib, the cock and
cowslip , rotherhithe.” as he passed out through the office, ezra rejoined his father. “he s a curious chap,” he remarked,

jerking his head in the direction which miggs had taken. “i heard heard him bellowing like a bull, so i thought

i had best listen to what he had to say. he s a useful servant, though.” “the fellow s half

on so
a savage himself,” his father said. “he s in his element among them. that s why he gets not, but his

well with them.” “he doesn t seem much the worse for the climate, either.” “his body does not, but his
soul, ezra, his soul? however, to return to business. i wish you to see the underwriters and pay the premium
of the black eagle . if you see your way to it, increase the policy; but do it carefully, ezra, and
with tact. she will start about the time of the equinoctial gales. if anything should happen to her, it would
be as well that the firm should have a margin on the right side.” edinburgh university may call herself with
grim jocoseness the “alma mater” of her students, but if she be a mother at all she is one of
a very heroic and spartan cast, who conceals her maternal affection with remarkable success. the only signs of interest which
she ever designs to evince towards her alumni are upon those not infrequent occasions when guineas are to be demanded
from them. then one is surprised to find how carefully the old hen has counted her chickens, and how promptly
the demand is conveyed to each one of the thousands throughout the empire who, in spite of neglect, cherish a
sneaking kindness for their old college. there is symbolism in the very look of her, square and massive, grim and
grey, with never a pillar or carving to break the dead monotony of the great stone walls. she is learned,
she is practical, and she is useful. there is little sentiment or romance in her composition, however, and in this

she does but conform to the instinct s of the nation of which she is the youngest but the most flourishing
teacher. a lad coming up to an english university finds himself in an enlarged and enlightened public school. if he
has passed through harrow and eton there is no very abrupt transition between the life which he has led in
the sixth form and that which he finds awaiting him on the banks of the cam and the isis. certain
rooms are found for him which have been inhabited by generations of students in the past, and will be by
as many in the future. his religion is cared for, and he is expected to put in an appearance at

hall and at chapel. he must be within bounds at a fixed time. if he behave indecorously he is liable libale
to be pounced upon and reported by special officials, and a code of punishments is hung perpetually over his head.
in return for all this his university takes a keen interest in him. she pats him on the back if
he succeeds. prizes and scholarships, and fine fat fellowships are thrown plentifully in his way if he will gird up
his loins and aspire to them. there is nothing of this in a scotch university. the young aspirant pays his
pound, and finds himself a student. after that he may do absolutely what he will. there are certain classes going
on at certain hours, which he may attend if he choose. if not, he may stay away without the slightest
remonstrance from the college. as to religion, he may worship the sun, or have a private fetish of his own
upon the mantelpiece of his lodgings for all that the university cares. he may live where he likes, he may

keep what hours he choose s , and he is at liberty to break every commandment in the decalogue as long as

he behaves himself with some approach to decency within the academical precincts. pecincts. in every way he is absolutely
his own
master. examinations are periodically held, at which he may appear or not, as he chooses. the university is a great

unsympathetic machine, taking in a stream of raw- boned bowed cartilaginous youths at one end, and turning them out at the
other
as learned divines, astute lawyers, and skilful medical men. of every thousand of the raw material about six hundred emerge
at the other side. the remainder are broken in the process. the merits and faults of this scotch system are

alike evident. left entirely to his own devices in a far from moral city, many a lad falls at the
very starting-point of his life s race, never to rise again. many become idlers or take to drinks, while others,
after wasting time and money which they could ill afford, leave the college with nothing learned save vice. on the
other hand, those whose manliness and good sense keep them straight have gone through a training which lasts them for
life. they have been tried, and have not been found wanting. they have learned self-reliance, confidence, and, in a word,
have become men of the world while their confreres in england are still magnified schoolboys. high up in a third
flat in howe street one, thomas dimsdale, was going through his period of probation in a little bedroom and a
large sitting-room, which latter, “letter, “more studentium,” served the purpose of dining-room, parlour, and study. a dingy sideboard, with
four
the quick admiration and fear in her eyes, she leaned suddenly forward and kissed her. a grateful flush overspread the
little girl s features and the pallor that instantly succeeded went straight-way to the sister s heart. “you are not

.
well,” she said quickly and kindly , “you must go to your room at once. i am going to take care

of you-- you -- you are my little sister now.” june lost the subtlety in miss hale s emphasis, but she
fell with instant submission under such gentle authority, and though she could say nothing, her eyes glistened and her lips
quivered, and without looking to hale, she followed his sister out of the room. hale stood still. he had watched
the meeting with apprehension and now, surprised and grateful, he went to helen s parlour and waited with a hopeful

heart. when his sister entered, he rose eagerly: “well --” -- “ he said, stopping suddenly, for there were tears of
vexation, dismay and genuine distress on his sister s face. “oh, jack,” she cried, “how could you! how could you!”
hale bit his lips, turned and paced the room. he had hoped too much and yet what else could he

have expected? his sister and june knew as little about each other and each other s lives liver as though they

had occupied different planets. he had forgotten that helen lelen must be shocked by june s inaccuracies of speech and in

a hundred other ways to which he had become accustomed. with him, moreover, the process had been gradual and, moreover ,
he had seen beneath it all. and yet he had foolishly expected helen to understand everything at once. he was
unjust, so very wisely he held himself in silence. “where is her baggage, jack?” helen had opened her trunk and

.
was lifting out the lid , “she ought to change those dusty clothes at once. you d better ring and have

it sent right up.” “no,” said hale, “i will go down and see about it myself.” he returned presently -- --

his face aflame -- -- with june s carpet-bag. “i believe this is all she has,” he said quietly. in spite
of herself helen s grief changed to a fit of helpless laughter and, afraid to trust himself further, hale rose
to leave the room. at the door he was met by the negro maid. “miss helen,” she said with an
open smile, “miss june say she don t want nuttin .” hale gave her a fiery look and hurried out.

june was seated at a window when he went want into her room with her face buried in her arms. she
lifted her head, dropped it, and he saw that her eyes were red with weeping. “are you sick, little girl?”
he asked anxiously. june shook her head helplessly. “you aren t homesick, are you?” “no.” the answer came very faintly.

“don t you like my sister?” the head bowed an emphatic “yes -- -- yes.” “then what is the matter?” “oh,”

she said despairingly, between her sobs, “she -- -- won t--like--me. i never--can--
be-- -- like -- me. i never -- can -- be

-- like her.” hale smiled, but her grief was so sincere that he leaned learned over her and wit h a tender

hand soothed her into quiet. then he went to helen again and he found her he overhauling dresses. “i brought along
several things of different sizes and i am going to try at any rate. oh,” she added hastily, “only of

course until she can get some clothes of her own.” “sure,” said hale, “but --” -- “ his sister waved one
hand and again hale kept still. june had bathed her eyes and was lying down when helen entered, and she

made not the slightest objection to anything anyting the latter proposed. straightway she fell under as complete subjection to
her as
she had done to hale. without a moment s hesitation she drew off her rudely fashioned dress and stood before
helen with the utmost simplicity -- -- her beautiful arms and throat bare and her hair falling about them with the rich
rick gold of a cloud at an autumn sunset. dressed, she could hardly breathe, but when she looked at herself
in the mirrors, she trembled. magic transformation! apparently the chasm between the two had been bridged in a single instant.
helen herself was astonished and again her heart warmed toward the girl, when a little later, she stood timidly under
hale s scrutiny, eagerly watching his face and flushing rosy with happiness under his brightening look. her brother had not

exaggerated -- -- the little girl was really beautiful. when they went down to the dining-room, there was another surprise for
helen hale, for june s timidity was gone and to the wonder of the woman, she was clothed with an
impassive reserve that in herself would have been little less than haughtiness and was astounding in a child. she saw,
too, that the change in the girl s bearing was unconscious and that the presence of strangers had caused it.

it was plain that june s timidity sprang from her love of hale -- -- her fear of not pleasing him
and not pleasing her, his sister, and plain, too, that remarkable self-poise was little june s to command. at the
table june kept her eyes fastened on helen hale. not a movement escaped her and she did nothing that was
not done by one of the others first. she said nothing, but if she had to answer a question, she
spoke with such care and precision that she almost seemed to be using a foreign language. miss hale smiled but
with inward approval, and that night she was in better spirits. “jack,” she said, when he came to bid her

good-night, “i think we d better stay here a few days. i thought though of course you were exaggerating, but she

is very, very lovely. and that manner of hers -- -- well, it passes my understanding. just leave everything to me.”
hale was very willing to do that. he had all trust in his sister s judgment, he knew her dislike
of interference, her love of autocratic supervision, so he asked no questions, but in grateful relief kissed her good-night. the
sister sat for a long time at her window after he was gone. her brother had been long away from
civilization; he had become infatuated, the girl loved him, he was honourable and in his heart he meant to marry

her -- -- that was to her the whole story. she had been mortified by the misstep, but the misstep made,

only one thought had occurred to her -- -- to help him all she could. she had been appalled when she first
fist saw the dusty shrinking mountain girl, but the helplessness and the loneliness of the tired little face touched her,
and she was straightway responsive to the mute appeal in the dark eyes that were lifted to her own with
such modest fear and wonder. now her surprise at her brother s infatuation was abating rapidly. the girl s adoration

of him, her wild beauty, her strange winning personality -- -- as rare and as independent of birth and circumstances as

genius -- -- had soon made that phenomenon plain. and now what was to be done? the girl was quick, observant, imitative
imtative, docile, and in the presence of strangers, her gravity of manner gave the impression of uncanny self-possession. it really
seemed as though anything might be possible. at helen s suggestion, then, the three stayed where they were for a
week, for june s wardrobe was sadly in need of attention. so the week was spent in shopping, driving, and
walking, and rapidly as it passed for helen and hale it was to june the longest of her life, so
filled was it with a thousand sensations unfelt by them. the city had been stirred by the spirit of
the hero abominates), but just the short bluff word and the simple manly ways, with every expression and metaphor drawn

from within his natural range of thought. what a pity it is that he, with his keen appreciation of the soldier
solider, gave us so little of those soldiers who were his own won contemporaries--- the finest, perhaps, that the world has
ever seen! it is true that he wrote a life of the great soldier emperor, but that was the one
piece of hackwork of his career. how could a tory patriot, whose whole training had been to look upon napoleon
as a malignant demon, do justice to such a theme? but the europe of those days was full of material
which he of all men could have drawn with a sympathetic hand. what would we not give for a portrait
of one of murat s light-cavalrymen, or of a grenadier of the old guard, drawn with the same bold strokes

as the rittmeister of gustavus or the archers of the french king s guard in `` “quentin durward ? ”? in his visit

to paris pairs scott must have seen many of those iron men who during the preceding twenty years had been the
scourge and also the redemption of europe. to us the soldiers who scowled at him from the sidewalks in 1814
would have been as interesting and as much romantic figures of the past as the mail-clad knights or ruffling cavaliers

of his novels. a picture from the life of a peninsular veteran, with his views upon the duke, duku would be

as striking as dugald dalgetty from the german wars. but then the no man ever does realize the true interest of
the age in which he happens to live. all sense of proportion is lost, and the little thing hard-by obscures
the great thing at a distance. it is easy in the dark to confuse the fire-fly and the star. fancy,
for example, the old masters seeking their subjects in inn parlours, or st. sebastians, while columbus was discovering america before

their very faces. i have said that i think `` “ivanhoe” the best of scott s novels. i suppose most people
would subscribe to that. but how about the second best? it, speaks well for their general average that there is
hardly one among them which might not find some admirers who would vote it to a place of honour. to

character have a quality

the scottish-born man those novels which deal with scottish life and

of raciness which gives them mortality,” “the antiquary,” and

`` , `` , ``
a place apart. there is a rich humour of the soil in such books as “old mortality ,” “the antiquary ,” and

,
“rob roy ,” which puts them in a different class from the others. his old scottish women are, next to his

has
soldiers, the best series of types that he had drawn. at the same time it must be admitted that merit
which is associated with dialect has such limitations that it can never take the same place as work which makes

an equal appeal to all the world. on the whole, perhaps, `` ,

“quentin durward ,” on account of its wider interests, its
strong character-drawing, and the european importance of the events and people described, would have my vote for the second place.
it is the father of all those sword-and-cape novels which have formed so numerous an addition to the light literature
of the last century. the pictures of charles the bold and of the unspeakable louis are extraordinarily vivid. i can

see those two deadly enemies watching the hounds chasing the herald, and nad clinging to each other in the convulsion of
their cruel mirth, more clearly than most things which my eyes have actually rested upon. the portrait of louis with
his astuteness, his cruelty, his superstition and his cowardice is followed closely from comines, and is the more effective when

s
set up against his bluff and war-like rival. it is not often that historical character work out in their actual

physique exactly as one would picture them to be, but in the high church of innsbruck chruch of
innsbruch i have seen effigies
of louis and charles which might have walked from the very pages of scott-louis, thin, ascetic, varminty; and charles with
the head of a prize-fighter. it is hard on us when a portrait upsets all our preconceived ideas, when, for
example, we see in the national portrait gallery a man with a noble, olive alive-tinted, poetic face, and with a start
read beneath it that it is the wicked judge jeffreys. occasionally, however, as at innsbruck, we are absolutely satisfied. i
have before me on the mantelpiece yonder a portrait of a painting which represents queen mary s bothwell. take it
down and look at it. mark the big head, fit to conceive large schemes; the strong animal face, made to
captivate a sensitive, feminine woman; the brutally forceful features---the mouth with a suggestion of wild boars tusks behind it, the
beard which could bristle with fury: the whole man and his life-history are revealed in that picture. i wonder if

scott had ever seen the original which hangs at the hepburn hephurn family seat? personally, i have always had a
very the last from his

high opinion of a novel which the critics critis have used somewhat harshly, and which came almost the last from his

tired pen. i mean `` .

“count robert of paris .” i am convinced that if it had been the first, instead of

the last, of the series it would have attracted as much attention as `` .“waverley .” i can understand the state of

mind of the expert, who cried out in mingled admiration and despair : `` . “i have studied the conditions of byzantine society

!
all my life, and here comes a scotch lawyer who makes the whole thing clear to me in a flash !”

many men could draw with more or less success norman england, or mediaeval medioeval france, but to reconstruct a
whole dead
civilization in so plausible a way, with such dignity and such minuteness of detail, is, i should think, a most

wonderful tour de force. his failing health showed itself before the end of the novel, but had the latte r half
equalled the first, and contained scenes of such humour as anna comnena reading aloud her father s exploits, or of

crusaders
such majesty as the account of the muster of the very front rank of the novels. i would that he

could not have been gainsaid its rightful place palace in the very front rank of the novels. i would that he
had carried on his narrative, and given us a glimpse of the actual progress of the first crusade. what an
incident! was ever anything in the world s history like it? it had what historical incidents seldom have, a definite

beginning, middle and end, from the half-crazed preaching of peter down to the fall of jerusalem. jersualem. those
leaders! it would

take a second homer to do them justice. jestice. godfrey the perfect soldier and leader, bohemund the unscrupulous and
formidable, tancred
the ideal knight errant, robert of normandy the half-mad hero! here is material so rich that one feels one is
not worthy to handle it. what richest imagination could ever evolve anything more marvellous and thrilling than the actual historical

facts? but what a glorious brotherhood the novels are! think of the pure romance remance of `` “the talisman ”; the
exquisite picture

``
of hebridean life in “the pirate ”; the splendid reproduction of elizabethan england in `` “kenilworth ”; the rich humour of

the ``legend “leyend

,
of montrose ; above all bear in mind that in all that splendid series, written in a coarse age, there
is not one word to offend the most sensitive car, and it is borne in upon one how great and
noble a man was walter scott soil, and how high the service which he did for literature and for humanity. for
that reason his life is good reading, and there it is on the same shelf as the novels. lockhart
and murmured: “thank you.” from the telegraph office at albany over the wires to sing sing s house of death

flew the message: “sentence stayed stayed for three months while the governor considers your pardon. faith and hope eternal. ruth.”
the
next express carried her to him with the copy of the governor s order in her bosom. the warden smiled
and congratulated her. she had long before won his heart, and there was no favour within the limits of law
that he had not granted to the man she loved. ruth looked at gordon tenderly through the barred opening of

his cell. her heart ached as she saw the ashen pallor of his ihs face and the skin beginning to draw
tight and slick across the protruding cheek-bones of his once magnificent face. three years of prison had bent his shoulders
and reduced his giant frame to a mere shadow of his former self. only the eyes had grown larger and

softer, and their gaze gaza now seemed turned within. they burned with a feverish mystic beauty. ruth fixed on him a

look of melting tenderness tnederness and asked: “do you not long for the open fields, the sky and sea, my dear?”
he gazed at her hungrily. “no. sometimes i ve felt a queer homesickness in these dying muscles that thirst for
the open world, but i ve no time to think of mountain or lake, or hear the call of field
or sea---ruth, i can only think of you! i have but one interest, but one desire of soul and body--that
you may be happy. i would be free, not because i fear death or covet life”--his voice sank to a
broken whisper--”but that i might crawl around the earth on my hands and knees and confess my shame and sorrow
that i deserted you.” “hush, hush, my love; i forgive you,” she moaned. “yes, i know; but all time and
eternity will be too short for my repentance.” the woman was sobbing bitterly. “these prison bars,” he went on with
strange elation, “are nothing. the old queer instinct of asceticism within me, that made a preacher of an epicurean and
an athlete, has come back to its kingship. its sublime authority is now supreme. i despise life, and have learned

to live. there is no not task so hard but that the king within demands a harder. there can be no

pain so fierce and cruel but that it calls my soul to laughter. laugher. as for death--” his voice sank to
dreamy notes. “she who comes at last with velvet feet and the tender touch of a pure woman s hand--her
face is radiant, her voice low music. she will speak the end of strife and doubt, and loose these bars.

with friendly smile she will show me the path among the stars starts, until i find the face of god. i

ll tell him i m a son of his who lost the way on life s a great plain, and that
i am sorry for all the pain i ve caused to those who loved me.” [illustration: a cheer suddenly burst
from the crowd and echoed through the court-room.] ruth felt through the bars and grasped his hand, sobbing. “don t,
don t, don t, frank! stop! i cannot endure it!” the warden turned away to hide his face. for three
months ruth went back and forth from sing sing to albany, battling with the governor for gordon s life and
cheering the condemned man with her courage and love. the fatal day of the execution had come, and she was
to wage the last battle of her soul for the life of her love with the man who loved her.
it was a day of storm. the spring rains had been pouring in torrents for a week and the wind
was now dashing against the windows blinding sheets of water. a carriage stopped before the governor s mansion, and two
women wrapped in long cloaks leaped quickly out. the governor was at his desk in his office. there was the
rustle of a woman s dress at his door. he looked and sprang to his feet, trembling. he threw one
hand to his forehead as though to clear his brain, and caught a chair with the other. advancing swiftly toward
him, he saw the white vision of ruth spottswood the night of the ball when he had lost her. the
same dress, the same rounded throat, only the bust a little fuller, and the same beautiful bare arms with the

fingers. great soulful eyes, with

delicate wrists and tapering throat, only the

just gleam of young sunshine in their depths

bust a little
fuller, and the same beautiful bare arms with the
the same flowers on her breast. she walked with lithe, quick grace, and now she was talking in the low
sweet contralto music that had echoed in his soul through the years. “please, governor,” she was saying, as her hot

hand held his, “save my father!” the man s eyes were werer blinking, and he put one hand had to his throat
as though he were about to choke. he looked past the white figure of the girl and saw her mother
kneeling in the corner of the room, the tears streaming down her face and her lips moving in prayer. in
quick tones he called: “ruth!” she leaped to her feet and was before him in a moment, with scarlet face,
dilated eyes and disheveled hair. “you ve won. i give it up.” ruth pressed both hands to her breast and
caught her breath to keep from screaming. he pressed the button on his desk. the clerk appeared. “write out a
full pardon for frank gordon, and call the warden of sing sing!” ruth dropped to her knees, crying: “o lord
god, unto thee i give praise!” in a moment the clerk hurried back to the governor s side and in
startling tones whispered: “the wires are down, sir. i can t get the warden.” the governor snatched his watch from
his pocket. “there is no train for two hours. order me a special!” the despatcher flashed his command for a

clear track as far for as the wires would work, and within fifteen minutes the great engine with its single coach

dashed across the bridge and plunged down the grade toward sing sing, roaring , hissing, screaming its warnings above the splash
and howl of the storm. the governor sat silent with his head resting on his hand, shading his eyes. ruth,
still and pale, gazed out the car window, and, shivering, closed her eyes now and then over the vision of
a cold dead face she feared to see at the journey s end. they had made fifty miles in fifty
minutes, and not a word had been spoken. the governor looked at his watch and leaned over: “cheer up, ruth.
we are making a mile a minute through the storm, over slippery rails. we will make it in time.” suddenly

the emergency brakes came down with a crash, every wheel was locked, and the train slid heavily on the track , s,
hissing, grinding, swaying, the steel rails blazing with sparks. the governor sprang from the car. “we re blocked by a
wreck, sir,” the conductor said, touching his cap. “the high water has undermined the track on the river bank.” within
twenty minutes the engine in front of the wreck was secured, ruth and lucy were in the cab, and the
engineer and fireman stood reading their orders. “gentlemen, i am the governor,” said a voice by their side. they looked

up. “this is a matter of life and death. the life of a man--and the life of the little pale woman
women i helped into your cab. put this engine into sing sing by five minutes to two o clock and
i ll give you a thousand dollars. five hundred for each of you.” the engineer smiled. “we ll do
 palate
miasmatic vapour like a breath of decay, which clung clammily to the plate and dulled all the senses. drawn by

some strange force, from the unfathomable depths below, eerie the eeric shapes sought teh surface, blinking glassily at the
unfamiliar glare they
had exchanged for their native gloom---uncouth creatures bedight with tasselled fringes like weed-growths waving around them, fathom-long,

medusae medusoe with coloured

spots like eyes clustering all over their transparent substance, wriggling sriggling worm-like forms of such elusive matter
that the smallest exposure
to the sun melted them, and they were not. lower down, vast pale shadows creep sluggishly along, happily undistinguishable as

.
yet, but adding a half-familiar flavour to the strange, faint smell that hung about us .” take the whole of that

essay which describes a calm in the tropics, or take the other one `` “sunrise as seen from the crow s-nest , ,”

and you must admit that there have been few finer finger pieces of descriptive english in our time. if i had

to choose a sea library of only a dozen volumes i is should certainly give bullen two tow places. the others? well,

it is so much a matter of individual taste. `` “tom cringle s log” should have one for certain. i hope
boys respond now as they once did to the sharks and the pirates, the planters, and all the rollicking high

spirits of that splendid book. then there is dana s `` .

“two years before the mast .” i should find room also

for stevenson s `` “wrecker” and `` .

“ebb tide .” clark russell deserves a whole shelf for himself, but anyhow you could not

miss out `` “the wreck of the grosvenor ..” marryat, of course, must be represented, and i should pick `` “midshipman easy” and ``
“peter simple” as his samples. then throw in one of melville meville s otaheite books---now far too completely forgotten---

`` “typee” or ``
,
“omoo ,” and as a quite modern flavour kipling s `` “captains courageous” and jack london s `` ,
“sea wolf ,” with conrad s ``
.
“nigger of the narcissus .” then you will have enough to turn your study into a cabin and bring the wash
and surge to your cars, if written words can do it. oh, how one longs for it sometimes when life

grows too artificial, and the old viking blood begins to stir! surely it must linger in all of us, for no
ho man who dwells in an island but had an .
in ancestor in longship or in coracle , still more must the

salt drop tingle in the blood of an american amerian when you reflect that in all that broad continent there is
not one whose forefather did not cross 3000 miles of ocean. and yet there are in the central states millions

and millions of their descendants who have never seen the sea. i have said that `` “omoo” and `` , “typee ,” the books
in which the sailor melville describes his life among the otaheitans, have sunk too rapidly into obscurity. what a charming
and interesting task there is for some critic of catholic tastes and sympathetic judgment to undertake rescue work among the
lost books which would world repay salvage! a small volume setting forth their names and their claims to attention would be
interesting in itself, and more interesting in the material to which it would serve as an introduction. i am sure
there are many good books, possibly there are some great ones, which have been swept away for a time in
the rush. what chance, for example, has any book by an unknown author which is published at a moment of
great national excitement, when some public crisis arrests the popular mind? hundreds have been still-born in this fashion, and are
there none which should have lived among them? now, there is a book, a modern one, and written by a

youth under thirty. it is snaith s `` ,

“broke of covenden ,” and it scarce attained a second edition. i do not
say that it is a classic---i should not like to be positive that it is not---but i am perfectly sure

that the man who wrote it has the possibility of a classic within him. here is another novel--- `` “eight day s, ,”

by forrest. you can t buy by it. you are lucky even if you can find it in a library. yet

nothing ever written will bring the indian mutiny muting home to you as this book will do. here s another which

``
i will warrant you never heard of. it is powell s . “animal episodes .” no, it is not a collection of
dog-and-cat anecdotes, but it is a series of very singularly told stories which deal with the animal side of the
human, and which you will feel have an entirely new flavour if you have a discriminating palate. the book came
out ten years ago, and is utterly unknown. if i can point to three in one small shelf, how many
lost lights must be flitting in the outer darkness! let me hark back for a moment to the subject with
which i began, the romance of travel and the frequent heroism of modern life. i have two books of scientific
exploration here which exhibit both these qualities as strongly as any i know. i could not choose two better books
to put into a young man s hands if you wished to train him first in a gentle and noble
firmness of mind, and secondly in a great love for and interest in all that pertains to nature. the one

is darwin s `` “journal of the voyage of the beagle . .” any discerning eye must have detected long before the `` “origin

of species” appeared, simply on the strength of t his book of travel, that a brain of the first order, united
with many rare qualities of character, had arisen. never was there a more comprehensive mind. nothing was too small and
nothing too great for its alert observation. one page is occupied in the analysis of some peculiarity in the web
of a minute spider, while the next deals with the evidence for the subsidence of a continent and the extinction

.
of a myriad animals , and his sweep of knowledge was so great---botany, geology, zoology, each lending its corroborative aid to
the other. how a youth of darwin s age---he was only twenty-three when in the year 1831 he started round
the world on the surveying ship beagle ---could have acquired such a mass of information fills one with the same wonder,

and is perhaps of the same some nature, as the boy musician who exhibits by instinct the touch of the master.
another quality which one would be less disposed to look for in the savant is a fine contempt for danger,
which is veiled in such modesty that one reads between the lines in order to detect it. when he was
in the argentina, the country outside the settlements was covered with roving bands of horse indians, who gave no quarter
to any whites. yet darwin rode the four hundred miles between bahia and buenos ayres, when even the hardy gauchos

refused to accompany him. personal danger and a hideous death were small things to him compared to a new beetle bettle

or an undescribed fly. the second book to which i alluded is wallace s `` .

“malay archipelago .” there is a strange
similarity in the minds of the two men, the same courage, both moral and physical, the same gentle persistence, the

same catholic knowledge and wide. sweep of mind, the same passion for t t he observation of nature. wallace by a flash
of intuition understood and described in a letter to darwin the cause of the origin of species at the very
time when the latter was publishing a book founded upon twenty years labour to prove the same thesis. what must
have been his feelings when he read that letter? and yet he had nothing to fear, for his book found
no more enthusiastic admirer than the man who had in a sense anticipated it. here also one sees that