Illustration: Tom was fronting the firebrand Dabney like a man. 

THE QUICKENING

By

FRANCIS LYNDEAuthor ofThe Grafters, The Master of Appleby, etc. , etc. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONSBY E. M. ASHE

INDIANAPOLISTHE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANYPUBLISHERS

Copyright 1906Francis Lynde

March

PRESS OFBRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERSBROOKLYN, N. Y. 

To My Mother

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I Bethesda 1

 II The Cedars of Lebanon 11

 III Of the Fathers Upon the Children 21

 IV The Newer Exodus 25

 V The Dabneys of Deer Trace 32

 VI Blue Blood and Red 44

 VII The Prayer of the Righteous 57

 VIII The Backslider 65

 IX The Race to the Swift 75

 X The Shadow of the Rock 90

 XI The Trumpet-Call 99

 XII The Iron in the Forge Fire 107

 XIII A Sister of Charity 116

 XIV On Jordan's Bank 124

 XV Noël 140

 XVI The Bubble, Reputation 145

 XVII Absalom, My Son! 160

 XVIII The Awakening 172

 XIX Issachar 188

 XX Dry Wells 201

 XXI Gilgal 216

 XXII Love 226

 XXIII Tarred Ropes 242

 XXIV The Under-Depths 255

 XXV The Plow in the Furrow 265

 XXVI As With a Mantle 279

 XXVII Swept and Garnished 294

 XXVIII The Burden of Habakkuk 306

 XXIX As Brutes That Perish 319

 XXX Through a Glass Darkly 331

 XXXI The Net of the Fowler 338

 XXXII Whoso Diggeth a Pit 347

 XXXIII The Wine-Press of Wrath 357

 XXXIV The Smoke of the Furnace 366

 XXXV A Soul in Shackles 378

 XXXVI Free Among the Dead 387

 XXXVII Whose Yesterdays Look Backward 399

THE QUICKENING

I

BETHESDA

The revival in Paradise Valley, conducted by the Reverend Silas Crafts, of South Tredegar, was in the middle of its second week, and thefield--to use Brother Crafts' own word--was white to the harvest. 

Little Zoar, the square, weather-tinged wooden church at the head of thevalley, built upon land donated to the denomination in times long pastby an impenitent but generous Major Dabney, stood a little way back fromthe pike in a grove of young pines. By half-past six of the June eveningthe revivalist's congregation had begun to assemble. 

Those who came farthest were first on the ground; and by the timetwelve-year-old Thomas Jefferson, spatting barefooted up the dusty pike, had reached the church-house with the key, there was a goodly sprinklingof unhitched teams in the grove, the horses champing their feed noisilyin the wagon-boxes, and the people gathering in little neighborhoodknots to discuss gravely the one topic uppermost in all minds--thepresent outpouring of grace on Paradise Valley and the regionround-about. 

"D'ye reckon the Elder'll make it this time with his brother-in-law?"asked a tall, flat-chested mountaineer from the Pine Knob uplands. 

"Samantha Parkins, she allows that Caleb has done sinned away his day o'grace, " said another Pine Knobber, "but I ain't goin' that far. Caleb'sa sight like the iron he makes in that old furnace o' his'n--honest andeven-grained, and just as good for plow-points and the like as it is forsoap-kittles. But hot 'r cold, it's just the same; ye cayn't change hit, and ye cayn't change _him_. "

"That's about right, " said a third. "It looks to me like Caleb done sothis stakes where he's goin' to run the furrow. If livin' a dozen yearsand mo' with such a sancterfied woman as Martha Gordon won't make out totoll a man up to the pearly gates, I allow the' ain't no preacher goin'to do it. "

"Well, now; maybe that's the reason, " drawled Japheth Pettigrass, theonly unmarried man in the small circle of listeners; but he was promptlyput down by the tall mountaineer. 

"Hold on thar, Japhe Pettigrass! I allow the' ain't no dyed-in-the-woolhawss-trader like you goin' to stand up and say anything ag'inst MarthyGordon while I'm a-listenin'. I'm recollectin' right now the time whenshe sot up day and night for more'n a week with my Malviny--and mea-smashin' the whisky jug acrost the wagon tire to he'p God to forgithow no-'count and triflin' I'd been. "

Thomas Jefferson had opened the church-house doors and windows and wasout among the unhitched teams looking for Scrap Pendry, who had been oneof a score to go forward for prayers the night before. So it happenedthat he overheard the flat-chested mountaineer's tribute to his mother. It warmed him generously; but there was a boyish scowl for JaphethPettigrass. What had the horse-trader been saying to make it needful forBill Layne to speak up as his mother's defender? Thomas Jeffersonrecorded a black mark against Pettigrass's name, and went on to searchfor Scrap. 

"What you hiding for?" he demanded, when the newly-made convert wasdiscovered skulking in the dusky shadows of the pines beyond thefarthest outlying wagon. 

"I ain't hidin', " was the half-defiant answer. 

"You're a liar, " said Thomas Jefferson coolly, ducking skilfully toescape the consequences. 

But there were no consequences. Young Pendry's heavy face flushed a dullred, --that could be seen even in the growing dusk, --but he made no moveretaliatory. Thomas Jefferson walked slowly around him, wary as a wildcreature of the wood, and to the full as curious. Then he stuck out hishand awkwardly. 

"I only meant it 'over the left, ' Scrap, hope to die, " he said. "Iallowed I'd just like to know for sure if what you done last night madeany difference. "

Scrap was silent, glibness of tongue not being among the gifts of theEast Tennessee landward bred. But he grasped the out-thrust handheartily and crushed it forgivingly. 

"Come on out where the folks are, " urged Thomas Jefferson. "Sim Cantrelland the other fellows are allowin' you're afeard. "

"I ain't afeard, " denied the convert. 

"No; but you're sort o' 'shamed, and that's about the same thing, Ireckon. Come on out; I'll go 'long with you. "

Then spake the new-born love in the heart of the big, rough, countryboy. "I cayn't onderstand how you can hold out, Tom-Jeff. I've comethoo', praise the Lord! but I jest natchelly _got_ to have stars for mycrown. You say you'll go 'long with me, Tom-Jeff: say it ag'in, and meanit. "

Again the doubtful-curious look came into Thomas Jefferson's gray eyes, and he would not commit himself. Nevertheless, one point was safelyestablished, and it was a point gained: the miraculous thing calledconversion was beyond question real in Scrap's case. He turned to leadthe way between the wagons. The lamps were lighted in the church and thepeople were filling the benches, while the choir gathered around thetuneless little cottage organ to practise the hymns. 

"I--I'm studyin' about it some, Scrap, " he confessed, half angry withhimself that the admission sent the blood to his cheeks. "Let's go in. "

It was admitted on all sides that Brother Crafts was a powerfulpreacher. Other men had wrestled mightily in Zoar, but none to suchheart-shaking purpose. When he expatiated on the ineffable glories ofHeaven and the joys of the redeemed, which was not too often, thereflection of the celestial effulgences could be seen rippling likesunshine on the sea of faces spreading away from the shore of the pulpitsteps. When he spoke of hell and its terrors, which was frequently andwith thrilling descriptive, even so hardened a scoffer as JaphethPettigrass was wont to declare that you could hear the crackling of theflames and the cries of the doomed. 

The opening exercises were over--the Bible reading, the long, impassioned prayer, the hymn singing--and the preacher stood up in ahush that could be felt, and stepped forward to the small desk whichserved for a pulpit. 

He was a tall man, thin and erect, with a sallow, beardless faceunrelieved by any line of mobility, but redeemed and almost glorified bythe deep-set, eager, burning eyes. He had a way of bending to hisaudience when he spoke, with one long arm crooked behind him and theother extended to mark the sentences with a pointing finger, as if toremove the final trace of impersonality; to break down the last of thebarriers of reserve which might be thrown up by the impenitent heart. 

The hush remained unbroken till he announced his text in a voice thatrang like an alarm-bell pealed in the dead of night. There are voicesand voices, but only now and then one which is pitched in the key of thespheral harmonies. When the Reverend Silas hurled out the Baptist'swords, _Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!_ the responsivethrill from the packed benches was like the sympathetic vibration ofharp-strings answering a trumpet blast. 

The thin, large-jointed hand went up for silence, as if there could be asilence more profound than that which already hung on his word. Then hebegan slowly, and in phrase so simple that the youngest child could notfail to follow him, to draw the picture of that Judean morning scene onthe banks of the Jordan, of the wild, unkempt, skin-clad forerunner, thundering forth his message to a sin--cursed world. On what deaf earshad it fallen among the multitude gathered on Jordan's bank! On whatdeaf ears would it fall in Zoar church this night!

He classed them rapidly, and with a prescient insight into the mazes ofhuman frailty that made it seem as if the doors of all hearts were opento him: the Pharisee, who paid tithes--mint, anise and cummin--andprayed daily on the street corners, and saw no need for repentance; theyouth and the maiden, with their lips to the brimming cup of worldlypleasures, saying to the faithful monitor, yet a little while longer andwe will hear thee; the man and woman grown, fighting the battle forbread, living toilfully for time and the things that perish, and hearingthe warning voice faintly and ever more faintly as the years pass; theaged, steeped and sodden in sin unrepented of, and with the spiritualsenses all dulled and blunted by lifelong rebellion, willing now to hearand obey, it might be, but calling in vain on the merciful andlong-suffering God they had so long rejected. 

Then, suddenly, he passed from pleading to denunciation. The setting ofThe Great White Throne and the awful terrors of the Judgment Day weredepicted in words that fell from the thin lips like the sentence of aninexorable judge. 

"'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for thedevil and his angels!'" he thundered, and a shudder ran through thecrowded church as if an earthquake had shaken the valley. "There is yourend, impenitent soul; and, alas! for you, it is only the beginning of afearful eternity! Think of it, you who have time to think of everythingbut the salvation of your soul, your sins, and the awful doom which isawaiting you! Think of it, you who are throwing your lives away in thepleasures of this world; you who have broken God's commands; you whohave stolen when you thought no eye was on you; you who have so oftencommitted murder in your hating hearts! Think not that you will besuffered to escape! Every servant of the most high God who has everdeclared His message to you will be there to denounce you: I, SilasCrafts, will meet you at the judgment-seat of Christ to bear my witnessagainst you!"

A man, red-faced and with the devil of the cup of trembling peering fromunder his shaggy eyebrows, rose unsteadily from his seat on the benchnearest the door. 

"'Sh! he's fotched Tike Bryerson!" flew the whisper from lip to ear; butthe man with the trembling madness in his eyes was backing toward thedoor. Suddenly he stooped and rose again with a backwoodsman's rifle inhis hands, and his voice sheared the breathless silence like the snarlof a wild beast at bay. 

"No, by jacks, ye won't witness ag'inst me, Silas Crafts; ye'll bedead!"

The crack of the rifle went with the words, and at the flash of thepiece the man sprang backward through the doorway and was gone. Happily, he had been too drunk or too tremulous to shoot straight. The preacherwas unhurt, and he was quick to quell the rising tumult and to turn theincident to good account. 

"There went the arrow of conviction quivering to the heart of amurderer!" he cried, dominating the commotion with his marvelous voice. "Come back here, Japheth Pettigrass; and you, William Layne: GodAlmighty will deal with that poor sinner in His own way. For him, forevery impenitent soul here to-night, the hour has struck. 'Now is theaccepted time; now is the day of salvation. ' While we are singing, _Justas I am, without one plea_, let the doors of divine mercy stand openedwide, and let every hard heart be softened. Come, ye disconsolate; comeforward to the mercy-seat as we sing. "

The old, soul-moving, revival hymn was lifted in a triumphant burst ofsound, and Thomas Jefferson's heart began to pound like a trip-hammer. Was this his call--his one last chance to enter the ark of safety? Justthere was the pinch. A saying of Japheth Pettigrass's, overheard inHargis's store on the first day of the meetings, flicked into his mindand stuck there: "Hit's scare, first, last, and all the time, withBrother Silas. He knows mighty well that a good bunch o' hickories, that'll bring the blood every cut, beats a sugar kittle out o' sightwhen it comes to fillin' the anxious seat. " Was it really his call? Orwas he only scared?

The twelve-year-old brain grappled hardily with the problem which hasthrown many an older wrestler. This he knew: that while he had beenlistening with outward ears to the restless champing and stamping of thehorses among the pines, but with his inmost soul to the burning words ofhis uncle, the preacher, a great fear had laid hold of him--a fearmightier than desire or shame, or love or hatred, or any spring ofaction known to him. It was lifting him to his feet; it was edging himpast the others on the bench and out into the aisle with the mournerswho were crowding the space in front of the pulpit platform. At the turnhe heard his mother's low-murmured, "I thank Thee, O God!" and saw thegrim, set smile on his father's face. Then he fell on his knees on therough-hewn floor, with the tall mountaineer called William Layne on hisright, and on his left a young girl from the choir who was sobbingsoftly in her handkerchief. 

 * * * * *

June being the queen of the months in the valleys of Tennessee, therevival converts of Little Zoar had the pick and choice of all theSundays of the year for the day of their baptizing. 

The font was of great nature's own providing, as was the mighty templehousing it, --a clear pool in the creek, with the green-walled aisles inthe June forest leading down to it, and the blue arch of the flawlessJune sky for a dome resplendent. 

All Paradise was there to see and hear and bear witness, as a matter ofcourse; and there were not wanting farm-wagon loads from the greatvalley and from the Pine Knob highlands. Major Dabney was among theonlookers, sitting his clean-limbed Hambletonian, and twisting his hugewhite mustaches until they stood out like strange and fierce-lookinghorns. Also, in the outer ranks of skepticism, Major Dabney's foremanand horse-trader, Japheth Pettigrass, found a place. On the oppositebank of the stream were the few negroes owning Major Dabney now as"Majah Boss, " as some of them, --most of them, in fact--had once ownedhim as "Mawstuh Majah"; and mingling freely with them were the laborers, white and black, from the Gordon iron-furnace. 

Thomas Jefferson brought up memories from that solemn rite administeredso simply and yet so impressively under the June sky, with themany-pointing forest spires to lift the soul to heights ecstatic. Onewas the singing of the choir, minimized and made celestially sweet bythe lack of bounding walls and roof. Another was the sight of hisfather's face, with the grim smile gone, and the steadfast eyes gravelytolerant as he--Thomas Jefferson--was going down into the water. Athird--and this might easily become the most lasting of all--was thememory of how his mother clasped him in her arms as he came up out ofthe water, all wet and dripping as he was, and sobbed over him as if herheart would break. 

II

THE CEDARS OF LEBANON

Thomas Jefferson's twelfth summer fell in the year 1886; a yearmemorable in the annals of the Lebanon iron and coal region as the firstof an epoch, and as the year of the great flood. But the herald ofchange had not yet blown his trumpet in Paradise Valley; and the worldof russet and green and limestone white, spreading itself before theeyes of the boy sitting with his hands locked over his knees on the topstep of the porch fronting the Gordon homestead, was the same worldwhich, with due seasonal variations, had been his world from thebeginning. 

Centering in the broad, low, split-shingled house at his back, itwidened in front to the old-fashioned flower garden, to the dooryardwith its thick turf of uncut Bermuda grass, to the white pike splotchedby the shadows of the two great poplars standing like sentinels oneither side of the gate, to the wooded hills across the creek. 

It was a hot July afternoon, a full month after the revival, and ThomasJefferson was at that perilous pass where Satan is said to lurk for thepurpose of providing employment for the idle. He was wondering if theshade of the hill oaks would be worth the trouble it would take toreach it, when his mother came to the open window of the living-room: asmall, fair, well-preserved woman, this mother of the boy of twelve, with light brown hair graying a little at the temples, and eyesremindful of vigils, of fervent beseeching, of mighty wrestlings againstprincipalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. 

"You, Thomas Jefferson, " she said gently, but speaking as one havingauthority, "you'd better be studying your Sunday lesson than sittingthere doing nothing. "

"Yes'm, " said the boy, but he made no move other than to hug his knees alittle closer. He wished his mother would stop calling him "ThomasJefferson. " To be sure, it was his name, or at least two-thirds of it;but he liked the "Buddy" of his father, or the "Tom-Jeff" of otherpeople a vast deal better. 

Further, the thought of studying Sunday lessons begot rebellion. Attimes, as during those soul-stirring revival weeks, now seeminglyreceding into a far-away past, he had moments of yearning to be whollysanctified. But the miracle of transformation which he had confidentlyexpected as the result of his "coming through" was still unwrought. WhenJohn Bates or Simeon Cantrell undertook to bully him, as aforetime, there was the same intoxicating experience of all the visible worldgoing blood-red before his eyes--the same sinful desire to slay them, one or both. And as for Sunday lessons on a day when all outdoors wasbeckoning--

He stole a glance at the open window of the living-room. His mother hadgone about her housework, and he could hear her singing softly, asbefitted the still, warm day:

 "O for a heart to praise my God!"

and it nettled him curiously. All hymns were beginning to have thateffect, and this one in particular always renewed the conflict betweenthe yearning for sanctity and a desire to do something desperatelywicked; the only middle course lay in flight. Hence, the battle beingfairly on, he stole another glance at the window, sprang afoot, and ransilently around the house and through the peach orchard to clamber overthe low stone wall which was the only barrier on that side between thewilderness and the sown. 

Once under the trees on the mountain side, the pious prompting knockedless clamorously at the door of his heart; and with its abatement thetemptation to say or do the desperate thing became less insistent, also. It was always that way. When he was by himself in the forest, with noparticularly gnawing hunger for righteousness, the devil let him alone. The thick wood was the true whisk to brush away all the naggings andperplexities that swarmed, like house-flies in the cleared lands. NanceJane, the cow that did not know enough to come home at milking-time, knew that. In the hot weather, when the blood-sucking horse-flies andsweat-bees were worst, she would crash through the thickest underbrushand so be swept clean of her tormentors. 

Emulating Nance Jane, Thomas Jefferson stormed through the nearestsassafras thicket and emerged regenerate. What next? High up on themountain side, lifted far above Sunday lessons and soul conflicts andperplexing questions that hung answerless in a person's mind, was aplace where the cedars smelled sweet and the west wind from the "othermountain" plashed cool in your face what time a sun-smitten ParadiseValley was like an oven. It would be three good hours before he wouldhave to go after Nance Jane; and the Sunday lesson--but he had alreadyforgotten about the Sunday lesson. 

Three-quarters of the first hour were gone, and he was warm and thirstywhen he topped the last of the densely-wooded lower slopes and came outon a high, rock-strewn terrace thinly set with mountain cedars. Here hisfeet were on familiar ground, and a little farther on, poised on thevery edge of the terrace and overtopping the tallest trees of the lowerslopes, was the great, square sandstone boulder which was his presentMecca. 

On its outward face the big rock, gray, lichened and weather-worn, was aminiature cliff as high as the second story of a house; and at thiscliff's foot was a dripping spring with a deep, crystalline pool for itsbasin. There was a time when Thomas Jefferson used to lie flat on hisstomach and quench his thirst with his face thrust into the pool. Butthat was when he had got no farther than the Book of Joshua in hisdaily-chapter reading of the Bible. Now he was past Judges, so he kneltand drank from his hands, like the men of Gideon's chosen three hundred. 

His thirst assuaged, he ascended the slope of the terrace to a heightwhence the flat top of the cubical boulder could be reached by the helpof a low-branching tree. The summit of the great rock was one of thesacred places in the temple of the solitudes; and when the earth becametoo thickly peopled for comfort, he would come hither to lie on the verybrink of the cliff overhanging the spring, heels in air, and hands for achin-rest, looking down on a removed world mapping itself in softenedoutlines near and far. 

Men spoke of Paradise as "the valley, " though it was rather a shelteredcove with Mount Lebanon for its background and a semicircular range ofoak-grown hills for its other rampart. Splitting it endwise ran thewhite streak of the pike, macadamized from the hill quarry which, a fullquarter of a century before the Civil War, had furnished the stone forthe Dabney manor-house; and paralleling the road unevenly lay a ribbonof silver, known to less poetic souls than Thomas Jefferson's as TurkeyCreek, but loved best by him under its almost forgotten Indian name ofChiawassee. 

Beyond the valley and its inclosing hills rose the "other mountain, "blue in the sunlight and royal purple in the shadows--the Cumberland:source and birthplace of the cooling west wind that was whisperingsoftly to the cedars on high Lebanon. Thomas Jefferson called theloftiest of the purple distances Pisgah, picturing it as the mountainfrom which Moses had looked over into the Promised Land. Sometime hewould go and climb it and feast his eyes on the sight of the Canaanbeyond; yea, he might even go down and possess the good land, if so theLord should not hold him back as He had held Moses. 

That was a high thought, quite in keeping with the sense of overlordshipbred of the upper stillnesses. To company with it, the home valleystraightway began to idealize itself from the uplifted point of view onthe mount of vision. The Paradise fields were delicately-outlinedsquares of vivid green or golden yellow, or the warm red brown of theupturned earth in the fallow places. The old negro quarters on theDabney grounds, many years gone to the ruin of disuse, were vine-grownand invisible save as a spot of summer verdure; and the manor-houseitself, gray, grim and forbidding to a small boy scurrying past it inthe deepening twilight, was now no more than a great square roof withthe cheerful sunlight playing on it. 

Farther down the valley, near the place where the white pike twisteditself between two of the rampart hills to escape into the great valleyof the Tennessee, the split-shingled roof under which Thomas Jeffersonhad eaten and slept since the earliest beginning of memories became alsoa part of the high-mountain harmony; and the ragged, red iron-ore bedson the slope above the furnace were softened into a blur of joyouscolor. 

The iron-furnace, with its alternating smoke puff and dull red flare, struck the one jarring note in a symphony blown otherwise on greatnature's organ-pipes; but to Thomas Jefferson the furnace was as much apart of the immutable scheme as the hills or the forests or the creekwhich furnished the motive power for its air-blast. More, it stood forhim as the summary of the world's industry, as the white pike was theworld's great highway, and Major Dabney its chief citizen. 

He was knocking his bare heels together and thinking idly of MajorDabney and certain disquieting rumors lately come to Paradise, when thetinkling drip of the spring into the pool at the foot of his perch wasinterrupted by a sudden splash. 

By shifting a little to the right he could see the spring. A girl ofabout his own age, barefooted, and with only her tangled mat of darkhair for a head covering, was filling her bucket in the pool. He broke adry twig from the nearest cedar and dropped it on her. 

"You better quit that, Tom-Jeff Gordon. I taken sight o' you up there, "said the girl, ignoring him otherwise. 

"That's my spring, Nan Bryerson, " he warned her dictatorially. 

The girl looked up and scoffed. Hers was a face made for scoffing: ovaland finely lined, with a laughing mouth and dark eyes that had both thefear and the fierceness of wild things in them. 

"Shucks! it ain't your spring any more'n it's mine!" she retorted. "Hit's on Maje' Dabney's land. "

"Well, don't you muddy it none, " said Thomas Jefferson, with threateningemphasis. 

For answer to this she put one brown foot deep into the pool andwriggled her toes in the sandy bottom. Things began to turn red forThomas Jefferson, and a high, buzzing note, like the tocsin of the bees, sang in his ears. 

"Take your foot out o' that spring! Don't you mad me, Nan Bryerson!" hecried. 

She laughed up at him and flung him a taunt. "You don't darst to getmad, Tommy-Jeffy; _you've got religion_. "

It is a terrible thing to be angry in shackles. There are similes--pentvolcanoes, overcharged boilers and the like--but they are allinadequate. Thomas Jefferson searched for missiles more deadly than drytwigs, found none, and fell headlong--not from the rock, but from grace. "_Damn!_" he screamed; and then, in an access of terrified remorse: "Oh, hell, hell, hell!"

The girl laughed mockingly and took her foot from the pool, not indeference to his outburst, but because the water was icy cold and gaveher a cramp. 

"Now you've done it, " she remarked. "The devil'll shore get ye forsayin' that word, Tom-Jeff. "

There was no reply, and she stepped back to see what had become of him. He was prone, writhing in agony. She knew the way to the top of therock, and was presently crouching beside him. 

"Don't take on like that!" she pleaded. "Times I cayn't he'p bein' mean:looks like I was made thataway. Get up and slap me, if you want to. Iwon't slap back. "

But Thomas Jefferson only ground his face deeper into the thick mat ofcedar needles and begged to be let alone. 

"Go away; I don't want you to talk to me!" he groaned. "You're alwaysmaking me sin!"

"That's because you're Adam and I'm Eve, ain't it? Wasn't you tellin' mein revival time that Eve made all the 'ruction 'twixt the man and God? Ireckon she was right sorry; don't you?"

Thomas Jefferson sat up. 

"You're awfully wicked, Nan, " he said definitively. 

"'Cause I don't believe all that about the woman and the snake and theapple and the man?"

"You'll go to hell when you die, and then I guess you'll believe, " saidThomas Jefferson, still more definitively. 

She took a red apple from the pocket of her ragged frock and gave it tohim. 

"What's that for?" he asked suspiciously. 

"You eat it; it's the kind you like--off 'm the tree right back of JimStone's barn lot, " she answered. 

"You stole it, Nan Bryerson!"

"Well, what if I did? You didn't. "

He bit into it, and she held him in talk till it was eaten to the core. 

"Have you heard tell anything more about the new railroad?" she asked. 

Thomas Jefferson shook his head. "I heard Squire Bates and Major Dabneynaming it one day last week. "

"Well, it's shore comin'--right thoo' Paradise. I heard tell how it wasgoin' to cut the old Maje's grass patch plumb in two, and run rightsmack thoo' you-uns' peach orchard. "

"Huh!" said Thomas Jefferson. "What do you reckon my father'd be doingall that time? He'd show 'em!"

A far-away cry, long-drawn and penetrating, rose on the still air of thelower slope and was blown on the breeze to the summit of the great rock. 

"That's maw, hollerin' for me to get back home with that bucket o'water, " said the girl; and, as she was descending the tree ladder: "Youdidn't s'picion why I give you that apple, did you, Tommy-Jeffy?"

"'Cause you didn't want it yourself, I reckon, " said the second Adam. 

"No; it was 'cause you said I was goin' to hell and I wanted comp'ny. That apple was stole and you knowed it!"

Thomas Jefferson flung the core far out over the tree-tops and shut hiseyes till he could see without seeing red. Then he rose to the serenestheight he had yet attained and said: "I forgive you, you wicked, wickedgirl!"

Her laugh was a screaming taunt. 

"But you've et the apple!" she cried; "and if you wasn't scared of goin'to hell, you'd cuss me again--you know you would! Lemme tell you, Tom-Jeff, if the preacher had dipped me in the creek like he did you, I'd be a mighty sight holier than what you are. I cert'nly would. "

And now anger came to its own again. 

"You don't know what you're talking about, Nan Bryerson! You're nothingbut a--a miserable little heathen; my mother said you was!" he cried outafter her. 

But a back-flung grimace was all the answer he had. 

III

OF THE FATHERS UPON THE CHILDREN

Thomas Jefferson's grandfather, Caleb the elder, was an old man beforehis son, Caleb the younger, went to the wars, and he figured in therecollections of those who remembered him as a grim, white-hairedoctogenarian who was one day carried home from the iron-furnace which hehad built, and put to bed, dead in every part save his eyes. The eyeslived on for a year or more, following the movements of the sympatheticor curious visitor with a quiet, divining gaze; never sleeping, theysaid--though that could hardly be--until that last day of all when theyfixed themselves on the wall and followed nothing more in this world. 

Caleb, the son, was well past his first youth when the Civil War brokeout; yet youthful ardor was not wanting, nor patriotism, as he definedit, to make him the first of the Paradise folk to write his name on themuster-roll of the South. And it was his good fortune, rather than anylack of battle hazards, that brought him through the four fighting yearsto the Appomattox end of that last running fight on the Petersburg andLynchburg road in which, with his own hands, he had helped to destroythe guns of his battery. 

Being alive and not dead on the memorable April Sunday when hiscommander-in-chief signed the articles of capitulation in WilmerMcLean's parlor in Appomattox town, this soldier Gordon was one amongthe haggard thousands who shared the enemy's rations to bridge over thehunger gap; and it was the sane, equable Gordon blood that enabled himto eat his portion of the bread of defeat manfully and withoutbitterness. 

Later it was the steadfast Gordon courage that helped him to mount thecrippled battery horse which had been his own contribution to the lostcause; to mount and ride painfully to the distant Southern valley, facing the weary journey, and the uncertain future in a land despoiled, as only a brave man might. 

His homing was to the old furnace and the still older house at the footof Lebanon. The tale of the years succeeding may be briefed in a baresentence or two. It was said of him that he reached Paradise and the oldhomestead late one evening, and that the next day he was making readyfor a run of iron in the antiquated blast-furnace. This may be onlyneighborhood tradition, but it depicts the man: sturdy, tenacious, dogged; a man to knot up the thread of life broken by untoward events, following it thereafter much as if nothing had happened. 

Such men are your true conservatives. When his son was born, nine yearsafter the great struggle had passed into history, Caleb, the soldier, was still using charcoal for fuel and blowing his cupola fire with thewooden air-pump whose staves had been hooped together by the hands ofhis father, and whose motive power was a huge overshot wheel swingingrhythmically below the stone dam in the creek. 

The primitive air-blast being still in commission, it may itself saythat the South, in spite of the war upheaval and the far more seismicconvulsion of the reconstruction period, was still the Old South whenCaleb married Martha Crafts. 

It was as much a love match as middle-age marriages are wont to be, andfollowing it there was Paradise gossip to assert that Caleb's wifebrought gracious womanly reforms to the cheerless bachelor house at thefurnace. Be this as it may, she certainly brought one innovation--anatmosphere of wholesome, if somewhat austere, piety hitherto unbreathedby the master or any of his dusky vassals. 

Such moderate prosperity as the steadily pulsating iron-furnace couldbring was Martha Gordon's portion from the beginning. Yet there was afly in her pot of precious ointment; an obstacle to her completehappiness which Caleb Gordon never understood, nor could be made tounderstand. Like other zealous members of her communion, she took theBible in its entirety for her creed, striving, as frail humanity may, tolive up to it. But among the many admonitions which, for her, were noless than divine commands, was one which she had wilfully disregarded:_Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. _

Caleb respected her religion; stood a little in awe of it, if the truthwere known, and was careful to put no straw of hindrance in the thornyupward way. But there are times when neutrality bites deeper than openantagonism. In the slippery middle ground of tolerance there is nofoothold for one who would push or pull another into the kingdom ofHeaven. 

Under such conditions Thomas Jefferson was sure to be the child of manyprayers on the mother's part; and perhaps of some naturally pridefulhopes on Caleb's. When a man touches forty before his firstborn is putinto his arms, he is likely to take the event seriously. Martha Gordonwould have named her son after the great apostle of her faith, but Calebasserted himself here and would have a manlier name-father for the boy. So Thomas Jefferson was named, not for an apostle, nor yet for thestatesman--save by way of an intermediary. For Caleb's "ThomasJefferson" was the stout old schoolmaster-warrior, Stonewall Jackson;the soldier iron-master's general while he lived, and his deified heroever afterward. 

When the mother was able to sit up in bed she wrote a letter to herbrother Silas, the South Tredegar preacher. On the margin of the papershe tried the name, writing it "Reverend Thomas Jefferson Gordon. " Itwas a rather appalling mouthful, not nearly so euphonious as the name ofthe apostle would have been. But she comforted herself with the thoughtthat the boy would probably curtail it when he should come to arealizing sense of ownership; and "Reverend" would fit any of thecurtailments. 

So now we see to what high calling Thomas Jefferson's mother purposeddevoting him while yet he was a helpless monad in pinning-blankets; towhat end she had striven with many prayers and groanings that could notbe uttered, from year to year of his childhood. 

Does it account in some measure for the self-conscious young Phariseekneeling on the top of the high rock under the cedars, and crying out onthe girl scoffer that she was no better than she should be?

IV

THE NEWER EXODUS

One would always remember the first day of a new creation; the day whenGod said, _Let there be light_. 

It has been said that nothing comes suddenly; that the unexpected ismerely the overlooked. For weeks Thomas Jefferson had been scenting theunwonted in the air of sleepy Paradise. Once he had stumbled on theengineers at work in the "dark woods" across the creek, spying out aline for the new railroad. Another day he had come home late from afishing excursion to the upper pools to find his father shut in thesitting-room with three strangers resplendent in town clothes, and thetalk--what he could hear of it from his post of observation on the porchstep--was of iron and coal, of a "New South, " whatever that might be, and of wonderful changes portending, which his father was exhorted tohelp bring about. 

But these were only the gentle heavings and crackings of the groundpremonitory of the real earthquake. That came on a day of days when, asa reward of merit for having faultlessly recited the eighty-third Psalmfrom memory, he was permitted to go to town with his father. Behold him, then, dangling his feet--uncomfortable because they were stockinged andshod--from the high buggy seat while the laziest of horses ambledbetween the shafts up the white pike and around and over the hunchedshoulder of Mount Lebanon. This in the cool of the morning of the day ofrevelations. 

In spite of the premonitory tremblings, the true earthquake found ThomasJefferson totally unprepared. He had been to town often enough to have aclear memory picture of South Tredegar--the prehistoric South Tredegar. There was a single street, hub-deep in mud in the rains, beginningvaguely at the steamboat landing, and ending rather more definitely inthe open square surrounding the venerable court-house of pale brick andstucco-pillared porticoes. There were the shops--only Thomas Jeffersonand all his kind called them "stores"--one-storied, these, the woodenones with lying false fronts to hide the mean little gables; the brickones honester in face, but sadly chipped and crumbling and dingy withage and the weather. 

Also, there were houses, some of them built of the pale red brick, withpillared porticoes running to the second story; hip-roofed, with asquare balustered observatory on top; rather grand looking andimpressive till you came near enough to see that the bricks wereshaling, and the portico floors rotting, and the plaster falling fromthe pillars to show the grinning lath-and-frame skeletons behind. 

Also, on the banks of the river, there was the antiquated iron-furnacewhich, long before the war, had given the town its pretentious name. Andlastly, there was the Calhoun House, dreariest and most inhospitable innof its kind; and across the muddy street from it the great echoingtrain-shed, ridiculously out of proportion to every other building inthe town, the tavern not excepted, and to the ramshackle, once-a-daytrain that wheezed and rattled and clanked into and out of it. 

Thomas Jefferson had seen it all, time and again; and this heremembered, that each time the dead, weather-worn, miry or dustydullness of it had crept into his soul, sending him back to thefreshness of the Paradise fields and forests at eventide with gratefulgladness in his heart. 

But now all this was to be forgotten, or to be remembered only as adream. On the day of revelations the earlier picture was effaced, blacked out, obliterated; and it came to the boy with a pang that heshould never be able to recall it again in its entirety. For the geniusof modern progress is contemptuous of old landmarks and impatient ofdelays. And swift as its race is elsewhere, it is only in that part ofthe South which has become "industrial" that it came as a thunderclap, with all the intermediate and accelerative steps taken at a bound. Menspoke of it as "the boom. " It was not that. It was merely that thespirit of modernity had discovered a hitherto overlooked corner of thefield, and made haste to occupy it. 

So in South Tredegar, besprent now before the wondering eyes of a ThomasJefferson. The muddy street had vanished to give place to a smooth blackroadway, as springy under foot as a forest path, and as clean as thepike after a sweeping summer storm. The shops, with their false frontsand shabby lean-to awnings, were gone, or going, and in their roommajestic vastnesses in brick and cut stone were rising, by their ownmight, as it would seem, out of disorderly mountains of buildingmaterial. 

Street-cars, propelled as yet by the patient mule, tinkled their bellsincessantly. Smart vehicles of many kinds strange to Paradise eyesrattled recklessly in and out among the street obstructions. Bustlingthrongs were in possession of the sidewalks; of the awe-inspiringrestaurant, where they gave you lemonade in a glass bowl and some peoplewashed their fingers in it; of the rotunda of the Marlboro, the mammothhotel which had grown up on the site of the old CalhounHouse, --distressing crowds and multitudes of people everywhere. 

Thomas Jefferson, awe-struck and gaping, found himself foot-loose for atime in the Marlboro rotunda while his father talked with a man whowanted to bargain for the entire output of the Paradise furnace by theyear. The commercial transaction touched him lightly; but the movinggroups, the imported bell-boys, the tesselated floors, frescoed ceilingand plush-covered furniture--these bit deeply. Could this be SouthTredegar, the place that had hitherto figured chiefly to him as"court-day" town and the residence of his preacher uncle? It seemedhugely incredible. 

After the conference with the iron buyer they crossed the street to therailway station; and again Thomas Jefferson was foot-loose while hisfather was closeted with some one in the manager's office. 

An express train, with hissing air-brakes, Solomon-magnificent sleepingcars, and a locomotive large enough to swallow whole the small affairthat used to bring the once-a-day train from Atlanta, had just backedin, and the boy took its royal measure with eager and curious eyes, walking slowly up one side of it and down the other. 

At the rear of the string of Pullmans was a private car, with a deepobservation platform, much polished brass railing, and sundry otherluxurious appointments, apparent even to the eye of unsophistication. Thomas Jefferson spelled the name in the medallion, "Psyche, "--spelledit without trying to pronounce it--and then turned his attention to thepeople who were descending the rubber-carpeted steps and groupingthemselves under the direction of a tall man who reminded ThomasJefferson of his Uncle Silas with an indescribable something left out ofthe face. 

"As I was about to say, General, this station building is one of therelics. You mustn't judge South Tredegar--our new South Tredegar--bythis. Eh?--I beg your pardon, Mrs. Vanadam? Oh, the hotel? It is justacross the street, and a very good house; remarkably good, indeed, allthings considered. In fact, we're quite proud of the Marlboro. "

One of the younger women smiled. 

"How enthusiastic you are, Mr. Parley. I thought we had outgrown allthat--we moderns. "

"But, my dear Miss Elleroy, if you could know what we have to beenthusiastic about down here! Why, these mountains we've been passingthrough for the last six hours are simply so many vast treasure-houses;coal at the top, iron at the bottom, and enough of both to keep theworld's industries going for ages! There's millions in them!"

Thomas Jefferson overheard without understanding, but his eyes served abetter purpose. Away back in the line of the Scottish Gordons theremust have been an ancestor with the seer's gift of insight, and somedrop or two of his blood had come down to this sober-faced country boysearching the faces of the excursionists for his cue of fellowship orantipathy. 

For the sweet-voiced young woman called Miss Elleroy there was love atfirst sight. For a severe, be-silked Mrs. Vanadam there was awe. For theportly General with mutton-chop whiskers, overlooking eyes and the airof a dictator, there was awe, also, not unmingled with envy. For thetall man in the frock-coat, whose face reminded him of his Uncle Silas, there had been shrinking antagonism at the first glance--which keenfirst impression was presently dulled and all but effaced by theenthusiasm, the suave tongue, and the benignant manner. Which provesthat insight, like the film of a recording camera, should have the darkshutter snapped on it if the picture is to be preserved. 

Thomas Jefferson made way when the party, marshaled by the enthusiast, prepared for its descent on the Marlboro. Afterward, the royaltieshaving departed and a good-natured porter giving him leave, he was atliberty to examine the wheeled palace at near-hand, and even to climbinto the vestibule for a peep inside. 

Therewith, castles in the air began to rear themselves, tower on wall. Here was the very sky-reaching summit of all things desirable: to haveone's own brass-bound hotel on wheels; to come and go at will; to givecurt orders to a respectful and uniformed porter, as the awe-inspiringgentleman with the mutton-chop whiskers had done. 

Time was when Thomas Jefferson's ideals ran quite otherwise: to a lodgein some vast wilderness, like the rock-strewn slopes of high Lebanon; tothe company of the birds and trees, of the wide heavens and the shy wildcreatures of the forest. But it is only the fool or the weakling who maynot reconsider. 

Notwithstanding, when the day of revelations was come to an end, and theambling horse was inching the ancient buggy up the homeward road, theboy found himself turning his back on the wonderful new world withsomething of the same blessed sense of relief as that which he hadexperienced in former home-goings from South Tredegar, the commonplace. 

At the highest point on the hunched shoulder of the mountain ThomasJefferson twisted himself in the buggy seat for a final backward lookinto the valley of new marvels. The summer day was graying to itstwilight, and a light haze was stealing out of the wooded ravines andacross from the river. From the tall chimneys of a rolling-mill a densecolumn of smoke was ascending, and at the psychological moment the slagflare from an iron-furnace changed the overhanging cloud into a fieryægis. 

Having no symbolism save that of Holy Writ, Thomas Jefferson's mindseized instantly on the figure, building far better than it knew. It wasa new Exodus, with its pillar of cloud by day and its pillar of fire bynight. And its Moses--though this, we may suppose, was beyond a boy'simaging--was the frenzied, ruthless spirit of commercialism, namedotherwise, by the multitude, Modern Progress. 

V

THE DABNEYS OF DEER TRACE

If you have never had the pleasure of meeting a Southern gentleman ofthe patriarchal school, I despair of bringing you well acquainted withMajor Caspar Dabney until you have summered and wintered him. But theDabneys of Deer Trace--this was the old name of the estate, and itobtains to this day among the Paradise Valley folk--figure so largely inThomas Jefferson's boyhood and youth as to be well-nigh elemental inthese retrospective glimpses. 

To know the Major even a little, you should not refer him to any of theaccepted types, like Colonel Carter, of Cartersville, or that othercolonel who has made Kentucky famous; this though I am compelled towrite it down that Major Caspar wore the soft felt hat and thefull-skirted Prince Albert coat, without which no reputable Southerngentleman ever appears in the pages of fiction. But if you will ignorethese concessions to the conventional, and picture a man of heroicproportions, straight as an arrow in spite of his sixty-eight years, full-faced, well-preserved, with a massive jaw, keen eyes that have lostnone of their lightnings, and huge white mustaches curling upwardmilitantly at the ends you will have the Major's outward presentment. 

Notwithstanding, this gives no adequate hint of the contradictory innerman. By turns the most lovingly kind and the most violent, the mostgenerously magnanimous and the most vindictive of the unreconstructedminority, Caspar Dabney was rarely to be taken for granted, even bythose who knew him best. Of course, Ardea adored him; but Ardea was hisgrandchild, and she was wont to protest that she never could see thecontradictions, for the reason that she was herself a Dabney. 

It was about the time when Thomas Jefferson was beginning to reconsiderhis ideals, with a leaning toward brass-bound palaces on wheels anddictatorial authority over uniformed lackeys and other of his fellowcreatures, that fate dealt the Major its final stab and prepared to pourwine and oil into the wound--though of the balm-pouring, none couldguess at the moment of wounding. It was not in Caspar Dabney to bepatient under a blow, and for a time his ragings threatened to shakeeven Mammy Juliet's loyalty--than which nothing more convincing can besaid. 

"'Fo' Gawd, Mistuh Scipio, " she would say, when the master had swornvolcanically at her for the fifth time in the course of one forenoon, "I'se jus' erbout wo'ed out! I done been knowin' Mawstuh Caspah ebbersence I was Ol' Mistis's tiah-'ooman--dat's what she call me in deplantashum days--an' I ain't nev' seen him so fractious ez he been sencedat letter come tellin' him come get dat po' li'l gal-child o' MawstuhLouis's. Seems lak he jus' gwine r'ar round twel he hu't somebody!"

Scipio, the Major's body-servant, had grown gray in the Dabney service, and he was well used to the master's storm periods. 

"Doan' you trouble yo'se'f none erbout dat, Mis' Juliet. Mawstuh Majahtekkin' hit mighty hawd 'cause Mawstuh Louis done daid. But bimeby yougwine see him climm on his hawss an' ride up yondeh to whah de bigsteamboats comes in an' fotch dat li'l gal-child home; an' den:uck--uh-h! look out, niggahs! dar ain't gwine be nuttin' on de top sidedishyer yearth good ernough for li'l Missy. You watch what I done tol'you erbout dat, now!"

Scipio's prophecy, or as much of it as related to the bringing of theorphaned Ardea to Deer Trace Manor, wrought itself out speedily, as amatter of course, though there was a vow to be broken by the necessaryjourney to the North. At the close of the war, Captain Louis, theMajor's only son, had become, like many another hot-hearted youngConfederate, a self-expatriated exile. On the eve of his departure forFrance he had married the Virginia maiden who had nursed him alive afterChancellorsville. Major Caspar had given the bride away, --the war hadspared no kinsman of hers to stand in this breach, --and when theGod-speeds were said, had himself turned back to the weed-grown fieldsof Deer Trace Manor, embittered and hostile, swearing never to set footoutside of his home acres again while the Union should stand. 

For more than twenty years he kept this vow almost literally. A few ofthe older negroes, a mere handful of the six score slaves of the oldpatriarchal days, cast in their lot with their former master, and withthese the Major made shift thriftily, farming a little, stockraising alittle, and, unlike most of the war-broken plantation owners, clingingtenaciously to every rood of land covered by the original Dabneytitle-deeds. 

In this cenobitic interval, if you wanted a Dabney colt or a Dabney cow, you went, or sent, to Deer Trace Manor on your own initiative, and you, or your deputy, never met the Major: your business was transacted withlean, lantern-jawed Japheth Pettigrass, the Major's stock-and-farmforeman. And although the Dabney stock was pedigreed, you kept your witsabout you; else Pettigrass got much the better of you in the trade, likethe shrewd, calculating Alabama Yankee that he was. 

Ardea was born in Paris in the twelfth year of the exile; and theVirginian mother, pining always for the home land, died in the fifteenthyear. Afterward, Captain Louis fought a long-drawn, losing battle, figuring bravely in his infrequent letters to his father as a risingminiature painter; figuring otherwise to the students of the LatinQuarter as "_ce pauvre Monsieur D'Aubigné_;" leading his little girlback and forth between his lodgings and the studio where he paintedpictures that nobody would buy, and eking out a miserable existence bygiving lessons in English when he was happy enough to find a pupil. 

The brave letters imposed on the Major, as they were meant to do; andArdea, the loyal, happening on one of them in her first Deer Tracesummer, read it through with childish sobs and never thereafter openedher lips on the story of those distressful Paris days. Later sheunderstood her father's motive better: how he would not be a charge onan old man rich in nothing but ruin; and the memory of the pinchedchildhood became a thing sacred. 

How the Major, a second Rip Van Winkle, found his way to New York, andto the pier of the incoming French Line steamer, must always remain amystery. But he was there, with the fierce old eyes quenched andswimming and the passionate Dabney lips trembling strangely under thegreat mustaches, when the black-frocked little waif from the Old Worldran down the landing stage and into his arms. Small wonder that theyclung to each other, these two at the further extremes of threegenerations; or that the child opened a door in the heart of the fierceold partizan which was locked and doubly barred against all others. 

As may be imagined, the Major got away from Yankeeland with his chargeas soon as a train could be made to serve; and he was grim andforbidding to all and sundry until the Cumberland Mountains haddisplaced the Alleghanies and the Blue Ridge on the western horizon. Indeed, the grimness, --to all save Ardea, --persisted quite to andthrough the transformed and transforming city at the eastern foot ofLebanon. Major Caspar was not in tune with the bravura of modernprogress, and if he had been, his hatred of Northern importations ofwhatever nature would have made and kept him hostile. 

But when the ancient carriage, with Scipio and Ardea's one small steamertrunk on the box, had topped the shrugged shoulder of Lebanon, and thatview which we have seen from the summit of Thomas Jefferson's high rockamong the cedars opened out before the eyes of the wondering child, theMajor grew eloquent. 

"Look youh fill, my deah child; thah it lies--God's country, and youh'sand mine; the fines', the most inspiring, the most beautiful land thesun eveh shone on! And whilst you are givin' praise to youh Makeh forcreatin' such a Gyarden of Eden, don't forget to thank him on youhbended knees for not putting anything oveh yondeh in ouh home lot totempt these house-buildin', money-makin', schemin' Yankees that areswarming again oveh the land like anotheh plague of Egyptian locus'es. "

"These--Yankees?" queried Ardea. In his later years the exiled CaptainLouis had remembered only that he was an American, and his child knew noNorth nor South. 

The Major did not explain. Not that there were any compunctions ofconscience concerning the planting of the seed of sectionalism in thisvirgin soil, quite the contrary. He abstained because he made sure thattime, and the Dabney blood, would do it better. 

So he talked to the small one of safely prehistoric things, showing herthe high mountain battle-field where John Sevier had broken the power ofthe savage Chickamaugas, and, as the carriage rolled down toward thehead of Paradise, the tract of land where the first Dabney had sent hisax-men to blaze the trees for his lordly boundaries. 

It was all new and very strange to a child whose only outlook on lifehad been urban and banal. She had never seen a mountain, and nothingmore nearly approaching a forest than the parked groves of the Bois deBoulogne. Would it be permitted that she should sometimes walk in thewoods of the first Dabney, she asked, with the quaint French twistingof the phrases that she was never able fully to overcome. 

It would certainly be permitted; more, the Major would make her a deedto as many of the forest acres as she would care to include in herpromenade. By which we see that the second part of Unc' Scipio'sprophecy was finding its fulfilment in the beginning. 

How the French-born child fitted into the haphazard household at DeerTrace Manor, with what struggles she came through the inevitable attackof homesickness, and how Mammy Juliet and every one else petted andindulged her, are matters which need not be dwelt on. But we shallgladly believe that she was too sensible, even at the early and tenderage of ten, to be easily spoiled. 

Many foolish things have been said and written about the wax-likequality of a child's mind; how each new impression effaces the old, andhow character in permanence is not to be looked for until the bones havestopped growing. Yet who has not known criminals at twelve, and saintsand angels, and wise men and women--in fine, the entire gamut ofhumanity--in short frocks or knee-breeches?

Ardea, child of adversity and the Paris ateliers, brought one lastingmemory up out of those early Deer Trace Manor years: she was alwaysimmeasurably older than such infants as Mammy Juliet and Uncle Scipio. And this also she remembered: that when these and all the others, including her grandfather and Japheth Pettigrass, were busily levelingall the barriers of restraint for her, she had built some of her own andset herself the task of living within them. 

I am sure she began to realize, almost at the first, that she must risesuperior to the Dabney weakness, which, as exemplified by the Major, wasungoverned, and perhaps ungovernable, temper. At all events, she neverforgot a summer day soon after her arrival when she first saw hergrandfather transformed into a frenzied madman. 

He was sitting on the wide portico, smoking his long-stemmed pipe anddirecting Japheth Pettigrass, who was training the great crimson-ramblerrose that ran well up to the eaves. Ardea, herself, was on the lawn, playing with her grandfather's latest gift, a huge, solemn-eyed GreatDane, so she did not see the man who had dismounted at the gate andwalked up the driveway until he was handing his card to her grandfather. 

When she did see him, she looked twice at him; not because he was triglyclad in brown duck and tightly-buttoned service leggings, but because hewore his beard trimmed to a point, after the manner of the students inthe Latin Quarter, and so was reminiscent of things freshly forsaken. 

She had succeeded in making the Great Dane carry her on his back quiteall the way around the circular coleus bed when the explosion tookplace. There was a startling thunderclap of fierce words from theportico, and she slipped from the dog's back and stared wide-eyed. Hergrandfather was on his feet, towering above the visitor as if he wereabout to fall on and crush him. 

"Bring youh damned Yankee railroad through my fields and pastchuhs, suh?Foul the pure, God-given ai-ah of this peaceful Gyarden of Eden withyouh dust-flingin', smoke-pot locomotives? Not a rod, suh! not a footor an inch oveh the Dabney lands! Do I make it plain to you, suh?"

"But Major Dabney--one moment; this is purely a matter of business;there is nothing personal about it. Our company is able and willing topay liberally for its right of way; and you must remember that thecoming of the railroad will treble and quadruple your land values. I amonly asking you to consider the matter in a business way, and to nameyour own price. "

Thus the smooth-spoken young locating engineer in brown duck, serving asplowman for his company. But there be tough old roots in some soils, roots stout enough to snap the colter of the commercializing plow, --as, for example, in Paradise Valley, owned, in broken areas, principally byan unreconciled Major Dabney. 

"Not anotheh word, or by Heaven, suh, you'll make me lose my tempah! Youadd insult to injury, suh, when you offeh me youh contemptible Yankeegold. When I desiah to sell my birthright for youh beggahly mess ofpottage, I'll send a black boy in town to infawm you, suh!"

It is conceivable that the locating engineer of the Great SouthwesternRailway Company was younger than he looked; or, at all events, that hisexperience hitherto had not brought him in contact with fire-eatinggentlemen of the old school. Else he would hardly have said what he did. 

"Of course, it is optional with you, Major Dabney, whether you sell usour right of way peaceably or compel us to acquire it by condemnationproceedings in the courts. As for the rest--is it possible that youdon't know the war is over?"

With a roar like that of a maddened lion the Major bowed himself, caught his man in a mighty wrestler's grip and flung him broadcast intothe coleus bed. The words that went with the fierce attack made Ardeacrouch and shiver and take refuge behind the great dog. JaphethPettigrass jumped down from his step-ladder and went to help theengineer out of the flower bed. The Major had sworn himself to a stand, but the fine old face was a terrifying mask of passion. 

"The old firebrand!" the engineer was muttering under his breath whenPettigrass reached him; but the foreman cut him short. 

"You got mighty little sense, looks like, to me. Stove up any?"

"Nothing to hurt, I guess. "

"Well, your hawss is waitin' for ye down yonder at the gate, and I don'tb'lieve the Major is allowin' to ask ye to stay to supper. "

The railroad man scowled and recovered his dignity, or some portion ofit. 

"You're a hospitable lot, " he said, moving off toward the driveway. "Youcan tell the old maniac he'll hear from us later. "

Pettigrass stooped with his back to the portico and patted the dog. 

"Don't you look so shuck up, little one, " he whispered reassuringly toArdea. "There ain't nothin' goin' to happen, worse than has happened, Ireckon. " But Ardea was mute. 

When the engineer had mounted and ridden away down the pike, the foremanstraightened himself and faced about. The Major had dropped into his bigarm-chair and was trying to relight his pipe. But his hands shook andthe match went out. 

Pettigrass moved nearer and spoke so that the child should not hear. "Ifyou run me off the place the nex' minute, I'm goin' to tell you you ortto be tolerably 'shamed of yourse'f, Maje' Dabney. That po' little galis scared out of a year's growin', right now. "

"I know, Japheth; I know. I'm a damned old heathen! For, insultin' as hewas, the man was for the time bein' my guest, suh--my guest!"

"I'm talkin' about the little one--not that railroader. So far as Iknow, he earned what he got. I allowed they'd make some sort of a swapwith you, so I didn't say anything when they was layin' out their linesthoo' the hawss-lot and across the lower corn-field this mornin'--easy, now; no more r'arin' and t'arin' with that thar little gal not a-knowin'which side o' the earth's goin' to cave in next!"

The Major dropped his pipe, laid fast hold of the arms of his chair, andbreathed hard. 

"Laid out _theyuh_ lines--across _my_ prope'ty? Japheth, faveh me byriding down to the furnace and askin' Caleb Gordon if he will do me thehonor to come up heah--this evenin', if he can. I--I--it's twenty yeahsand mo' since I've troubled the law cou'ts of ouh po', Yankee-riddencountry with any affai-ah of mine; and now--well, I don't know--I don'tknow, " with a despondent shake of the leonine head. 

After Pettigrass had gone on his errand the Major rose and wentunsteadily into the house. Then, and not till then, Ardea got up on herknees and put her arms around the neck of the Great Dane. 

"O, Hector!" she whispered; "me, I am Dabney, too! Once the gaminskilled a poor little cat of mine; and I forgot God--the good God--andsaid wicked things; and I could have torn them into little, littlepieces! But we--we shall be very good and patient after this, won't we, Hector--you and me--no, you and _I_? What is it when you lick my facethat way? Does it mean that you understand?"

VI

BLUE BLOOD AND RED

In a world full of puzzling questions for Thomas Jefferson, one of thechief clustering points of the persistent "whys" was Major Dabney'sattitude, as a Man of Sin, and as the natural overlord of ParadiseValley. 

That the Major was a Man of Sin there could be no manner of doubt. During the revival he had been frequently and pointedly prayed for bythat name, and the groans from the Amen corner were conclusivelydamning. Just what the distinction was between a Man of Sin and asinner--spelled with a small "s"--was something which Thomas Jeffersoncould never quite determine; but the desire to find out made him spy onMajor Dabney at odd moments when the spying could be done safely andwith a clear field for retreat in the event of the Major's catching himat it. 

Thus far the spying had been barren of results--of that kind which donot have to be undone and made over to fit in with other things. Once, Thomas Jefferson had been picking blackberries behind the wall of hisfather's infield when the Major and Squire Bates had met on the pike. There was some talk of the new railroad; and when the Squire allowedthat it was certain to come through Paradise, the Major had taken thename of God in vain in a way that suggested the fiery blast roaringfrom the furnace lip after the iron was out. 

This was one of the results. But on reflection, Thomas Jefferson decidedthat this could not be The Sin. Profane swearing--that was what theSunday-school lesson-leaf called it--was doubtless a mortal sin in abeliever; was not he, Thomas Jefferson, finding the heavens as brass andthe earth a place of fear and trembling because of that word to NanBryerson? But in other people--well, he had heard his father swear once, when one of the negroes at the furnace had opened the sand at the end ofthe sow and let the stream of molten iron run out into the creek. 

The charge of profanity being tried and found wanting in the Major'scase, there remained that of violence. One day, Tike Bryerson--Nan'sfather and the man who had tried to kill his Uncle Silas in the revivalmeeting--was beating his horses because they would not take the water atthe lower ford. Tike had been stilling more pine-top whisky, and hadbeen to town with some jugs hidden under the cornstalks in hiswagon-bed. When he did that, he always came back with his eyes red likea squirrel's, and everybody gave him all the road. 

But this time the Major had happened along, and when Tike would not stopbeating the horses for a shouted cursing-out from the bank, the Majorhad spurred his Hambletonian into the creek and knocked Tike winding. More than that, he had made him lead his team out of the ford and goback to the bridge crossing. 

Being himself committed to the theory of turning the other cheek, ThomasJefferson could not question the acute sinfulness of all this; yet itdid not sufficiently account for the Major as a Man of Sin. Had notPeter, stirred, no doubt, by some such generous rage as the Major's, snatched out his sword and smitten off a man's ear?

In the other field, that of overlordship, the subtleties were still moreelusive. That the negroes, many of whom were the sons and daughters ofthe Major's former slaves, should pass the old-time "Mawstuh" on thepike with uncovered heads and respectful heel-scrapings, was a matter ofcourse. Thomas Jefferson was white, free, and Southern born. But why hisown father and mother should betray something of the same deference wasnot so readily apparent. 

On rare occasions the Major, riding to or from the cross-roadspost-office in Hargis's store, would rein in his horse at the Gordongate and ask for a drink of water from the Gordon well. At such timesThomas Jefferson remarked that his mother always hastened to serve theMajor with her own hands; this notwithstanding her own and Uncle Silas'soft-repeated asseveration touching the Major's unenviable preëminence asa Man of Sin. Also, he remarked that the Major's manner at such momentswas a thing to dazzle the eye, like the reflection of the summer sun onthe surface of burnished metal. But beneath the polished exterior, thegroping perceptions of the boy would touch a thing repellent; a thing tostir a slow current of resentment in his blood. 

It was Thomas Jefferson's first collision with the law of caste; a lawDraconian in the Old South. Before the war, when Deer Trace Manor hadbeen a seigniory with its six score black thralls, there had been novisiting between the great house on the inner knoll and the overgrownlog homestead at the iron furnace. Quarrel there was none, nor anyshadow of enmity; but the Dabneys were lords of the soil, and theGordons were craftsmen. 

Even in war the distinction was maintained. The Dabneys, father and son, were officers, having their commissions at the enrolment; while CalebGordon, whose name headed the list of the Paradise volunteers, began andended a private in the ranks. 

In the years of heart-hardenings which followed, a breach was opened, narrow at first, and never very deep, but wide enough to serve. CalebGordon had accepted defeat openly and honestly, and for this theunreconstructed Major had never fully forgiven him. It was an addedproof that there was no redeeming drop of the _sang azure_ in the Gordonveins--and Major Caspar was as scrupulously polite to Caleb Gordon'swife as he would have been, and was, to the helpmate of Tike Bryerson, mountaineer and distiller of illicit whisky. 

Thomas Jefferson was vaguely indignant when Pettigrass came to ask hisfather to go forthwith to the manor-house. In the mouth of the foremanthe invitation took on something of the flavor of a command. Besides, since the Major's return from New York, Thomas Jefferson had a grudgeagainst him of a purely private and personal nature. 

None the less, he was eager for news when his father came back, andthough he got it only from overhearing the answer to his mother'squestion, it was satisfyingly thrilling. 

"It's mighty near as we talked, Martha. The Major lumps the railroad inwith all the other improvements, calls 'em Yankee, and h'ists hisbattle-flag. The engineer, that smart young fellow with the peakedwhiskers and the eye-glasses, went to see him this evenin' about theright of way down the valley, and got himself slung off the porch of thegreat house into a posy bed. "

"There is going to be trouble, Caleb; now you mark my words. You mustn'tmix up in it. "

"I don't allow to, if I can he'p it. The railroad's goin' to be a mightygood thing for us if I can get Mr. Downing to put in a side-track forthe furnace. "

Following this there were other conferences, the Major unbendingsufficiently to come and sit on the Gordon porch in the cool of theevening. The iron-master, as one still in touch with the moving world, gave good advice. Failing to buy, the railroad company might possiblyseek to bully a right of way through the valley. But in that case, therewould certainly be redress in the courts for the property owners. In themeantime, nothing would be gained by making the contest a personal fighton individuals. 

So counseled Caleb Gordon, sure, always, of his own standing-ground inany conflict. But from the last of the conferences the Major had riddenhome through the fields; and Thomas Jefferson, with an alert eye forwindstraws of conduct, had seen him dismount now and then to pull up andfling away the locating stakes driven by the railroad engineers. 

In such a contention, in an age wholly given over to progress, therecould be, one would say, no possible doubt of the outcome. 

Giving the Major a second and a third chance to refuse to grant aneasement, the railroad company pushed its grading and track-layingaround the mountain and up to the stone wall marking the Dabneyboundary, quietly accumulated the necessary material, and on a summerSunday morning--Sunday by preference because no restraining writ couldbe served for at least twenty-four hours--a construction train, blackwith laborers, whisked around the nose of the mountain and droppedgently down the grade to the temporary end of track. 

It was Thomas Jefferson who gave the alarm. Little Zoar, unable tosupport a settled pastor, was closed for the summer, but Martha Gordonkept the fire spiritual alight by teaching her son at home. One of theboy's Sunday privileges, earned by a faultless recitation of aprescribed number of Bible verses, was forest freedom for the remainderof the forenoon. It was while he was in the midst of the Beatitudes thathe heard the low rumble of the coming train, and it was only byresolutely ignoring the sense of hearing that he was enabled to getthrough, letter-perfect. 

"'Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, '" hechanted monotonously, with roving eyes bent on finding his cap with theloss of the fewest possible seconds--"'and shall say all manner of evilagainst you falsely, for my sake, '--and that's all. " And he was off likea shot. 

"Mind, now, Thomas Jefferson; you are not to go near that railroad!" hismother called to him as he raced down the path to the gate. 

Oh, no; he would not go near the railroad! He would only run up the pikeand cut across through the Dabney pasture to see if the train werereally there. 

It was there, as he could tell by the noise of hissing steam when thecross-cut was reached. But the parked wooding of the pasture stillscreened it. How near could he go without being "near" in thetransgressing sense of the word? There was only one way of findingout--to keep on going until his conscience pricked sharply enough tostop him. It was a great convenience, Thomas Jefferson's conscience. Aslong as it kept quiet he could be reasonably sure there was no sin insight. Yet he had to confess that it was not always above playing meantricks; as that of sleeping like a log till after the fact, and thenrising up to stab him till the blood ran. 

He was half-way across the pasture when the crash of a falling treestopped him in mid-rush. And in the vista opened by the felled tree hesaw a sight to make him turn and race homeward faster than he had come. The invaders, hundreds strong, had torn down the boundary wall and theearth for the advancing embankment was flying from uncounted shovels. 

Caleb Gordon was at work in the blacksmith shop, Sunday-repairing whilethe furnace was cool, when Thomas Jefferson came flying with his news. The iron-master dropped his hammer and cast aside the leather apron. 

"You hear that, Buck?" he said, frowning across the anvil at his helper, a white man and the foreman of the pouring floor. 

The helper nodded, being a man of as few words as the master. 

"Well, I reckon we-all hain't got any call to stand by and see themhighflyers ride it roughshod over Major Dabney thataway, " said Gordonbriefly. "Go down to the shanties and hustle out the day shift. GetTurk and Hardaway and every white man you can lay hands on, and all theguns you can find. And send one o' the black boys up the hill to tellthe Major. Like as not, he ain't up yet. "

Helgerson hastened away to obey his orders, and Caleb Gordon went out tothe foundry scrap yard. In the heap of broken metal lay an old cast-ironfield-piece, a relic of the battle which had one day raged hotly on thehillside across the creek. A hundred times the iron-master had been onthe point of breaking it up for re-melting, and as often the oldartilleryman in him had stayed his hand. 

Now it was quickly hoisted in the crane shackle, --Thomas Jeffersonsweating manfully at the crab crank, --clamped on the axle of a pair ofwagon wheels, cleaned, swabbed, loaded with quarry blasting powder andpieces of broken iron to serve for grape, and trundled out on the pikeat the heels of the ore team. 

By this time Helgerson had come up with the furnace men, a motley crewin all stages of Sunday-morning dishevelment, and armed only as a mobmay arm itself at a moment's notice. Caleb, the veteran, looked thesquad over with a slow smile gathering the wrinkles at the corners ofhis eyes. 

"You boys'll have to make up in f'erceness what-all you're lacking insoldier-looks, " he observed mildly. Then he gave the word of command toHelgerson. "Take the gun and put out for the major's hawss-lot. I'll bealong as soon as I can saddle the mare. "

Thomas Jefferson went with his father to the stable and helped silentlywith the saddling. Afterward he held the mare, gentling her insuppressed excitement while his father went into the house for hisrifle. 

Martha Gordon met her husband at the door. She had seen the volunteergun crew filing past on the pike. 

"What is it, Caleb?" she asked anxiously. 

He made no attempt to deceive her. 

"The railroaders are allowin' to take what the Major wouldn't sell'em--the right of way through his land down the valley. Buddy broughtthe word. "

"Well?" she said, love and fear hardening her heart. "The railroad wouldbe a good thing for us--for the furnace. You know you said it would. "

He shook his head slowly. 

"I reckon we mustn't look at it thataway, Martha. I'm going to stand bymy neighbor, like I'd expect him to stand by me. Let me get my gun; theboys'll be there ahead o' me, and they won't know what to do. "

"Caleb! There will be bloodshed; and you remember what the Word says:'whoso sheddeth man's blood. .. . ' And on the Lord's Day, too!"

"I know. But ain't it somewhere in the same Good Book that it saysthere's a time for peace and a time to make war? And then that therepassage about lovin' your neighbor. Don't hender me, little woman. Thereain't goin' to be no blood shed--onless them bushwhackers are a mightysight f'ercer for it than what I think they are. "

She let him go without further protest, not because he had convincedher, but because she had long since come to know this man, who, makingher lightest wish his law in most things, could be as inflexible as thechilled iron of the pouring floor at the call of loyalty to his ownstandard of right and wrong. But when he passed down the path to thegate she knelt on the door-stone and covered her face with her hands. 

Gordon gathered the slack of the reins on the neck of the mare and put aleg over the saddle. 

"That'll do, Buddy, " he said. "Run along in to your mammy, now. "

But Thomas Jefferson caught again at the bridle and held on, choking. 

"O pappy!--take me with you! I--I'll die if you don't take me with you!"

Who can tell what Caleb Gordon saw in his son's eyes when he bent toloosen the grip of the small brown hand on the rein? Was it somesympathetic reincarnation of his own militant soul striving to break itsbonds? Without a word he bent lower and swung the boy up to a seatbehind him. "Hold on tight, Buddy, " he cautioned. "I'll have to run themare some to catch up with the boys. "

And the mother? She was still kneeling on the door-stone, but the burdenof her prayer was not now for Caleb Gordon. "O Lord, have mercy on myboy! Thou knowest how, because of my disobedience, he has the fiercefighting blood and the stubborn unbelief of all the Gordons to contendwith: save him alive and make him a man of peace and a man of faith, Ibeseech Thee, and let not the unbelief of the father or theunfaithfulness of the mother be visited on the son!"

When the one-piece battery dashed at a clumsy gallop through the opengate of the Dabney pasture and swung with a sharp turn into the vista offelled trees, Thomas Jefferson beheld a thing to set his heritage ofsoldier blood dancing through his veins. Standing fair in the midst ofthe ax-and-shovel havoc and clearing a wide circle to right and leftwith the sweep of his old service cavalry saber, was the Major, coatless, hatless, cursing the invaders with mighty and corrosivesoldier oaths, and crying them to come on, the unnumbered host of themagainst one man. 

Opposed to him the men of the construction force, generaled by the youngengineer in brown duck and buttoned leggings, were deploying cautiouslyto surround him. Gordon spoke to his mare; and when he drew rein andwheeled to shout to the gun crew, Thomas Jefferson heard the engineer'slow-toned order to the shovelers: "Be careful and don't hurt him, boys. He's the old maniac who threw me off the veranda of his house. Two ofyou take him behind, and--"

The break came on the uprush of the unanticipated reinforcements. Withthe battle readiness of a disciplined soldier, Caleb Gordon whipped fromthe saddle and ran to help the gun crew slue the makeshift field-pieceinto position. 

"Fall back, Major!" he shouted; "fall back on your front line and givethe artillery a chanst at 'em. I reckon a dose o' broken pot-iron'llcarry fu'ther than that saber o' yourn. Buddy, hunt me a punk match, quick, will ye?"

[Illustration: "Fall back, Major!" he shouted; "give the artillery achanst"]

Thomas Jefferson ran to the nearest rotting log, but one of the negroeswas before him with a blazing pitch-pine splint. There was a respectfulrecoil in the opposing ranks which presently became a somewhat panickysurge to the rear. The shovelers, more than half of whom were negroes, had not come out to be blown from a cannon's mouth by a grim-facedveteran who was so palpably at home with the tools of his trade. 

"That's right: keep right on goin'!" yelled the iron-master, waving hisblazing slow-match dangerously near to the priming. "Keep it up, 'r bythe Lord that made ye--"

There was no need to specify the alternative. For now the panic hadspread by its own contagion, and the invaders were fighting amongthemselves for place on the flat-cars. And while yet the rear guard wasswarming upon the engine, hanging by toe-and hand-holds where it could, the train was backed rapidly out of range. 

Caleb Gordon kept his pine splint alight until the echoes of theengine's exhaust came faintly from the overhanging cliffs of themountain. 

"They've gone back to town, and I reckon the fire's plum' out forto-day, Major, " he drawled. "Buck and a few o' the boys 'll stay by thegun, against their rallyin' later on, and you might as well go home toyour breakfast. Didn't bring your hawss, did ye? Take the mare, andwelcome. Buddy and me'll walk. "

But the Major would not mount, and so the two men walked together as faras the manor-house gates, with Thomas Jefferson a pace in the rear, leading the mare. 

It was no matter of wonder to him that his father and the Major marchedin solemn silence to the gate of parting. But the wonder cametumultuously when the Major wheeled abruptly at the moment ofleave-taking and wrung his father's hand. 

"By God, suh, you are a right true-hearted gentleman, and my very goodfriend, _Mistuh_ Gordon!" he said, with the manner of one who has beencarefully weighing the words beforehand. "If you had been given youhjust dues, suh, you'd have come home from F'ginia wearin' youhshouldeh-straps. " And then, with a little throat-clearing pause to comebetween: "Damn it, suh; an own brotheh couldn't have done'mo'! I--I'vebeen misjudgin' you, Caleb, all these yeahs, and now I'm proud to shakeyou by the hand and call you my friend. Yes, suh, I am that!"

It was, in a manner not to be understood by the Northern alien, theaccolade of knighthood, and Caleb Gordon's toil-rounded shouldersstraightened visibly when he returned the hearty hand-grasp. And as forThomas Jefferson: in his heart gratified pride flapped its wings andcrowed lustily; and for the moment he was almost willing to bury thatprivate grudge he was holding against Major Dabney--almost, but notquite. 

VII

THE PRAYER OF THE RIGHTEOUS

Having come thus far with Thomas Jefferson on the road to whatever goalhe will reach, it is high time we were looking a little more closelyinto this matter of his grudge against Major Dabney. 

Primarily, it based itself upon the dominant quality in a masterfulcharacter; namely, a desire to possess the earth and its fullnesswithout partnership encumbrances. 

From a time back of which memory refused to run, the woods and thefields of Paradise Valley, the rampart hills and the backgroundingmountain side, had belonged to Thomas Jefferson by the right ofdiscovery. The Bates boys and the Cantrells lived over in the greatvalley of the Tennessee, and when they planned a fishing excursion upTurkey Creek, they recognized Thomas Jefferson's suzerainty byannouncing that they were coming over to _his_ house. In like manner, the Pendrys and the Lumpkins and the Hardwicks were scattered atfarm-width intervals down the pike, and the rampart hills marked theboundary of their domain on that side. 

Now from possession which is recognized unquestioningly by one'scompeers to fancied possession in fee simple is but a step; and fromthat to the putting up of "No Trespass" signs the interval can be readonly on a micrometer scale. Wherefore, Thomas Jefferson had developed ahuge disgust on hearing that Major Dabney was going to upset the naturalorder of things by bringing his granddaughter to Deer Trace Manor. IfArdea--the very name of her had a heathenish sound in hisScripturally-trained ear--had been a boy, the matter would havesimplified itself. Thomas Jefferson had a sincere respect for his ownprowess, and a boy might have been mauled into subjection. But a girl!

His lip curled stiffly at the thought of a girl, a town girl andtherefore a thing without legs, or at best with legs only half usefuland totally unfit for running or climbing trees, dividing thesovereignty of the fields and the forest, the swimming-hole and theperch pools in the creek, with him! She would do it, or try to do it. Agirl would not have any more sense than to come prying around into allthe quiet places to say, "This is my grandfather's land. What are _you_doing here?"

At such thoughts as these a queer prickling sensation like a hot shiverwould run over him from neck to heel, and his eyes would gloom sullenly. There would be another word to put with that; a word of his ownchoosing. No matter if her grandfather, the terrifying Major, did ownthe fields and the wood and the stream: God was greater than MajorDabney, and had he not often heard his mother say on her knees that thefervent, effectual prayer of the righteous availeth much? If it shouldavail even a little, there would be no catastrophe, no disputedsovereignty of the woods, the fields and the creek. 

It was in the middle of a sultry afternoon in the hotter half ofAugust, two weeks or such a matter after the Great Southwestern Railwayhad given up the fight for Paradise Valley to run its line around theencompassing hills, that Thomas Jefferson was cast alive into the pit ofburnings. 

He made sure he should always remember his latest glimpse of thepleasant, homely earth. He was sitting idly on the porch step, lettinghis gaze go adrift over the nearer green-clad hills to the purple deepsof the western mountain, already steeped in shadow. The pike wasdeserted, and the shrill hum of the house-flies played an insistent tunein which the low-pitched boom of a bumblebee tumbling awkwardly amongthe clover heads served for an intermittent bass. 

Suddenly into the hot silence came the quick _cloppity-clop_ ofgalloping hoofs. Thomas Jefferson's heart was tender on that side of itwhich was turned toward the dumb creatures, and his thought wasinstantly pitiful and indignant. Who would be cruel enough to gallop ahorse in such weltering weather?

The unspoken query had its answer when Major Dabney's fleet saddlestallion thundered up to the gate in a white nimbus of dust, and theMajor flung himself from the saddle and called loudly for MistressGordon. Thomas Jefferson sprang up hastily to forward the cry, fearclutching at his heart; but the Major was before him in the wide passageopening upon the porch. 

"My deah Mistress Gordon! We are in a world of trouble at themanor-house! Little Ardea, my grand-daughteh, was taken sick last night, and to-day she's out of huh head--think of it, _out of huh head!_ I'mriding hotfoot for Doctah Williams, but Lord of Heaven! it'll be nighsundown befo' I can hope to get back with him. Could you, my deah madam, faveh us--"

Thomas Jefferson heard no more; would stay to hear no more. The forest, always his refuge in time of trial, reached a long finger of scatteringoaks down to the opposite side of the creek, and thither he fled, coldto the marrow of his bones, though the sun-heated stone coping of thedam on which he crossed the stream went near to blistering his bare feetas he ran. 

From the crotch of one of the oaks--his watch-tower in other periods ofstress--he saw the Major mount and continue his gallop eastward on thepike; and a little later the ancient Dabney family carriage came andwent in a smother of white dust, wheeling in front of the home gate andpausing only long enough to take up his mother hastening to the rescue. 

After that he was alone with the hideous tumult of his thoughts. Thegirl would die. He was as sure of it as if the heavens and the earth hadinstantly become articulate to shout the terrible sentence. God hadtaken him at his word! There would be no intruder to tell him that thewoods and the creek belonged to her grandfather. She would be dead;slain by the breath of his mouth. And for all the years and years andages to come, he would be roasting and grilling in that place preparedfor the devil and his angels--and for murderers!

In the acutest misery of it a trembling fit seized him and the oakseemed to rock and sway as if to be rid of him. When the fit passed heslid to the ground and flung himself face downward under the spreadingbranches. The grass was cool to his face, but there was no moisture init, and he thought of Dives praying that Lazarus might come and put adrop of water on his tongue. 

Then the torment took a new and more terrible form. Though he had neverbeen inside of the gray stone manor-house, his imagination transportedhim thither; to the house and to a darkened room on the upper floor witha bed in it, and in the bed a girl whose face he could not see. 

The girl was dying: the doctor had told his mother and the Major, andthey were all waiting. Thomas Jefferson had never seen any one die, onlya dog that Tike Bryerson had shot on one of his drunken home-goings. Butdeath was death, to a dog or to a girl; and vivid imagination suppliedthe appalling details. Over and over again in pitiless minuteness theheartbreaking scene was repeated: the little twitchings of thebed-clothing, the tossing of the girl's arms in the last desperatestruggle for breath, his mother's low sobs, and the haggard face of theold Major. 

Thomas Jefferson dug his fingers and toes into the grass and bit amouthful of it to stifle the cry wrung from him by the torturingpoignancy of it. Was there no way of escape?

He turned over and sat up to try to think it out. Yes, there was away--the way which would be taken by the boy in the Sunday-school books. He would say he was sorry, and would have his sins washed away, andthere would be rejoicing in Heaven over the one sinner who had repented. Of course, the girl would die, just the same, and all the misery his sinhad caused would remain unchanged. But _he_ would escape. 

For one unworthy moment Thomas Jefferson was fiercely tempted. Then thedogged Gordon blood reasserted itself. He had done the dreadful thing:he had asked God to take this girl out of his way, and now he wouldaccept what he had coveted and would not try to sneak out of paying. Itcomforted him a little to think that, after all, there must eventuallybe some sort of end to the torment, away on in the eternities to come. When he had suffered all he could suffer, not even God could make himsuffer any more. 

When he finally recrossed the creek on the dam head it was supper-time, and his mother had returned. The misery had now settled into dumbdespair, both more and less agonizing than the acute remorse of theafternoon. What he needed to know was told in his mother's answer to hisfather's inquiry: "Yes; she is a very sick child. I'm going up againafter supper to stay as long as I'm needed. It's a judgment on theMajor; he has been setting the creature above the Creator. "

Thomas Jefferson knew well enough that the judgment was his, and not theMajor's; but he let his supper choke him in silence. Afterward, when hismother had gone back to the house of anxiety and he was alone with hisfather, there were some vague promptings toward confession and a cry forhuman sympathy. What sealed his lips was the conviction that his fatherwould comfort him without understanding, just as his mother wouldunderstand and condemn him. Early in the evening his father went back tothe furnace and his chance was lost. 

For four heart-searching days Thomas Jefferson lived and endured, because living and enduring were the two unalterable conditions of thebrimstone pit to which he had consigned himself. During these days hismother came and went, and prayed oftener than usual--not for the girl'slife, as Thomas Jefferson noticed with deep stirrings of bitterness, butthat the dispensation of Providence might inure to the lasting andeternal benefit of an impenitent and idolatrous Major Dabney. 

Throughout these four days the sickening August heat remained unbroken;but on the fifth the thunderheads began to gather and a fresh breezeswept down from the slopes of the distant Cumberland; a wind smellingsweetly of rain and full of cooling promise. 

On this fifth day, Thomas Jefferson, lying in wait at the gate of themanor-house grounds, waylaid Doctor Williams coming out, and asked thequestion which had hitherto had its doleful answer without the necessityof asking. If the doctor had struck him with the buggy whip the shockwould not have been more real than that consequent on the snapping ofmental tension strings and the surging, strangling uprush of the tidalwave of relief. 

"Little Ardea?" said the doctor. "Oh, she'll do well enough now, I hope. The fever is broken and she's asleep. "

Thomas Jefferson shut the gate mechanically when the doctor had drivenout; but when there was nothing more to hold him, he scrambled over thestone wall on the opposite side of the pike and ran for the hills likeone demented. 

The girl would live! Hell had yawned and cast him up once more on thepleasant, homely earth; and now the gentle rain of penitence, whichcould never water the dry places for a soul in torment, drenched himlike the real rain which was falling to slake the thirst of the parchedfields and the brittle-leaved, rustling forest. 

For a long time he lay on his face on the first bit of tree-shelteredgrass he had come to, caring nothing for the storm which was driving allthe wild creatures of the wood to cover. God had not been so pitiless, after all. There was yet a balm in Gilead. 

And for the future? O just Heavens! how straitly and circumspectly hewould walk all the days of his life! Never again should Satan, goingabout like a roaring lion, take him unawares. He would even learn tolove the girl, as one should love an enemy; and when she should come andtell him that all the sacred places were hers by her grandfather'sright, he would smile reproachfully, like the boy being led forth to thestake in the _Book of Martyrs_, and say--

But the time was not yet fully come for self-pityings; and when ThomasJefferson went home after the shower, not even the soggy chill of hiswet clothes could depress the spirit which had made good its footing onthe high mount of humility. 

VIII

THE BACKSLIDER

It was late in September before the dreaded invasion of the sacredplaces, foreboded by Thomas Jefferson's prophetic soul, became one ofthe things to be looked back on; and the interval had sufficed foranother change of heart, or, more correctly, for a descent to the valleyof things as they are from the top of that high mountain of spiritualhumility. 

Thomas Jefferson did not analyze the reactionary process. But themilestones along the backward way were familiar. 

In a little while he found that he was once more able to say his prayersat bedtime with the old glibness, and with the comfortable feeling thathe had done his whole duty if he remained on his knees for sixty fullticks of the heirloom grandfather clock. It was an accomplishment onwhich he prided himself, this knack of saying his prayers and countingthe clock ticks at the same time. Stub Helgerson, whose mother was aLutheran and said her prayers out of a book, could not do it. ThomasJefferson had asked him. 

A little farther along he came to the still more familiar milestone ofthe doubtful questionings. Did God really trouble Himself about themillions of things people asked Him to do? It seemed highly incredible, not to say impossible, in the very nature of it. And if He did, would Hemake one person sick for the sake of making another person sorry? Thesequestions were answerless, like so many of the others; but after theperplexity had been pushed aside, the doubt remained. 

Coming down by such successive steps from the mount of penitentthanksgivings, it was but a short time before he found himself back onthe old camping-ground of sullen resentment. 

When the girl got well enough to go about, she would find him out andwarn him off; or perhaps she might do even worse, and tag him. In eithercase he should hate her, and there was a sort of ferocious joy in thethought that she would doubtless be a long time getting well, and wouldprobably not be able to find him if he kept far enough out of her way. 

Acting on this wise conclusion, he carefully avoided the manor-house andits neighborhood, making a wide circuit when he went fishing in theupper pools. And once, when his father had sent him with a message tothe Major, he did violence to his own sense of exact obedience bytransferring the word at the house gate to Mammy Juliet's grandson, Pete. 

But when one's evil star is in the ascendent, precautions are like thevain strugglings of the fly in the web. The day of reckoning may bepostponed, but it will by no means be effaced from the calendar. Onepurple and russet afternoon, when all the silent forest world wassteeped in the deep peace of early autumn, Thomas Jefferson was fishingluxuriously in the most distant of the upper pools. There were three fatperch gill-strung on a forked withe under the overhanging bank, and afourth was rising to the bait, when the peaceful stillness was rudelyrent by a crashing in the undergrowth, and a great dog, of a breedhitherto unknown to Paradise, bounded into the little glade to standglaring at the fisherman, his teeth bared and his back hairs bristling. 

Now Thomas Jefferson in his thirteenth year was as well able to defendhimself as any clawed and toothed creature of the wood, and fear, thefear of anything he could face and grapple with, was a thing unknown. Propping his fishing pole so that no chance of a nibble might be lost inthe impending struggle, he got on his knees and picked out the exactspot in the dog's neck where he would drive the bait knife home whenhostilities actual should begin. 

"Oh, please! Don't you hurt my dog!" said a rather weak little voice outof the rearward void. 

But, gray eyes human, holding brown canine in an unwinking gaze: "Youcome round here and call him off o' me. "

"He is not wishing to hurt you, or anybody, " said the voice. "Down, Hector!"

The Great Dane passed from suspicious rigidity and threatening liptwitchings to mighty and frivolous gambolings, and Thomas Jefferson gotup to give him room. A girl--_the_ girl, as some inner sense instantlyassured him--was trying to make the dog behave. So he had a chance tolook her over before the battle for sovereignty should begin. 

There was a little shock of disdainful surprise to go with the firstglance. Somehow he had been expecting something very different;something on the order of the Queen of Sheba--done small, of course--asthat personage was pictured in the family Bible; a girl, proud andscornful, and possibly wearing a silk dress and satin shoes. 

Instead, she was only a pale, tired baby in a brier-torn frock; a girlwhose bones showed brazenly at every angle, and whose only claim to asecond glance lay in her thick mop of reddish-brown hair and in a pairof great, slate-blue eyes two sizes too large for the thin face. Adouble conclusion came and sat in Thomas Jefferson's mind: she wasrather to be contemptuously pitied than feared; and as for looks--well, she was not to be thought of in the same day with black-eyed NanBryerson. 

When the dog was reduced to quietude, the small one repaid ThomasJefferson's stare with a level gaze out of the over-sized eyes. 

"Was it that you were afraid of Hector?" she asked. 

"Huh!" said Thomas Jefferson, and the scorn was partly for her queer wayof speaking and partly for the foolishness of the question. "Huh! Ireckon you don't know who I am. I'd have killed your dog if he'd jumpedon me, maybe. "

"Me? I do know who you are. You are Thomas Gordon. Your mother took careof me and prayed for me when I was sick. Hector is a--an extremely gooddog. He would not jump at you. "

"It's mighty lucky for him he didn't, " bragged Thomas Jefferson, with avery creditable imitation of his father's grim frown. Then he sat downon the bank of the stream and busied himself with his fishing-tackle asif he considered the incident closed. 

"What is it that you are trying to do?" asked Ardea, when the silencehad extended to the third worm impaled on the hook and promptlyabstracted therefrom by a wily sucker lying at the bottom of the pool. 

"I was fishin' some before you and your dog came along and scared allthe perch away, " he said sourly. Then, turning suddenly on her: "Whydon't you go ahead and say it? Is it 'cause you're afeard to?"

"I don't know what you mean. "

"I know what you're going to say; you are going to tell me this is yourgrandfather's land and run me off. But I ain't aimin' to go till I'mgood and ready. "

She looked down on him without malice. 

"You are such a funny boy, " she remarked, and there was something in herway of saying it that made Thomas Jefferson feel little and infantileand inferior, though he was sure there must be an immense age differencein his favor. 

"Why?" he demanded. 

"Oh, I don't know; just because you are. If you knew French I couldexplain it better that way. "

"I don't know anybody by that name, and I don't care, " said ThomasJefferson doggedly; and went back to his fishing. 

Followed another interval of silence, in which two more worms were fedto the insatiable sucker at the bottom of the pool. Then came thevolcanic outburst. 

"I think you are mean, mean!" she sobbed, with an angry stamp of herfoot. "I--I want to go ho-ome!"

"Well, I reckon there ain't anybody holdin' you, " said Thomas Jeffersonbrutally. He was intent on fixing the sixth worm on the hook in suchfashion as permanently to discourage the bait thief, and was coming tohis own in the matter of self-possession with grateful facility. It wasgoing to be notably easy to bully her--another point of differencebetween her and Nan Bryerson. 

"I know there isn't anybody holding me, but--but I can't find the way. "

That any one could be lost within an easy mile of the manor-house wasridiculously incredible to Thomas Jefferson. Yet there was no telling, in the case of a girl. 

"You want me to show you the way?" he asked, putting all theungraciousness he could muster into the query. 

"You might tell me, I should think! I've walked and walked!"

"I reckon I'd better take you; you might get lost again, " he said, withgloomy sarcasm. Then he consumed all the time he could for themethodical disposal of his fishing-tackle. It would be good for her tolearn that she must wait on his motions. 

She waited patiently, sitting on the ground with one arm around the neckof the Great Dane; and when Thomas Jefferson stole a glance at her tosee how she was taking it, she looked so tired and thin and woebegonethat he almost let the better part of him get the upper hand. That madehim surlier than ever when he finally recovered his string of fish fromthe stream and said: "Well, come on, if you're comin'. "

He told himself, hypocritically, that it was only to show her whathardships she would have to face if she should try to tag him, that hedragged her such a weary round over the hills and through the worstbrier patches and across and across the creek, doubling and circlinguntil the easy mile was spun out into three uncommonly difficult ones. But at bottom the motive was purely wicked. In all the range of sentientcreatures there is none so innately and barbarously cruel as the humanboy-child; and this was the first time Thomas Jefferson had ever had ahelplessly pliable subject. 

The better she kept up, the more determined he became to break her down;but at the very last, when she stumbled and fell in an old leaf bed andcried for sheer weariness, he relented enough to say: "I reckon you'llknow better than to go projectin' round in the woods the next time. Comeon--we're 'most there, now. "

But Ardea's troubles were not yet at an end. She stopped crying and gotup to follow him blindly over more hills and through other briertangles; and when they finally emerged in the cleared lands, they werestill on the wrong side of the creek. 

"It's only about up to your chin; reckon you can wade it?" asked ThomasJefferson, in a sudden access of heart-hardening. But it softened him alittle to see her gather her torn frock and stumble down to the water'sedge without a word, and he added: "Hold on; maybe we can find a log, somewhere. "

There was a foot log just around the next bend above, as he very wellknew, and thither he led the way. The dog made the crossing first, andstood wagging his tail encouragingly on the bank of safety. Then ThomasJefferson passed his trembling victim out on the log. 

"You go first, " he directed; "so 't I can catch you if you slip. "

For the first time she humbled herself to beg a boon. 

"Oh, you please go first, so I won't have to look down at the water!"

"No; I'm coming behind--then I can catch you if you get dizzy and go tofall, " he said stubbornly. 

"Will you walk right up close, so I can know you are there?"

Thomas Jefferson's smile was cruelly misleading, as were his words. "Allyou'll have to do will be to reach your hand back and grab me, " heassured her; and thereupon she began to inch her way out over theswirling pool. 

When he saw that she could by no possibility turn to look back, ThomasJefferson deliberately sat down on the bank to watch her. There hadnever been anything in his life so tigerishly delightful as this game ofplaying on the feelings and fears of the girl whose coming had spoiledthe solitudes. 

For the first few feet Ardea went steadily forward, keeping her eyesfixed on the Great Dane sitting motionless at the farther end of thebridge of peril. Then, suddenly the dog grew impatient and began to leapand bark like a foolish puppy. It was too much for Ardea to have hereye-anchor thus transformed into a dizzying whirlwind of gray monsters. She reached backward for the reassuring hand: it was not there, and thenext instant the hungry pool rose up to engulf her. 

In all his years Thomas Jefferson had never had such a stab as thatwhich an instantly awakened conscience gave him when she slipped andfell. Now he was her murderer, beyond any hope of future mercies. For amoment the horror of it held him vise-like. Then the sight of the GreatDane plunging to the rescue freed him. 

"Good dog!" he screamed, diving headlong from his own side of the pool;and between them Ardea was dragged ashore, a limp little heap ofsaturation, conscious, but with her teeth chattering and great, darkcircles around the big blue eyes. 

Thomas Jefferson's first word was masculinely selfish. 

"I'm awful sorry!" he stammered. "If you can't make out to forgive me, I'm going to have a miser'ble time of it after I get home. God will whipme worse for this than He did for the other. "

It was here, again, that she gave him the feeling that she was olderthan he. 

"It will serve you quite right. Now you'd better get me home as quick asever you can. I expect I'll be sick again, after this. "

He held his peace and walked her as fast as he could across the fieldsand out on the pike. But at the Dabney gates he paused. It was not inhuman courage to face the Major under existing conditions. 

"I reckon you'll go and tell your gran'paw on me, " he said hopelessly. 

She turned on him with anger ablaze. 

"Why should I not tell him? And I never want to see you or hear of youagain, you cruel, hateful boy!"

Thomas Jefferson hung about the gate while she went stumbling up thedriveway, leaning heavily on the great dog. When she had safely reachedthe house he went slowly homeward, wading in trouble even as he waded inthe white dust of the pike. For when one drinks too deeply of the cup oftyranny the lees are apt to be like the little book the Revelatorate--sweet as honey in the mouth and bitter in the belly. 

That evening at the supper-table he had one nerve-racking feardispelled and another confirmed by his mother's reply to a question putby his father. 

"Yes; the Major sent for me again this afternoon. That child is back inbed again with a high fever. It seems she was out playing with thatgreat dog of hers and fell into the creek. I wanted to tell the Major heis just tempting Providence, the way he makes over her and indulges her, but I didn't dare to. "

And again Thomas Jefferson knew that he was the one who had temptedProvidence. 

IX

THE RACE TO THE SWIFT

From the grave and thoughtful vantage-ground of thirteen, ThomasJefferson could look back on the second illness of Ardea Dabney as theclosing incident of his childhood. 

The industrial changes which were then beginning, not only for the citybeyond the mountain, but for all the region round about, had rushedswiftly on Paradise; and the old listless life of the unhasting periodsoon receded quickly into a far-away past, rememberable only when onemade an effort to recall it. 

First had come the completion of the Great Southwestern. Diverted by theuntiring opposition of Major Dabney from its chosen path through thevalley, it skirted the westward hills, passing within a few hundredyards of the Gordon furnace. Since business knows no animosities, thepart which Caleb Gordon and his gun crew had played in the right-of-wayconflict was ignored. The way-station at the creek crossing was namedGordonia, and it was the railway traffic manager himself who suggestedto the iron-master the taking of a partner with capital, the opening ofthe vein of coking coal on Mount Lebanon, the installation ofcoking-ovens, and the modernizing and enlarging of the furnace andfoundry plant--hints all pointing to increased traffic for the road. 

With the coming of Mr. Duxbury Farley to Paradise, Thomas Jeffersonlost, not only the simple life, but the desire to live it. This Mr. Farley, whom we have seen and heard, momentarily, on the stationplatform in South Tredegar, the expanded, hailed from Cleveland, Ohio;was, as he was fond of saying pompously, a citizen of no mean city. Hisbusiness in the reawakening South was that of an intermediary betweencause and effect; the cause being the capital of confiding investors inthe North, and the effect the dissipation of the same in various andsundry development schemes in the new iron field. 

To Paradise, in the course of his goings to and fro, came this purger ofother men's purses, and he saw the fortuitous grouping of thepossibilities at a glance: abundant iron of good quality; an accessiblevein of coal, second only to Pocahontas for coking; land cheap, waterfree, and a persuadable subject in straightforward, simple-hearted CalebGordon. 

Farley had no capital, but he had that which counts for more in thepromoter's field; namely, the ability to reap where others had sown. Hisplan, outlined to Caleb in a sweeping cavalry-dash of enthusiasm, wassimplicity itself. Caleb should contribute the raw material--land, waterand the ore quarry--and it should also be his part to secure a lease ofthe coal land from Major Dabney. In the meantime he, Farley, wouldundertake to float the enterprise in the North, forming a company andselling stock to provide the development capital. 

The iron-master demurred a little at first. There were difficulties, and he pointed them out. 

"I don't know, Colonel Farley. It appears like I'm givin' all I've gotfor a handout at the kitchen door of the big company. Then, again, there's the Major. He's pizon against all these improvements. You don'tknow the Major. "

"On the contrary, my dear Mr. Gordon, it is because I do know him, orknow of him, that I am turning him over to you. You are the one personin the world to obtain that coal lease. I confess I couldn't touch theMajor with a ten-foot pole, any more than you could go North and get thecash. But you are his neighbor, and he likes you. What you recommend, he'll do. " Thus the enthusiast. 

"Well, I don't know, " said Caleb doubtfully; "I reckon I can try. Hecan't any more 'n fire me, like he did the Southwestern right-o'-wayman. But then, about t'other part of it: I've got a little charcoalfurnace here that don't amount to much, maybe, but it's all mine, andI'm the boss. When this other thing goes through, the men who areputting up the money will own it and me. I'll be just about as muchaccount as the tag on a shoe-string. "

This part of the conference was held on the slab-floored porch of theoak-shingled house, with Thomas Jefferson as a negligible listener. Since he was listening with both eyes and ears, he saw something in Mr. Duxbury Farley's face that carried him swiftly back to the SouthTredegar railway station and to that first antipathetic impression. Butagain the suave tongue quickly turned the page. 

"Don't let that trouble you for a moment, Mr. Gordon, " was thereassuring rejoinder. "I shall see that your apportionment of stock inthe company is as large as the flotation scheme will stand; and as I, too, shall be a minority stock-holder, I shall share your risk. Butthere will be no risk. If the Lord prospers us, we shall both come outof this rich men, Mr. Gordon. "

The slow smile that Thomas Jefferson knew so well came and went like aflitting shadow. 

"I reckon the Lord don't make n'r meddle much with these here littlechild's playhouses of our'n, " said Caleb; and then he gave his consentto the promoter's plan. 

Singularly or not, as we choose to view it, the difficulties effacedthemselves at the first onset. Though tact was no part of Caleb Gordon'sequipment, his presentation of the matter to Major Dabney became sonearly a personal asking--with Mr. Duxbury Farley and the Northerncapitalists distantly backgrounding--that the Major granted the lease ofthe coal lands on purely personal grounds; would, indeed, have waivedthe matter of consideration entirely, if Caleb had not insisted. Had notthe iron-master been raised to the high degree of fellowship by the handthat signed the lease?

On his part, Mr. Duxbury Farley was equally successful. A company wasformed, the charter was obtained, and the golden stream began to flowinto the treasury; into it and out again in the raceway channels ofdevelopment. Thomas Jefferson stood aghast when an army of workmen sweptdown on Paradise and began to change the very face of nature. But thatwas only the beginning. 

For a time Chiawassee Coal and Iron figured buoyantly in the marketquotations, and delegations of stock-holders, both present andprospective, were personally conducted to the scene of activities byenthusiastic Vice-President Farley. But when these had served theirpurpose a thing happened. One fine morning it was whispered on 'Changethat Chiawassee iron would not Bessemer, and that Chiawassee coke hadbeen rejected by the Southern Association of Iron Smelters. 

Followed a crash which was never very clearly understood by thesimple-hearted soldier iron-master, though it was merely a repetition ofa lesson well conned by the earlier investors in Southern coal and ironfields. Caleb's craft was the making of iron; not the financing oftop-heavy corporations. So, when he was told that the company hadfailed, and that he and Farley had been appointed receivers, he took itas a financial matter, of course, somewhat beyond his ken, and wentabout his daily task of supervision with a mind as undisturbed as itwould have been distraught had he known something of the subterraneanmechanism by which the failure and the receivership had been brought topass. 

Why Mr. Duxbury Farley spared the iron-master in the freezing-outprocess was an unsolved riddle to many. But there were reasons. For one, there was the lease of the coal lands, renewable year by year--this wasCaleb's own honest provision inserted in the contract for the Major'sprotection--and renewable only by the Major's friend. Further, apractical man at the practical end of an industry is a sheer necessity;and by contriving to have honest Caleb associated with himself in thereceivership, a fine color of uprightness was imparted to the promoter'sfar-reaching plan of aggrandizement. 

So, later, when the reorganization was effected; when the troublesome, dividend-hungry stock-holders of the original company were eliminated bydue process of law, Caleb's name appeared on the Farley slate with thetitle of general manager of the new company--for the same good andsufficient reasons. 

It was during the fervid six months of Chiawassee Coal and Irondevelopment that Thomas Jefferson had passed from the old life to thenew--from childhood to boyhood. 

Simultaneously, there were the coal-mines opening under the cliffs ofMount Lebanon, the long, double row of coking-ovens building on the flatbelow the furnace, and the furnace itself taking on undreamed-ofmagnitudes under the hands of the army of workmen. Thomas Jefferson didhis best to keep the pace, being driven by a new and eager thirst forknowledge mechanical, and by a gripping desire to be present at all theassemblings of all the complicated parts of the threefold machine. Andwhen he found it impossible to be in three places at one and the samemoment, it distressed him to tears. 

Of the home life during that strenuous interval there was little morethan the eating and sleeping for one whose time for the absorbentprocess was all too limited. Also, the perplexing questions reachingdown into the under-soul of things were silent. Also, again--mark of achange so radical that none but a Thomas Jefferson may read andunderstand--an awe-inspiring Major Dabney had ceased to be the firstcitizen of the world, that pinnacle being now occupied by a tall, sallow, smooth-faced gentleman, persuasive of speech and superhuman inaccomplishment, who was the life and soul of the activities, and whomhis father and mother always addressed respectfully as "Colonel" Farley. 

One day, in the very heat of the battle, this commanding personage, atwhose word the entire world of Paradise was in travail, had deigned tospeak directly to him--Thomas Jefferson. It was at the mine on themountain. The workmen were bolting into place the final trestle of theinclined railway which was to convey the coal in descending carloads tothe bins at the coke-ovens, and Thomas Jefferson was absorbing thedetails as a dry sponge soaks water. 

"Making sure that they do it just right, are you, my boy?" said thegreat man, patting him approvingly on the shoulder. "That's good. I liketo see a boy anxious to get to the bottom of things. Going to be aniron-master, like your father, are you?"

"N-no, " stammered the boy. "I wisht I was!"

"Well, what's to prevent? We are going to have the completest plant inthe country right here, and it will be a fine chance for your father'sson; the finest in the world. "

"'Tain't goin' to do me any good, " said Thomas Jefferson dejectedly. "Igot to be a preacher. "

Mr. Duxbury Farley looked down at him curiously. He was a religiousperson himself, coming to be known as a pillar in St. Michael's Churchat South Tredegar, a liberal contributor, and a prime mover in a plan totear down the old building and to erect a new one more in keeping withthe times and South Tredegar's prosperity. Yet he was careful to drawthe line between religion as a means of grace and business as a means ofmaking money. 

"That is your mother's wish, I suppose: and it's a worthy one; veryworthy. Yet, unless you have a special vocation--but there; your motherdoubtless knows best. I am only anxious to see your father's son succeedin whatever he undertakes. "

After that, Thomas Jefferson secretly made Success his god, and wasalertly ready to fetch and carry for the high priest in its temple, onlythe opportunities were infrequent. 

For, wide as the Paradise field seemed to be growing from ThomasJefferson's point of view, it was altogether too narrow for DuxburyFarley. The principal offices of Chiawassee Coal and Iron were in SouthTredegar, and there the first vice-president was building a hewn-stonemansion, and had become a charter member of the city's first club; wasdomiciled in due form, and was already beginning to soften his final"r's, " and to speak of himself as a Southerner--by adoption. 

So sped the winter and the spring succeeding Thomas Jefferson'sthirteenth birthday, and for the first time in his life he saw theopening buds of the ironwood and the tender, fresh greens of the heraldpoplars, and smelled the sweet, keen fragrance of awakening nature, without being moved thereby. 

Ardea he saw only now and then, as old Scipio drove her back and forthbetween the manor-house and the railway station, morning and evening. Hehad heard that she was going to school in the city, and as yet therewere no stirrings of adolescence in him to make him wish to know more. 

As for Nan Bryerson, he saw her not at all. For one thing, he climbed nomore to the spring-sheltering altar rock among the cedars; and foranother, among all the wild creatures of the mountain, your moonshineris the shyest, being an anachronism in a world of progress. One bit ofnews, however, floated in on the gossip at Little Zoar. It related thatNan's mother was dead, and that the body had lain two days unburiedwhile Tike was drowning his sorrow in a sea of his own "pine-top. "

In the new life, as in the old, summer followed quickly on the heels ofspring, and when the hepaticas and the violets were gone, and the laureland the rhododendron were decking the cliffs of Lebanon in their summerrobes of pink and white and magenta, another door was opened for ThomasJefferson. 

Vaguely it had been understood in the Gordon household that Mr. DuxburyParley was a widower with two children: a boy, some two years older thanThomas Jefferson, at school in New England, and a girl younger, name andplace of sojourn unknown. The boy was coming South for the longvacation, and the affairs of Chiawassee Coal and Iron--already reachingout subterraneously toward the future receivership--would call the firstvice-president North for the better portion of July. Would Mrs. Marthatake pity on a motherless lad, whose health was none of the best, andopen her home to Vincent?

Mrs. Martha would and did; not ungrudgingly on the vice-president'saccount, but with many misgivings on Thomas Jefferson's. She was findingthe surcharged industrial atmosphere of the new era inimical at everypoint to the development of the spiritual passion she had striven toarouse in her son; to paving the way for the realizing of that idealwhich had first taken form when she had written "Reverend ThomasJefferson Gordon" on the margin of the letter to her brother Silas. 

As it fell out, the worst happened that could happen, considering theapparent harmlessness of the exciting cause. Vincent Farley proved to bean anemic stripling, cold, reserved, with no surface indications ofmoral depravity, and with at least a veneer of good breeding. But inThomas Jefferson's heart he planted the seed of discontent with hissurroundings, with the homely old house on the pike, unchanged as yet bythe rising tide of prosperity, and more than all, with the prospect ofbecoming a chosen vessel. 

It was of no use to hark back to the revival and the heart-quakingexperiences of a year agone. Thomas Jefferson tried, but all that seemedto belong to another world and another life. What he craved now was tobe like this envied and enviable son of good fortune, who wore hisSunday suit every day, carried a beautiful gold watch, and was coollyand complacently at ease, even with Major Dabney and a foreign-born andtraveled Ardea. 

Later in the summer the envy died down and Thomas Jefferson developed apronounced case of hero-worship, something to the disgust of thecolder-hearted, older boy. It did not last very long, nor did it leaveany permanent scars; but before Thomas Jefferson was fully convalescentthe subtle flattery of his adulation warmed the subject of it intosomething like companionship, and there were bragging stories ofboarding-school life and of the world at large to add fresh fuel to thefire of discontent. 

Though Thomas Jefferson did not know it, his deliverance on that sidewas nigh. It had been decided in the family council of two--with apreacher-uncle for a casting-vote third--that he was to be sent away toschool, Chiawassee Coal and Iron promising handsomely to warrant theexpense; and the decision hung only on the choice of courses to bepursued. 

Caleb had marked the growing hunger for technical knowledge in the boy, and had secretly gloried in it. Here, at least, was a strong stream ofhis own craftsman's blood flowing in the veins of his son. 

"It'd be a thousand pities to spoil a good iron man and engineer to makea poor preacher, Martha, " he objected; this for the twentieth time, andwhen the approach of autumn was forcing the conclusion. 

"I know, Caleb; but you don't understand, " was the invariable rejoinder. "You know that side of him, because it's your side. But he is my son, too; and--and Caleb, the Lord has called him!"

Gordon's smile was lenient, tolerant, as it always was in suchdiscussions. 

"Not out loud, I reckon, little woman; leastwise, Buddy don't act as ifhe'd heard it. As I've said, there's plenty of time. He's only a littleshaver yet. Let him try the school in the city for a year 'r so, goin'and comin' on the railroads, nights and mornin's, like the Major'sgran'daughter. After that, we might see. "

But now Martha Gordon was fighting the last great battle in the war ofspiritual repression which had been going on ever since the day whenthat text, _Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers_, hadbeen turned into a whip of scorpions to chasten her, and she fought asthose who will not be denied the victory. Caleb yielded finally, butwith some such hand-washing as Pilate did when he gave way to thepressure from without. 

"I aim to do what's for the best, Martha, but I own I hain't got yourcourage. You've been shovin' that boy up the steps o' the pulpit eversince he let on like he could understand what you was sayin' to him, andmaybe it's all right. I've never been over on your side o' that fence, and I don't know how things look over there. But if it was my doin's, I'd be prayin' mighty hard to whatever God I believed in not to let memake a hypocrite out'n o' Buddy. I would _so_. "

Thomas Jefferson was told what was in store for him only a short timebefore his outsetting for the sectarian home school in a neighboringstate, which was the joint selection of his mother and Uncle Silas. Hetook it with outward calm, as he would have taken anything from a prizeto a whipping. But there was dumb rebellion within when his mother readhim the letter he was to carry to the principal--a letter written byBrother Crafts to one of like precious faith, commending the lamb of theflock, and definitely committing that lamb as a chosen vessel. It wasunfair, he cried inwardly, in a hot upflash of antagonism. He mightchoose to be a preacher; he had always meant to be one, for his mother'ssake. But to be pushed and driven--

He took his last afternoon for a ramble in the fields and woods beyondthe manor-house, in that part of the valley as yet unfurrowed by theindustrial plow. It was not the old love of the solitudes that calledhim; it was rather a sore-hearted desire to go apart and give place toall the hard thoughts that were bubbling and boiling within. 

A long circuit over the boundary hills brought him at length to thelittle glade with the pool in its center where he had been fishing forperch on that day when Ardea and the great dog had come to make himback-slide. He wondered if she had ever forgiven him. Most likely shehad not. She never seemed to think him greatly worth while when theyhappened to meet. 

He was sitting on the overhanging bank, just where he had sat that otherday, when suddenly history repeated itself. There was a rustling in thebushes; the Great Dane bounded out, though not as before to standmenacing; and when he turned his head she was there near him. 

"Oh, it's you, is it?" she said coolly; and then she called to the dogand made as if she would go away. But Thomas Jefferson's heart was full, and full hearts are soft. 

"You needn't run, " he hazarded. "I reckon I ain't going to bite you. Idon't feel much like biting anybody to-day. "

"You did bite me once, though, " she said airily. 

"And you've never forgiven me for it, " he asserted, in deepestself-pity. 

"Oh, yes, I have; the Dabneys always forgive--but they never forget. Andme, I am a Dabney. "

"That's just as bad. You wouldn't be so awful mean to me if you knew. I--I'm going away. "

She came a little nearer at that and sat down beside him on the yellowgrass with an arm around the dog's neck. 

"Does it hurt?" she asked. "Because, if it does, I'm sorry; and I'llpromise to forget. "

"It does hurt some, " he confessed. "Because, you see, I'm going to be apreacher. "

"You?" she said, with the frank and unsympathetic surprise of childhood. Then politeness came to the rescue and she added: "I'm sorry for that, too, if you are wanting me to be. Only I should think it would be fineto wear a long black robe and a pretty white surplice, and to learn tosing the prayers beautifully, and all that. "

Thomas Jefferson was honestly horrified, and he looked it. 

"I'd like to know what in the world you're talking about, " he said. 

"About your being a minister, of course. Only in France, they call thempriests of the church. "

The boy's lips went together in a fine straight line. Not for nothingdid the blood of many generations of Protestants flow in his veins. "Priest" was a Popish word. 

"The Pope of Rome is antichrist!" he declared authoritatively. 

She seemed only politely interested. 

"Is he? I didn't know. " Then, with a tactfulness worthy of graver years, she drew away from the dangerous topic. "When are you going?"

"To-morrow. "

"Is it far?"

"Yes; it's an awful long ways. "

"Never mind; you'll be coming back after a while, and then we'll befriends--if you want to. "

Surely Thomas Jefferson's heart was as wax before the fire that day. 

"I'm mighty glad, " he said. Then he got up. "Will you let me show youthe way home again?--the short, easy way, this time?"

She hesitated a moment, and then stood up and gave him her hand. 

"I'm not afraid of you now; _we_ don't hate him any more, do we, Hector?"

And so they went together through the yellowing aisles of the Septemberwood and across the fields to the manor-house gates. 

X

THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK

Tom Gordon--Thomas Jefferson now only in his mother's letters--wasfifteen past, and his voice was in the transition stage which made himblushingly self-conscious when he ran up the window-shade in the Pullmanto watch for the earliest morning outlining of old Lebanon on thesouthern horizon. 

There had been no home-going for him at the close of his first year inthe sectarian school. The principal had reported him somewhat backwardin his studies for his age, --which was true enough, --and had intimatedthat a summer spent with the preceptor who had the vacation charge ofthe school buildings would be invaluable to a boy of such excellentnatural parts. So Tom had gone into semi-solitary confinement for threemonths with a man who thought in the dead languages and spoke in termsof ancient history, studying with sullen resentment in his heart, andcharging his imprisonment to his preacher-uncle, who was, indeed, chiefly responsible. 

He had mourned that loss of liberty all through his second year, and wasconscious the while that it would prove the parent of a still greaterloss. It is the exile's anchorage in a shifting world to think of thehome haven as unchanged and unchanging; as a place where by and by thethread of life as it was may be knotted up with that of life as it shallbe. But Tom remembered that he had left Paradise in the midst ofconvulsive upheavals, and was correspondingly fearful. 

The sickening sense of unfamiliarity seized him when the train stoppedfor breakfast in the city which had once been the village of the singlemuddy street. The genius of progress had transformed it so completelythat there was nothing but the huge, backgrounding mass of Lebanon, visible from the windows of the station breakfast-room, to identify thegrave of the old and the birthplace of the new. 

The boy laid desperate eye-holds on the comforting solidity of thebackground, and would not loose them when the train sped away southwardagain through mile-long yards with their boundaries picked out byblack-vomiting factory chimneys. The mountain, at least, was unchanged, and there might be hope for the country beyond. 

But the homesickness returned with renewed qualms when the train haddoubled the nose of Lebanon and threaded its way among the hills to theParadise portal. Gordonia, of the single side-track, had grown into asmall iron town, with the Chiawassee plant flanking a good half-mile ofthe railway; with a cindery street or two, and a scummy wave ofoperatives' cottages and laborers' shacks spreading up the hillsideswhich were stripped bare of their trees and undergrowth. 

Tom's eyes filled, and he was wondering faintly if the desolating tideof progress had topped the hills to pour over into the home valleybeyond, when his father accosted him. There was a little shock at thesight of the grizzled hair and beard turned so much grayer; but thewelcoming was like a grateful draft of cool water in a parchedwilderness. 

"Well, now then! How are ye, Buddy, boy? Great land o' Canaan! butyou've shot up and thickened out mightily in two years, son. "

Tom was painfully conscious of his size. Also of the fact that he wasclumsily in his own way, particularly as to hands and feet. Thesectarian school dwelt lightly on athletics and such purely mundanetrivialities as physical fitness and the harmonious education of thegrowing body and limbs. 

"Yes; I'm so big it makes me right tired, " he said gravely, and hisvoice cracked provokingly in the middle of it. Then he asked about hismother. 

"She's tolerable--only tolerable, Buddy. She allows she don't haveenough to keep her doin' in the new--" Caleb pulled himself up abruptlyand changed the subject with a ponderous attempt at levity. "What-allhave you done with your trunk check, son? Now I'll bet a hen worth fiftydollars ye've gone and lost it. "

But Tom had not; and when the luggage was found there was anotherinnovation to buffet him. The old buggy with its high seat had vanished, and in its room there was a modern surrey with a negro driver. Tomlooked askance at the new equipage. 

"Can't we make out to walk, pappy?" he asked, dropping unconsciouslyinto the child-time phrase. 

"Oh, yes; I reckon we could. You're not too young, and I'm not soterr'ble old. But--get in, Buddy, get in; there'll be trampin' enoughfor ye, all summer long. "

The limestone pike was the same, and the creek was still rushingnoisily over the stones in its bed, as Tom remarked gratefully. But theheaviest of the buffets came when the barrier hills were passed and thesurrey horses made no motion to turn in at the gate of the oldoak-shingled house beyond the iron-works. 

"Hold on!" said Tom. "Doesn't the driver know where we live?"

The old-time, gentle smile wrinkled about the iron-master's eyes. 

"That's the sup'rintendent's office and lab'ratory now, son. It wasgetting to be tolerable noisy down here for your mammy, so nigh to theplant. And we allowed to s'prise you. We've been buildin' us a new houseup on the knoll just this side o' Major Dabney's. "

It was the cruelest of the changes--the one hardest to bear; and itdrove the boy back into the dumb reticence which was a part of hisbirthright. Had they left him nothing by which to remember the olddays--days which were already beginning to take on the glamour ofunutterable happiness past?

Nevertheless, he could not help looking curiously for the new home--theold being irretrievably sacked and ruined; but there were more shocks tocome between. One of Mr. Duxbury Farley's side issues had been a realestate boom for Paradise Valley proper. South Tredegar being prosperous, the time had seemed propitious for the engrafting of the country-houseidea. By some means, marvelous to those who knew Major Dabney'stenacious land-grip, the promoter had bought in the wooded hillsidesfacing the mountain, cut them into ten-acre residence plots, run agraveled drive on the western side of the creek to front them, andpresto! the thing was done. 

Tom saw well-kept lawns, park-like groves and pretentious country villaswhere he had once trailed Nance Jane through the "dark woods, " and hisfather told him the names and circumstance of the owners as they droveup the pike. There was Rockwood, the summer home of the Stanleys, andThe Dell, owned, and inhabited at intervals, by Mr. Young-Dickson, ofthe South Tredegar potteries. Farther along there was Fairmount, whoseowner was a wealthy cotton-seed buyer; Rook Hill, which Tom rememberedas the ancient roosting ground of the migratory winter crows; andFarnsworth Park, ruralizing the name of its builder. On the mostcommanding of the hillsides was a pile of rough-cut Tennessee marblewith turrets and many gables, rejoicing in the classic name of WarwickLodge. This, Tom was told, was the country home of Mr. Farley himself, and the house alone had cost a fortune. 

At the turn in the pike where you lost sight finally of the iron-works, there was a new church, a miniature in native stone of good old StephenHawker's church of Morwenstow. Tom gasped at the sight of it, andscowled when he saw the gilded cross on the tower. 

"Catholic!" he said. "And right here in our valley!"

"No, " said the father; "it's 'Piscopalian. Colonel Farley is one o' thevestries, or whatever you call 'em, of St. Michael's yonder in town. Ireckon he wanted to get his own kind o' people round him out here, so hebuilt this church, and they run it as a sort of side-show to the bigchurch. Your mammy always looks the other way when we come by. "

Tom looked the other way, too, watching anxiously for the first sightof the new home. They reached it in good time, by a graveled drivewayleading up from the white pike between rows of forest trees; and therewas a second negro waiting to take the team, when they alighted at theveranda steps. 

The new house was a two-storied brick, ornate and palpably assertive, with no suggestion of the homely country comfort of the old. Yet, whenhis mother had wept over him in the wide hall, and there was time to goabout, taking it all in like a cat exploring a strange garret, it wasnot so bad. 

Or rather, let us say, there were compensations. The love of luxury isonly dormant in the heart of the hardiest barbarian; and the polishedfloors and soft-piled rugs, the bath-room with its great china dish, andthe carpeted stair with the old grandfather clock ticking bravely on thelanding, presently began to thrum the tuneful chord of pride. PerhapsArdea Dabney would not laugh and say, "What a funny, _funny_ old place!"as she had once said when the Major had brought her to the log-walledhomestead on the lower pike. 

Still, there were incongruities--hopeless janglings of things married byincreasing prosperity, but never meant to be bedfellows in theharmonious course of nature. One was the unblushing effrontery of thenew brick pairing itself brazenly with the venerable gray stonemanor-house on the adjoining knoll--impudence perceivable even to ahobbledehoy fresh from the school desk and the dormitory. Another wasthe total lack of sympathy between the housing and the housed. 

This last was painfully evident in all the waking hours of thehousehold. Tom observed that his father escaped early in the morning, and lived and moved and had his being in the industries at the lower endof the valley, as of old. But his mother's occupation was quite gone. And the summer evenings, sat out decorously on the ornate veranda, werefull of constraint and awkward silences, having no part nor lot withthose evenings of the older time on the slab-floored porch of the oldhomestead on the pike. 

But there were compensations again, even for Martha Gordon, and Tomdiscovered one of them on the first Wednesday evening after his arrival. The new home was within easy walking distance of Little Zoar, and hewent with his mother to the prayer-meeting. 

The upper end of the pike was unchanged, and the little, weather-beatenchurch stood in its groving of pines, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. Better still, the congregation, the small Wednesday-nightgathering at least, held the familiar faces of the country folk. Theminister was a young missionary, zealously earnest, and lacking as yetthe quality of hardness and doctrinal precision which had been the boy'sdaily bread and meat at the sectarian school. What wonder, then, thatwhen the call for testimony was made, the old pounding andheart-hammering set in, and duty, _duty_, duty, wrote itself inflaming letters on the dingy walls?

Tom set his teeth and swallowed hard, and let a dozen of the others riseand speak and sit again. He could feel the beating of his mother'sheart, and he knew she was praying silently for him, praying that hewould not deny his Master. For her sake, then . .. But not yet; there wasstill time enough--after the next hymn--after the next testimony--whenthe minister should give another invitation. He was chained to the benchand could not rise; his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth and hislips were like dry leaves. The silences grew longer; all, or nearly all, had spoken. He was stifling. 

"_Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confessalso before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny mebefore men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. _"It was the solemn voice of the young minister, and Tom staggered to hisfeet with the lamps whirling in giddy circles. 

"I feel to say that the Lord is precious to my soul to-night. Pray forme, that I may ever be found faithful. "

He struggled through the words of the familiar form gaspingly and satdown. A burst of triumphant song arose, "O happy day, that fixed my choice On Thee, my Saviour and my God!"

and the ecstatic aftermath came. Truly, it was better to be a doorkeeperin the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. What blisswas there to be compared with this heart-melting, soul-lifting blessingfor duty done?

It went with him a good part of the way home, and Martha Gordonrespected his silence, knowing well what heights and depths wereengulfing the young spirit. 

But afterward--alas and alas! that there should always be an"afterward"! When Tom had kissed his mother good night and was alone inhis upper room, the reaction set in. What had he done? Were the wordsthe outpouring of a full heart? Did they really mean anything to him, or to those who heard them? He grasped despairingly at the fast-fadingglories of the vision, dropping on his knees at the bedside. "O God, letme see Thee and touch Thee, and be sure, _sure_!" he prayed, over andover again; and so finally sleep found him still on his knees with hisface buried in the bed-clothes. 

XI

THE TRUMPET-CALL

For the first few vacation days Tom rose with the sun and lived with theindustries, marking all the later expansive strides and sorrowing keenlythat he had not been present to see them taken in detail. 

But this was a passing phase. When the mechanical hunger was sated; whenhe had started and stopped every engine in the big plant, had handledthe levers of the great steam-hoist that shot the coal-cars from themine to the coke-yard bins, and had prevailed on the engineer of thedinkey engine to let him haul out and dump a pot of slag, he had a sharprelapse into the primitive, and went roaming afield in search of hislost boyhood. 

It was not to be found in any of the valley haunts, these having beentransformed by the country-house colony. The old water-wheel below thedam hung motionless, being supplanted by the huge, modern, blowing-engines; and the black wash from the coal-mines had driven theperch from the pools and spoiled the swimming-holes in the creek. In thefarther forests of the rampart hills the chopper's ax had been busy; andthe blackberry patches in all the open spaces were sacked daily bychattering swarms of the work-people's children, white and black. 

On the third morning Tom turned his steps despairingly toward theslopes of the mountain. He was at a pass when he would have given worldsto find one of the sacred places undesecrated. And there remained nowonly the high altar under the cedars of Lebanon to be visited. 

It comforted him not a little to find that he had the old-time, burningthirst when he came within earshot of the dripping spring under thegreat rock. But when he would have knelt to drink from his palms likeGideon's men, there was no pool in the rocky basin. A barrel had beensunk in the sand-filled crevice, and a greedy pipe-line sucked up thewater as fast as it trickled from the rock, to pass it on to one of thethirsty mechanisms in the iron plant a thousand feet below. 

In its way this was the final straw, and Tom sat down beside theutilized spring with a lump in his throat. Afterward, he slaked histhirst as he could at the trickle from the rock's lip, and then set hisface toward the higher steeps. Major Dabney, --not yet fully in tune withhis new neighbors of the country-house colony, --and his granddaughterwere spending the summer at Crestcliffe Inn, the new hotel on top of themountain, and Tom felt that Ardea would understand if he could find andtell her. There are times when one must find a sympathetic ear, or berent and torn by the pent-up things within. 

In one sense the sympathy quest was a devitalizing failure. When hereached the summit of the mountain, hot and tired and dusty, the meresight of the great hotel, with its thronged verandas and itsoverpowering air of grandeur and exclusiveness, quenched all desiressave that which prompted a hasty retreat. The sectarian school paid aslittle attention to the social as to the athletic side of its youth; andTom Gordon at fifteen past was as helpless conventionally as if he hadnever set foot outside of Paradise. 

But at the retractive moment he ran plump into the Major, stalkinggrandly along the tile-paved walk and smoking a war-time cheroot ofpreposterous length. The despot of Paradise, despot now only by courtesyof the triumphant genius of modernity, put on his eye-glasses and staredThomas into respectful rigidity. 

"Why, bless my soul!--if it isn't Captain Gordon's boy! Well, well, youyoung limb! If you didn't faveh youh good fatheh in eve'y line andlineament of youh face, I should neveh have known you--you've grown so. Shake hands, suh!"

Tom did it awkwardly. It is a gift to be able to shake hands easily; agift withheld from most girls and all boys up to the soulful age. Butthere was worse to follow. Ardea was somewhere on the peopled verandas, and the Major, more terrible in his hospitality than he had everappeared in the old-time rage-fits, dragged his hapless victim up anddown and around and about in search of her. "Not say 'Howdy' to Ardea?Why, you young cub, where are youh mannehs, suh?" Thus the Major, whenthe victim would have broken away. 

It was a fiery trial for Tom--a way-picking among red-hot plowshares ofembarrassment. How the well-bred folk smiled, and the grand ladies drewtheir immaculate skirts aside to make passing-room for his dusty feet!How one of them wondered, quite audibly, where in the world Major Dabneyhad unearthed that young native! Tom was conscious of every fleck ofdust on his clothes and shoes; of the skilless knot in his necktie; ofthe school-desk droop in his shoulders; of the utter superfluousness ofhis big hands. 

And when, at the long last, Ardea was discovered sitting beside agorgeously-attired Queen of Sheba, who also smiled and examined himminutely through a pair of eye-glasses fastened on the end of agold-mounted stick, the place of torment, wherever and whatever it mightbe, held no deeper pit for him. What he had climbed the mountain to findwas a little girl in a school frock, who had sat on the yellowing grasswith one arm around the neck of a great dog, looking fearlessly up athim and telling him she was sorry he was going away. What he had foundwas a very statuesque little lady, clad in fluffy summer white, with theother Ardea's slate-blue eyes and soft voice, to be sure, but with noother reminder of the lost avatar. 

From first to last, from the moment she made room for him, dusty clothesand all, on the settee between herself and the Queen of Sheba, Tom wasconscious of but one clearly-defined thought--an overmastering desire toget away--to be free at any cost. But the way of escape would notdisclose itself, so he sat in stammering misery, answering Ardea'squestions about the sectarian school in bluntest monosyllables, andhearing with his other ear a terrible Major tell the Queen of Sheba allabout the railroad invasion, and how he--Tom Gordon--had run to find apunk match to fire a cannon in the Dabney cause. 

All of which was bad enough, but the torture rack had still another turnleft in its screw. After he had sat for awkward hours, as it seemed, though minutes would have measured it, there was a stir on the verandaand he became vaguely conscious of an impending catastrophe. 

"Grandpa is telling you you must stay to luncheon with us, " promptedArdea. "Will you take me in?"

The Major had already given his arm to the Queen of Sheba, and there wasno help for the helpless. Tom crooked his arm as stiffly as possible andsaid "May I?"--which was an inspiration--and they got to the greatdining-room with no worse mishap than a collision at the door broughtabout by his stepping on the train of one of the grand ladies. 

But at luncheon his troubles began afresh; or rather, a new and moreagonizing set of them took the field. The fourth seat at the small tablewas occupied by the lady with the stick eye-glasses, and Tom was madeaware that she was a Dabney cousin once removed. Thereupon, what littledexterity was left in him fled away, and the table-trial, under thesmiling eyes of a Miss Euphrasia, became a chapter of horrors. 

From absently picking and choosing among the forks, and trying to drinkhis bouillon out of the cup in which it was served, to upsetting hisglass of iced tea, he stumbled on in a dream of awkwardness; and when, to cover the tea mishap, Ardea, emulating the lady hostess who broke oneof her priceless tea-cups at a similar crisis, promptly overturned herown glass, he was unreasonable enough to be angry. 

Taking it all in all, anger was coming to be the one constant quantityin the procession of varying emotions. By what right did this hollow, insincere, mocking world, of whose very existence he had been in utterignorance, make him a butt for its well-bred sneers? Its fashions andfripperies and meaningless forms were not beyond learning; and, byHeaven! he would learn them, too, and put them all to shame. They shouldsee!

And Ardea: was she laughing at him, too, in the depths of her big, beautiful eyes? No, that was too much; he would never believe that. Butshe was insincere, like the rest of them. It was acting a lie for her tomake-believe clumsiness just to keep the others from laughing at him. She must stand with her kind. 

From that station to the top of the high, bare crag of righteouscondemnation was but a short stage in the wrathful journey; and while hewas choking over the meal of strange dishes the zealous under-thoughtwas reaching out into the future. 

Some day, when his tongue should be loosed, he would stand before thismocking, smiling, heathenish world with the open Bible in his hand; thenit should be taught what it needed to know--that while it was saying itwas rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing, it waswretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. 

So it came about that it was the convert of Little Zoar, and not theself-pitying youth searching for his lost boyhood, who escaped finallyfrom the entanglements of Major Dabney's hospitality. 

On the way down the cliff path the fire burned and the revival zeal waskindled anew. There had been times, in the last year, especially, whenhe had thought coldly of the disciple's calling and was minded to breakaway and be a skilled craftsman, like his father. Now he was aghast tothink that he had ever been so near the brink of apostasy. With theriver of the Water of Life springing crystal clear at his feet, shouldhe turn away and drink from the bitter pools in the wilderness of thisworld? With prophetic eye he saw himself as another Boanerges, lifting, with all the inspiring eloquence of the son of thunder, the Baptist'ssoul-shaking cry, _Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand_!

The thought thrilled him, and the fierce glow of enthusiasm became anintoxicating ecstasy. The tinkling drip of falling water broke into thenoonday silence of the forest like the low-voiced call of a sacred bell. For the first time since leaving the mountain top he took note of hissurroundings. He was standing beside the great, cubical boulder underthe cedars--the high altar in nature's mountain tabernacle. 

Ah, Martha Gordon, mother of many prayers, look now, if you can, but nottoo closely or too long! Is it merely the boy you have molded andfashioned, or is it the convinced and consecrated evangelist of thefuture, who falls on his knees beside the great rock, with head bent andfingers tightly interlocked, groping desperately for words in which torededicate himself to the God of your fathers?

Thomas Jefferson had the deep peace of the fully committed when he rosefrom his knees and went to drink at the spouting rock lip. It wasdecided now, this thing he had been holding half-heartedly in abeyance. There would be no more dallying with temptation, no more rebellion, nomore irreverent stumblings in the dark valley of doubtful questions. More especially, he would be vigilant to guard against thosebackslidings that came so swiftly on the heels of each spiritualquickening. His heart was fixed, so irrevocably, so surely, that hecould almost wish that Satan would try him there and then. But the enemyof souls was nowhere to be seen in the leafy arches of the wood, and Tombent again to take a second draft at the spouting rock lip. 

XII

THE IRON IN THE FORGE FIRE

He was bending over the sunken barrel. A shadow, not his own, blurredthe water mirror. He looked up quickly. 

"Nan!" he cried. 

She was standing on the opposite side of the barrel basin, looking downon him with good-natured mockery in the dark eyes. 

"I 'lowed maybe you wouldn't have such a back load of religion afteryou'd been off to the school a spell, " she said pointedly. And then:"Does it always make you right dry an' thirsty to say your prayers, Tommy-Jeffy?"

Tom sat back on his heels and regarded her thoughtfully. His firstimpulse was out of the natural heart, rageful, wounded vanity spurringit on. It was like her heathenish impertinence to look on at such atime, and then to taunt him about it afterward. 

But slowly as he looked a curious change came over him. She was the sameNan Bryerson, bareheaded, barelegged, with the same tousled mat of darkhair, and the same childish indifference to a whole frock. And yet shewas not the same. The subtle difference, whatever it was, made him getup and offer to shake hands with her, --and he thought it was thenewly-made vows constraining him, and took credit therefor. 

"You can revile me as much as you like now, Nan, " he said, with pridefulhumility. "You can't make me mad any more, like you used to. "

"Why can't I?" she demanded. 

"Because I'm older now, and--and better, I hope. I shall never forgetthat you have a precious soul to save. "

Her response to this was a scoffing laugh, shrill and challenging. Yethe could not help thinking that it made her look prettier than before. 

"You can laugh as much as you want to; but I mean it, " he insisted. "And, besides, Nan, --of all the things that I've been wanting to comeback to, you're the only one that isn't changed. " And again he thoughtit was righteous guile that was making him kind to her. 

In a twinkling the mocking hardness went out of her eyes and she leanedacross the barrel mouth and touched his hand. 

"D'you reckon you shorely mean that, Tom Gordon?" she said; and the lipswhich lent themselves so easily to scorn were tremulous. She was justhis age, and womanhood was only a step across the threshold for her. 

"Of course, I do. Let me carry your bucket for you. "

She had hung the little wooden piggin under the drip of the spring andit was full and running over. But when he had lifted it out for her, sherinsed and emptied it. 

"I just set it there to cool some, " she explained. "I'm goin' up toSunday Rock afte' huckleberries. Come and go 'long with me, Tom. "

He assented with a willingness as eager as it was unaccountable. If shehad asked him to do a much less reasonable thing, he was not sure thathe could have refused. 

And as they went together through the wood, spicy with the Junefragrances, questions like those of the boyhood time thronged on him, and he welcomed them as a return of at least one of the vanishedthrills--and was grateful to her. 

Why had he never before noticed that she was so much prettier than anyother girl he had ever seen? What was there in the touch of her hand tomake him feel like the iron in the forge fire--warm and glowing andputty-soft and yielding? Other girls were not that way. Only a half-hoursince, Ardea Dabney had put her hand in his when she had said good-by, and that feeling was the kind you have when you have climbed throughbreathless summer woods to a high mountain top and the cool breeze blowsthrough your hair and makes you quietly glad and lifted-up andsatisfied. 

These were questions to be buried deep in the secret places, and yet hehad a curious eagerness to talk to Nan about them; to find out if shecould understand. But he could not get near to any serious orconfidential side of her. Her mood was playful, hilarious, daring. Onceshe ran squirrel-like out on the bole of a great tree leaning to itsfall over the cliff, hung her piggin on a broken limb, and told him hemust go after it. Next it was a squeeze through some "fat-man's-misery"crevice in the water-worn sandstone, with a cry to him to come on if hewere not a girl-boy. And when they were fairly under the overhangingcliff face of Sunday Rock, she darted away, laughing back at him overher shoulder, and daring him to follow her along a dizzy shelf half-wayup the crag; a narrow ledge, perilous for a mountain goat. 

This, as he remembered later, was the turning-point in her mood. Inimagination he saw her try it and fail; saw her lithe, shapely beautylying broken and mangled at the cliff's foot; and in three bounds he hadher fast locked in his restraining arms. She strove with him at first, like a wrestling boy, laughing and taunting him with being afraid forhimself. Then--

Tom Gordon, clean-hearted as yet, did not know precisely what happened. Suddenly she stopped struggling and lay panting in his arms, and quiteas suddenly he released her. 

"Nan!" he said, in a swiftly submerging wave of tenderness, "I didn't goto hurt you!"

She sank down on a stone at his feet and covered her face with herhands. But she was up again and turning from him with eyes downcastbefore he could comfort her. 

"I ain't hurt none, " she said gravely. And then: "I reckon we'd betterbe gettin' them berries. It looks like it might shower some; and paw'llkill me if I ain't home time to get his supper. "

Here was an end of the playtime, and Tom helped industriously with theberry-picking, wondering the while why she kept her face turned fromhim, and why his brain was in such a turmoil, and why his hands shook soif they happened to touch hers in reaching for the piggin. 

But this new mood of hers was more unapproachable than the other; and itwas not until the piggin was filled and they had begun to retrace theirsteps together through the fragrant wood, that she let him see her eyesagain, and told him soberly of her troubles: how she was fifteen andcould neither read nor write; how the workmen's children in Gordoniahooted at her and called her a mountain cracker when she went down tobuy meal or to fill the molasses jug; and, lastly, how, since her motherhad died, her father had worked little and drunk much, till at timesthere was nothing to eat save the potatoes she raised in the littlepatch back of the cabin, and the berries she picked on the mountainside. 

"I hain't never told anybody afore, and you mustn't tell, Tom. But timesI'm scared paw 'll up and kill me when--when he ain't feelin' justright. He's some good to me when he ain't red-eyed; but that ain't veryoften, nowadays. "

Tom's heart swelled within him; and this time it was not the heart ofthe Pharisee. There is no lure known to the man part of the race that ishalf so potent as the tale of a woman in trouble. 

"Does--does he beat you, Nan?" he asked; and there was wrathful horrorin his voice. 

For answer she bent her head and parted the thick black locks over along scar. 

"That's where he give me one with the skillet, a year come Christmas. And this, "--opening her frock to show him a black-and-blue bruise on herbreast, --"is what I got only day afore yisterday. "

Tom was burning with indignant compassion, and bursting because he couldthink of no adequate way of expressing it. In all his fifteen years noone had ever leaned on him before, and the sense of protectorship overthis abused one budded and bloomed like a juggler's rose. 

"I wish I could take you home with me, Nan, " he said simply. 

There was age-old wisdom in the dark eyes when they were lifted to his. 

"No, you don't, " she said firmly. "Your mammy would call me a littleheathen, same as she used to; and I reckon that's what I am--I hain'thad no chanst to be anything else. And you're goin' to be a preacher, Tom. "

Why did it rouse a dull anger in his heart to be thus reminded of hisown scarce-cooled pledge made on his knees under the shadowing cedars?He could not tell; but the fact remained. 

"You hear me, Nan; I'm going to take care of you when I'm able. Nomatter what happens, I'm going to take care of you, " was what he said;and a low rumbling of thunder and a spattering of rain on the leavespunctuated the promise. 

She looked away and was silent. Then, when the rain began to comefaster: "Let's run, Tom. I don't mind gettin' wet; but you mustn't. "

They reached the great rock sheltering the barrel-spring before theshower broke in earnest, and Tom led the way to the right. Half-way upits southern face the big boulder held a water-worn cavity, round, anddeeply hollowed, and carpeted with cedar needles. Tom climbed in firstand gave her a hand from the mouth of the little cavern. When she was upand in, there was room in the nest-like hollow, but none to spare. Andon the instant the summer shower shut down upon the mountain side andclosed the cave mouth as with a thick curtain. 

There was no speech in that little interval of cloud-lowering andcloud-lifting. The boy tried for it, would have taken up the confidenceswhere the storm-coming had broken them off; but it was blanklyimpossible. All the curious thrills foregone seemed to culminate now ina single burning desire: to have it rain for ever, that he might nestlethere in the hollow of the great rock with Nan so close to him that hecould feel the warmth of her body and the quick beating of her heartagainst his arm. 

Yet the sleeping conscience did not stir. The moment of recognition waswithheld even when the cloud curtain began to lift and he could see thelong lashes drooped over the dark eyes, and the flush in the brown cheekmatching his own. 

"Nan!" he whispered, catching his breath; "you're--you're the--"

She slipped away from him before he could find the word, and a momentlater she was calling to him from below that the rain was over and shemust hurry. 

He walked beside her to the door of the miserable log shack under thesecond cliff, still strangely shaken, but striving manfully to behimself again. The needed fillip came when the mountaineer staggered tothe threshold to swear thickly at his daughter. In times past, Tom wouldquickly have put distance between himself and Tike Bryerson in thesquirrel-eyed stage of intoxication. But now his promise to Nan wasbehind him, and the Gordon blood was to the fore. 

"It was my fault that Nan stayed so long, " he said bravely; and he wasimmensely relieved when Bryerson, making quite sure of his identity, became effusively hospitable. 

"Cap'n Gordon's boy--'f cou'se; didn't make out to know ye, 't firs'. Come awn in the house an' sit a spell; come in, I say!"

Again, for Nan's sake, Tom could do no less. It was the final plunge. The boy was come of abstinent stock, which was possibly the reason whythe smell of the raw corn liquor with which the cabin reeked gripped himso fiercely. Be that as it may, he could make but a feeble resistancewhen the tipsy mountaineer pressed him to drink; and the slight barrierwent down altogether when he saw the appealing look in Nan's eyes. Straightway he divined that there would be consequences for her when hewas gone if the maudlin devil should be aroused in her father. 

So he put the tin cup to his lips and coughed and strangled over asingle swallow of the fiery, nauseating stuff; did this for the girl'ssake, and then rose and fled away down the mountain with his heartablaze and a fearful clamor as of the judgment trumpet sounding in hisears. 

For now the sleeping conscience was broad awake and plying its mercilessdagger; now, indeed, he knew very well what he had done--what he hadbeen doing since that fatal moment at the barrel-spring when he hadfallen under the spell of Nan Bryerson's beauty; nay, back of that--howthe up-bubbling of zeal had been nothing more than wounded vanity; thesmoke of a vengeful fire of anger lighted by a desire to strike back atthose who had laughed at him. 

The next morning he came hollow-eyed to his breakfast, and when thechance offered, besought his father to give him one of the many boy'sjobs in the iron plant during the summer vacation--asked and obtained. 

And neither the hotel on the mountain top nor the hovel cabin under thesecond cliff saw him more the long summer through. 

XIII

A SISTER OF CHARITY

It was just before the Christmas holidays, in his fourth year of thesectarian school, that Tom Gordon was expelled. 

Writing to the Reverend Silas at the moment of Tom's dismissal, theprincipal could voice only his regret and disappointment. It was a mostsingular case. During his first and second years Thomas had set a highmark and had attained to it. On the spiritual side he had been somewhatnon-committal, to be sure, but to offset this, he had been deeplyinterested in the preparatory theological studies, or at least he hadappeared to be. 

But on his return from his first summer spent at home there was a markedchange in him, due, so thought Doctor Tollivar, to his association withthe rougher class of workmen in the iron mills. It was as if he hadsuddenly grown older and harder, and the discipline of the school, admirable as the Reverend Silas knew it to be, was not severe enough toreform him. 

"It grieves me more than I can tell you, my dear brother, to be obligedto confess that we can do nothing more for him here, " was the concludingparagraph of the principal's letter, "and to add that his continuedpresence with us is a menace to the morals of the school. When I saythat the offense for which he is expelled is by no means the first, andthat it is the double one of gambling and keeping intoxicating liquorsin his room, you will understand that the good repute of Beersheba wasat stake, and there was no other course open to us. "

It was as well, perhaps, for what remained of Tom's peace of mind thathe knew nothing of this letter at the time of its writing. The long dayhad been sufficiently soul-harrowing and humiliating. Since the morningexercises, when he had been publicly degraded by having his sentenceread out to the entire school, he had spent the time in his room, watched, if not guarded, by some one of the assistants. And now he wasto be shipped off on the night train like a criminal, with no chance fora word of leave-taking, however much he might desire it. 

He was tramping up and down with his hands in his pockets, the Gordonscowl making him look like a young thunder-cloud, when one of thepreceptors came to drive with him to the railroad station. It was thefinal indignity, and he resented it bitterly. 

"I can make out to find my way down to the train without troubling you, Mr. Martin, " he burst out in boyish anger. 

"Doubtless, " said the preceptor, quite unmoved. "But we are stillresponsible for you. Doctor Tollivar wishes me to see you safely aboardyour train, and I shall certainly do so. Take the side stairway down, ifyou please. "

The principal's buggy was waiting at the gate, and the preceptor drove. Tom sat back under the hood with his overcoat across his knees. Theevening was freezing cold, with an edged wind, and the drive to thestation was a hilly mile. If it had been ten miles he would not havemoved or opened his lips. 

As it chanced, there were no other passengers for the train, which was athrough south-bound express. Tom was meaning to sit up all night andthink; and the most comfortless seat in the smoking-car would answer. There would be the meeting with his father and mother in the morning, and he thought he should not dare to let sleep come between. He had afirm grip of himself now, and it must not be relaxed until that meetingwas over. 

But the preceptor had already stepped to the ticket window. "Thatsleeping-car reservation for Thomas Gordon--have you secured it?" heasked of the agent; and Tom heard the reply: "Lower ten in car numbertwo. " That disposed of the seat in the smoker and the bit of penance, and he was unreasonable enough to be resentful for favors. 

Hence, when the train came to a stand beside the platform, he wentstraight to the Pullman, ignoring his keeper. But the preceptor followedhim to the car step, held out his hand coldly, and said: "I'm sorry foryou, Gordon. Good-by. "

Tom drew himself up stiffly, overlooking the extended hand. 

"'Good-by'--that is 'God be with you, ' isn't it, Mr. Martin? I reckonyou don't mean that. Good night. " And this is the way Thomas Jeffersonturned his back on three and a half years of Beersheba, with hot tearsin his eyes and an angry word on his lips. 

The Pintsch lights were burning brightly in the Pullman, and these--andthe tears--blinded him. Some of the sections in the middle of the carwere made down for the night, and while he was stumbling in the wake ofthe porter over the shoes and the hand-bags left in the aisle, the trainstarted. 

"Lower ten, sah, " said the black boy, and went about his business in thelinen locker. But Tom stood balancing himself with the swaying of thecar and staring helplessly at the occupant of lower twelve, a young girlin a gray traveling coat and hat, sitting with her face to the window. 

"Why, you--somebody!" she exclaimed, turning to surprise him in the actof glowering down on her. "Do you know, I thought there might be justone chance in a thousand that you'd go home for Christmas, so I made theporter tell me when we were coming to Beersheba. Why don't you sitdown?"

Tom edged into the opposite seat and shook hands with her, all inmiserable, comfortless silence. Then he blurted out:

"If I'd had any idea you were on this train, I'd have walked. "

Ardea laughed, and for all his misery he could not help remarking howmuch sweeter the low voice was growing, and how much clearer the blue ofher eyes was under the forced light of the gas-globes. He had seen heronly two or three times since that blush-kindling noon at CrestcliffeInn. Their Paradise goings and comings had not coincided very evenly. 

"You are just the same rude boy, aren't you?" she said leniently. "Arethere no girls in Beersheba to teach you how to be nice?"

"I didn't mean it that way, " he hastened to say. "I'm always saying thewrong thing to you. But if you only knew, you wouldn't speak to me; muchless let me sit here and talk to you. "

"If I only knew what? Perhaps you would better tell me and let me judgefor myself, " she suggested; and out of the past came a flick of thememory whip to make him feel again that she was immeasurably his senior. 

"I'm expelled, " he said bluntly. 

"Oh!" For a full minute, as it seemed to him, she looked steadfastly outof the window at the wall of blackness flitting past, and the steadydrumming of the wheels grated on his nerves and got into his blood. Whenit was about to become unbearable she turned and gave him her handagain. "I'm just as sorry as I can be!" she declared, and the slate-blueeyes confirmed it. 

Tom hung his head, just as he had in the trying interview with DoctorTollivar. But he told her a great deal more than he had told theprincipal. 

"It was this way: three of the boys came to my room to playcards--because their rooms were watched. I didn't want to play--oh, I'mnone too good;"--this in answer to something in her eyes that made himeager to tell her the exact truth--"I've done it lots of times. But thatnight I'd been thinking--well, I just didn't want to, that's all. Thenthey said I was afraid, and of course, that settled it. "

"Of course, " she agreed loyally. 

"Wait; I want you to know it all, " he went on doggedly. "WhenMartin--he's the Greek and Latin, you know--slipped up on us, there wasa bottle of whisky on the table. He took down our names, and then hepointed at the bottle, and said, 'Which one of you does that belongto?' Nobody said anything, and after it began to get sort of--well, kindof monotonous, I picked up the bottle and offered him a drink, and putit in my pocket. That settled _me_. "

"But it wasn't yours, " she averred. 

His smile was a rather ferocious grin. "Wasn't it? Well, I took it, anyway; and I've got it yet. Now see here: that's my berth over thereand I'm going over to it. You needn't let on like you know me any more. "

"Fiddle!" she said, making a face at him. "You say that like a littleboy trying, oh, so hard, to be a man. I'll believe you are just as badas bad can be, if you want me to; but you mustn't be rude to me. Wedon't play cards or drink things at Carroll College, but some of us havebrothers, and--well, we can't help knowing. "

Tom was soberly silent for the space of half a hundred rail-lengths. Then he said: "I wish I'd had a sister; maybe it would have beendifferent. "

She shook her head. 

"No, indeed, it wouldn't. You're going to be just what you are going tobe, and a dozen sisters wouldn't make any difference. "

"One like you would make a lot of difference. " It made him blush andhave a slight return of the largeness of hands; but he said it. 

She laughed. "That's nice. You couldn't begin to say anything like thatthe day you came up to Crestcliffe Inn. But I mean what I say. Sisterswouldn't help you to be good, unless you really wanted to be goodyourself. They're just comfortable persons to have around when you aretaking your whipping for being naughty. "

"Well, that's a good deal, isn't it?"

Again she made the adorable little face at him. "Do you want me to beyour sister for a little while--till you get out of this scrape? Is thatwhat you are trying to say?"

He took heart of grace, for the first time in three bad days. "Say, Ardea; I'm hunting for sympathy; just as I used to a long time ago. Butyou mustn't mix up with me. I'm not worth it. "

"Oh, I suppose not; no boy is. But tell me; what are you going to dowhen you get back to Paradise?"

"Why--I don't know; I haven't thought that far ahead; go to work in theiron plant and be a mucker all the rest of my life, I reckon. "

"How silly! You are nearly eighteen, now, aren't you?--and about sixfeet tall?"

"Both, " he said briefly. 

"And all the way along you've been meaning to be a minister?"

He gritted his teeth. "That's all over, now; I reckon it's been over fora long time. "

"That is more serious. Does your mother know?"

He shook his head. 

"She mustn't, Tom; it will just break her heart. "

"As if I didn't know!" he said bitterly. "But, Ardea, I haven't beenquite square with you. The way I told it about the cards and the whiskyyou might think--"

"I know what you are going to say. But it needn't make any all-the-timedifference, need it? You've been backsliding--isn't that what you callit?--but now you are sorry, and--"

"No; that's the worst of it. I'm not sorry, the way I ought to be. Besides, after what I've been these last two years--but you can'tunderstand; it would just be mockery--mocking God. I told you I wasn'tworth your while. "

She smiled gravely. "You are such a boy, Tom. Don't you know that allthrough life you'll have two kinds of friends: those who will stand byyou because they won't believe anything bad about you, and those whowill take you for just what you are and still stand by you?"

He scowled thoughtfully at her. "Say, Ardea; I'd just like to know howold you are, anyhow! You say things every once in a while that make mefeel as if I were a little kid in knee-breeches. "

She laughed in his face. "That is the rudest thing you've said yet! ButI don't mind telling you--since I'm to be your sister. I'll be seventeena little while after you're eighteen. "

"Haven't you ever been foolish, like other girls?" he asked. 

She laughed again, more heartily than ever. "They say I'm the silliesttomboy in our house, at Carroll. But I have my lucid intervals, Isuppose, like other people, and this is one of them. I am going to standby you to-morrow morning, when you have to tell your father andmother--that is, if you want me to. "

His gratitude was too large for speech, but he tried to look it. Thenthe porter came to make her section down, and he had to say good nightand vanish. 

XIV

ON JORDAN'S BANK

Ardea saw cause for increasing satisfaction in Thomas Jefferson the nextmorning, when they sat together in section nine to give the porter achance to rehabilitate ten and twelve. 

He had grown so much surer of himself in the two years, and his mannerswere gratefully improved. Also, she was constrained to admit--frankglances of the slate-blue eyes appraising him--that he was developinghopefully in the matter of good looks. The dust-colored hair of boyhoodhad become a sort of viking yellow, and the gray eyes, so they shouldnot be overcast by trouble shadows, were honest and fearless. 

Then, too, the Gordon jaw was beginning to assert itself--square in theangle and broad at the point of the chin, with a deep cleft to mark itscenter. Ardea thought it would not be well, later on, for those whoshould find that jaw and chin opposing them. There would certainly bestubborn and aggressive resistance--and none too much mercy when thefight should end. 

The improved manners were pleasantly apparent when the train reachedSouth Tredegar. There were twenty minutes for breakfast, and Tombestirred himself manfully, and as if the awkward day at Crestcliffe Innhad never been; helping Ardea with her coat, steering her masterfullythrough the crowd, choosing the fortunate seats at the most convenienttable, and commanding the readiest service in spite of the hurry andbustle. 

Ardea marked it all with a little thrill of vicarious triumph, which wasstraightway followed by a little pang personal. What had wrought thechange in him? Was it merely the natural chivalry of the coming manbreaking through the crust of boyish indifference to the socialconventions? Or was it one of the effects of the late plunge intorebellious wickedness?

She hoped it was the chivalry, but she had a vague fear that it was thewickedness. There was a young woman among the seniors in Carroll Collegewho was old in a certain brilliant hardness of mind--a young woman witha cynical outlook on life, and who was not always regardful of herseed-sowing in fresher hearts. Ardea remembered a saying of hers, flungout one evening in the college parlors when the talk of her group hadturned on the goodness of good boys: "Why can't you be sincere withyourselves? Not one of you has any use for the truly good boy untilafter he has learned how to respect you by being a bad boy. You haven'tbeen saying it in so many words, perhaps, but that is the crude fact. "Was this the secret of Tom's new acceptability? Ardea hoped it wasnot--and feared lest it might be. 

When they were once more in the train, and the mile-long labyrinth ofthe factory chimneys had been threaded and left behind, Thomas Jeffersongave proof of another and still more gratifying change. 

"Say, Ardea, " he began, "you said last night that you'd stand by me inwhat I've got to face this morning. That's all right; and I reckon I'llnever live long enough to even it up with you. But, of course, you knowI'm not going to let you do it. "

"Why not?" she asked. 

"Because I'm not mean enough, or coward enough. After a while, if youget a chance to sort of make it easier for mother--"

"I'll do that, if I can, " she promised quickly. "But I hope you are notgoing to break her heart, Tom. "

"You can be mighty sure I'm not; if anything I can do now will help it. But--but, say, Ardea, I can't go back and begin all over again. I shouldbe the meanest, low-down thing in all this world--and that's ahypocrite. "

"Oh!" said Ardea, catching her breath. Her religion was very much amatter of fact to her, and the thought of Tom--Martha Gordon'sson--stumbling in the plain path of belief was dismaying. "Why would youhave to be a hypocrite? Do you mean that you are not sure you ought tobe a minister?"

"I mean that I don't know any more what I believe and what I don'tbelieve. I feel as if I'd just like to let myself alone on that side fora while, and make everybody else let me alone. It seems--but you don'tknow; a girl can't know. "

She smiled up at him, and the smile effaced some of the trouble furrowsbetween his eyes. 

"Last night you were telling me that I seemed ages older than you; whatis it that I can't know?"

"Stumpings like mine, --a man's stumpings, " he said, with a touch of theold self-assurance. "You've swallowed your religion whole; it's the bestthing for a girl to do, I reckon. But I've got to have whys andwherefores; I've always had to have them. And there are no wherefores inreligion; just none whatever. "

She was plainly shocked. "O Tom!" she urged; "think of your mother!"

"Thinking of her isn't going to change the value of pi any, " he rejoinedsoberly. "I suppose I've thought of her, and of what she wants me to be, ever since the first day I went to Beersheba. The first two years Itried, honestly tried. But it's no use. It appears like we've got so faraway from taw that we can't even see what-all we're aiming at. I've beengrinding theology till I'm fairly sick of the word, and I've learnedjust one thing, Ardea, and that is that you can't prove a single theoremin it. "

"But there are some things that don't appear to need any proof; oneseems to have been born knowing them. Don't you feel that way?"

He shook his head slowly. 

"I used to think I did; but now I'm afraid I don't. I can't remember thetime when I wasn't asking why. Don't they teach you to ask why atCarroll?"

"Not in matters of--of conscience. "

"Well, they don't at Beersheba, when you come right down to it. And whenyou do ask, they put you off with a text out of the Bible that, just aslike as not, doesn't come within a row of apple-trees of hitting themark. I remember one time I said something about the 'why' to DoctorTollivar. He sniffled--he _does_ sniffle, Ardea--and said: 'Mr. Gordon, I recommend that you read what Paul says to the Romans, fourteen andtwenty-three: "He that doubteth is damned. " And you will note the verbin the original--_is damned_, present tense. ' Do you happen to rememberthe verse?"

Ardea confessed ignorance, and he went on, with a lip-curl of contempt. 

"Well, the whole chapter is about being careful for the weak brother. The Romans used to eat the flesh of the animals offered in thesacrifices to the gods, and some of the Christian Romans didn't seem tobe strong enough or sensible enough to eat it as just plain, every-daymeat. They tangled it up with the idol worship. So Paul, or whoever itwas that wrote the chapter, said: 'He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, ' that is, the Christian faith, Isuppose, which would teach him that the meat wasn't any the worse forhaving been offered to a block of wood or stone called a god. Now, honestly, Ardea, what would you think of a teacher who woulddeliberately cut a verse in two in the middle and make his half of itmean something else, just to put a fellow down?"

"It doesn't seem quite honest, " she could not help admitting. 

"Honest! It's low-down trickery. And they all do it. Last year when Iwas going up to Beersheba I happened to sit in the same seat with aCatholic priest. We got to talking, I don't remember just how, and Isaid something about doubting the Pope's infallibility. Out pops thesame old text: 'My son, hear the words of the holy Apostle, SaintPaul--" He that doubteth is damned!"' He was old enough to be my father, but I couldn't help slapping the other half of the verse at him, andsaying that we'd most luckily escape because there wasn't anydinner-stop for our train. "

The flippant tone of all this disheartened Thomas Jefferson's listener, and a silence succeeded which lasted until the train had stormed aroundthe nose of Lebanon and the whistle was blowing for Gordonia. Then Tomsaid: "I didn't mean to hurt you; but now you see why I can't go backand begin all over again. " And she nodded assent. 

There was no one at the station to meet the disgraced one, news of thedisaster at Beersheba being as yet only on the way. Thomas Jefferson wasrather glad of it; especially glad that there was no one fromWoodlawn--this was the name of the new home--to recognize him and askdiscomforting questions. But Ardea was expected, and the Dabneycarriage, with old Scipio on the box, was drawn up beside the platform. 

Tom put Ardea into the carriage and was giving her hand luggage toScipio when she called to him. 

"Isn't there any one here to meet you, Tom?"

"They don't know I'm coming, " he explained. Whereupon she quickly maderoom for him, holding the door open. But he hung back. 

"I reckon I'd better ride on the box with Unc' Scipio, " he suggested. 

"I am sure I don't know why you should, " she objected. 

He told her straight; or at least gave her his own view of it. 

"By to-morrow morning everybody in Gordonia and Paradise Valley willknow that I'm home in disgrace. It won't hurt Unc' Scipio any if I'mseen riding with him. "

It was the first time that he had been given to see the Dabneyimperiousness shining star-like in Miss Ardea's slate-blue eyes. 

"I wish you to get your hand-bag and ride in here with me, " she said, with the air of one whose wish was law. But when he was sitting oppositeand the carriage door was shut, she smiled companionably across at himand added: "You foolish boy!"

"It wasn't foolish, " he maintained doggedly. "I know what I ought todo--and I'm not doing it. Everybody around here knows both of us, and--"

"Hush!" she commanded. "I refuse to hear another word. I said you were afoolish boy, and it will be inexcusably impolite in you to prove thatyou are not. "

Tom was glad enough to be silent; and it came to him, after a little, that she was giving him a chance to pull himself together to meet theordeal that was before him. In all the misery of the moment--the miserywhich belongs to those who ride to the block, the gallows or othermortal finalities--he marveled that she could be a girl and still be sothoughtful and far-seeing; and once again it made him feel young andinadequate and awkwardly her inferior. 

At the Woodlawn gates she pulled the old-fashioned, check-strap signal, and Scipio reined in his horses. 

"Are you quite sure you don't want me to go in with you?" she asked, while Tom was fumbling the door-latch. 

He nodded and said: "There'll be trouble enough to go around among asmany as can crowd in, all right. But I can't let you. "

"Still, you won't say you don't want me?"

"No; lying isn't one of the things I was expelled for. When I stand upto my mother to tell her what I've got to tell her, I'd be glad if therewas a little fise-dog sniffling around to back me up. But I'm not goingto call in the neighbors--you, least of all. "

"You are disappointing me right along--and I'm rather glad, " she said. And then, almost wistfully: "You are going to be good, aren't you, Tom?"

His look was so sober that it was well-nigh sullen. "I'm going to saywhat I've got to say, and then hold my tongue if I have to bite it, " heanswered. "Good-by; and--and a Merry Christmas, and--thank you. "

He shut the carriage door and gave Scipio the word to go on; andafterward stood at the gate looking after the great lumbering ark onwheels until it turned in at the Deer Trace driveway and was lost in thewinding avenue of thick-set evergreens. Then he let himself in at thehome gate, walking leaden-footed toward the ornate house at the top ofthe knoll and wishing the distance were ten times as great. 

When he reached the house there was an ominous air of quiet about it, and a horse and buggy, with a black boy holding the reins, stood beforethe door. Tom's heart came into his mouth. The turnout was DoctorWilliams's. 

"Who's sick?" he asked of the boy who was holding the doctor's horse, and his tongue was thick with a nameless fear. 

The black boy did not know; and Tom crept up the steps and let himselfin as one enters a house of mourning, breaking down completely when hesaw his father sitting bowed on the hall seat. 

"You, Buddy?--I'm mighty glad, " said the man; and when he held out hisarms the boy flung himself on his knees beside the seat and buried hisface in the cushions. 

"Is she--is she going to die?" he asked; when the dreadful words couldbe found and spoken. 

"We're hoping for the best, Buddy, son. It's some sort of a stroke, thedoctor says; it took her yesterday morning, and she hasn't been herselfsince. Did somebody telegraph to you?"

Tom rocked his head on the cushion. How could he add to the blackness ofdarkness by telling his miserable story of disgrace? Yet it had to bedone, and surely no hapless penitent in the confessional ever emptiedhis soul with more heartfelt contrition or more bitter remorse. 

Caleb Gordon listened, with what inward condemnings one could only guessfrom his silence. It was terrible! If his father would strike him, cursehim, drive him out of the house, it would be easier to bear than thestifling silence. But when the words came finally they were as balmpoured into an angry wound. 

"There, there, Buddy; don't take on so. You're might' nigh a man, now, and the sun's still risin' and settin' just the same as it did beforeyou tripped up and fell down. And it'll go on risin' and settin', too, long after you and me and all of us have quit goin' to bed and gettin'up by it. If it wasn't for your poor mammy--"

"That's it--that's just it, " groaned Tom. "It would kill her, even ifshe was well. "

"Nev' mind; you're here now, and I reckon that's the main thing. If shegets up again, of course she'll have to know; but we won't cross thatbridge till we come to it. And Buddy, son, whatever happens, your oldpappy ain't goin' to believe that you'll be the first Gordon to die inthe gutter. You've got better blood in you than what that calls for. "

Tom felt the lightening of his burden to some extent; but beyond was thealternative of suffering, or causing suffering. He had never realizeduntil now how much he loved his mother; how large a place she had filledin his life, and what a vast void there would be when she was gone. Hewas yet too young and too self-centered to know that this is themother-cross: to live for love and to be crowned and enthroned oftenestin memory. 

For days, --days which brought back the boyhood agony of the time when hehad believed himself to be Ardea's murderer, --he went softly about thehouse, sharing, with his father and his uncle, the watch in thesick-room; doing what little there was to be done in dumb hopelessness, and beating at times on the brazen gates of Heaven in sheer despair. There was no answer to his prayers; in his inmost soul he knew therewould not be; but even in this the eternal query assailed him. Was itfor lack of faith that no whisper of reply came from the unseen worldbeyond the veil? Or was it only because there was no ear to hear, novoice to answer? He could not tell. He made sure he was doomed to liveand die, buffeting with these submerging waves of doubt--doubt ofhimself on one hand, and of God on the other. 

In that time of sore trial, his Uncle Silas's forbearance wiped out manya score of boyish resentment. There was no word of reproach, still lessthe harsh arraignment and condemnation to which he began to look forwardon the day when Doctor Tollivar had announced his purpose of writingthe facts to his brother in the faith. But Tom remarked that in thedaily morning and evening prayers his uncle spoke of him as a soul inperil, and he wondered that this pointed reference, which once wouldhave stirred the pool of bitterness to its bottom, now left him unmovedand immovable. Later, he knew it was because there was now no pool ofbitterness to be stirred; the spiritual well-springs had failed andthere was no water in them--either for healing or for penitentialcleansing. 

The fifth day after his home-coming was Christmas Eve. Late in theafternoon, when the doctor had made his second visit and had gone away, leaving no word of encouragement for the watchers, Tom left the houseand took the path that led up through the young orchard to the foot ofLebanon. 

He was deep within the winter-stripped forest on the mountain side, plunging upward through the beds of dry leaves in the little hollows, when he met Ardea. She was coming down with her arms full of holly, andfor the moment he forgot his troubles in the keen pleasure of looking ather. It had not occurred to him sooner to think of her as other than thegirl of his boyhood days, grown somewhat, as he himself had grown. Butnow he saw that she was very beautiful. 

None the less, his greeting was a brotherly reproof. 

"I'd like to know what you're thinking of, tramping around on themountain alone, " he said, frowning at her. 

"I have been thinking of you, most of the time, and wishing you could bewith me, " she answered, so artlessly as to mollify him instantly. 

[Illustration: "I have been wishing you could be with me. "]

"I ought to row you like smoke, but when you say things like that, Ican't. Don't you know you oughtn't to go projecting around in the woodsall alone?"

"I have always done it, haven't I? And Hector was with me till a fewminutes ago, when he took it into his foolish old head to run after arabbit. Is your mother any better this afternoon?"

"Sit down, " he commanded abruptly. "I want to talk to you. "

She hung the bunch of holly on the twigged limb of a small oak and satdown on a moss-covered rock. Tom sprawled at her feet in the dry leaves, and for a little while he was silent. 

"You haven't told me yet how your mother is, " she reminded him. 

"She is just the same; lying there so still that you have to look closeto see whether she is breathing. The doctor says that if there isn't achange pretty soon, she'll die. "

"O Tom!"

He looked up at her with the old boyish frown pulling his eyebrowstogether. 

"She's been good to God all her life; what do you reckon He's lettingher die this way for?"

It was a terrible question, made more terrible by the savage hardihoodthat lay behind it. Ardea could not reason with him; and she feltintuitively that at this crisis only reason would appeal to him. Yet shecould not turn him away empty-handed in his hour of need. 

"How can we tell?" she said, and there were tears in her voice. "We onlyknow that He does everything for the best. "

"Yes; that is what they tell us. But how are we going to _know_?" hedemanded. 

The girl's faith was as simple and confiding as it was defenseless underany fire of argument. 

"I suppose we can't know, in your sense of the word. But we canbelieve. "

"_I_ can't, " said Tom fiercely. "I can pretend to; I reckon I've beenpretending to all my life; but now I've got to a place where I can'tfeel anything that I can't touch, nor hear anything that doesn't make anoise, nor see anything that everybody else can't see. From what you'vesaid at different times, you seem to be able to do all these things. Doyou really believe?"

"I hope I do, " she answered, and her voice was low and very earnest. Butshe would be altogether honest. "Perhaps you wouldn't call it 'beliefunto righteousness, ' as your Uncle Silas would say. I've never thoughtmuch about such things--in the way he says we ought to think about them. They seem to me to be true, like the--well, like the stars and theuniverse. You don't think about the universe all the time; but you knowit is there, and that you are a little, tiny fraction of it, yourself. "

But these were abstractions, and Tom's need was terribly concrete. 

"I suppose you mean you haven't been converted, and all that; never mindabout that. What I want to know is, did you ever ask God for anythingand get it?"

"Why, yes; I ask Him for things every day, and get them. Don't you?"

"No, not now. But are you sure the things you ask for are not thingsthat you'd get anyway?" he persisted. 

She was growing a little restive under the fire of relentlessquestions. There are modesties in religion as in morals, --inner shrinesto be defended at any and all costs. In the Crafts part of ThomasJefferson's veins ran the blood of those who had fought with the swordin one hand and the Bible in the other, stabling their horses overnightin the enemy's churches. Ardea rose and began to untangle the greatbunch of holly. 

"I think we had better be going, " she said, ignoring his clenchingquestion. "Cousin Euphrasia gets nervous about me, sometimes, as youmade believe you were. "

He did not look around, or make any move toward getting up. But therewas a new note of hardness in his voice when he said: "I thought you'dhave to dodge, just like all the others, if I could only make out tothrow straight enough. 'Way down deep inside of you, you don't believeGod worries Himself much about what happens to us little dry leaves inHis big woods. "

"Oh, but I do!--that is, I believe He cares. The things you spoke of arethings I might easily be deprived of; and I choose to believe that Hegives and continues them. "

He was quiet for a full minute, sitting with his knees drawn up to hischin and his hands tightly clasped over them. When he looked up at herhis face was the face of one tormented. 

"I wish you'd ask Him to let my mother live!" he said brokenly. "I'vetried and tried, and the words just die in my mouth. "

There is a Mother of Sorrows in every womanly heart, to whom the appealof the stricken is never made in vain. Ardea saw only a boy-brothercrying out in his pain, and she dropped on her knees and put her armsaround his neck and wept over him in a pure transport of sisterlysympathy. 

"Indeed and indeed I will help, Tom! And you mustn't let it drive youout into the dark. You poor boy! I know just how it hurts, and I'm sosorry for you!"

He freed himself gently from the comforting arms, got up ratherunsteadily, and lifted her to her feet. Then the manly bigness of himsent the hot blood to her cheeks and she was ashamed. 

"O Tom!" she faltered; "what must you think of me!"

He turned to gather up the scattered holly. 

"I think God made you--and that was one time when His hand didn'ttremble, " he said gravely. 

They had picked their way down the leaf-slippery mountain side and hewas giving her the bunch of holly at the Dabney orchard gate before hespoke again. But at the moment of leave-taking he said:

"How did you know what I needed more than anything else in all theworld, Ardea?"

She blushed painfully and the blue eyes were downcast. 

"You must never speak of that again. I didn't stop to think. It's aDabney failing, I'm afraid--to do things first and consider themafterward. It was as if we were little again, and you had fallen downand hurt yourself. "

"I know, " he acquiesced, with the same manly gentleness that had madeher ashamed. "I won't speak of it any more--and I'll never forget it thelongest day I live. Good-by. "

And he went the back way to his own orchard gate, plunging through theleaf beds with his head down and his hands in his pockets, struggling ashe could to stem the swift current which was whirling him out beyond allthe old landmarks. For now he was made to know that boyhood was gone, and youth was going, and for one intoxicating moment he had looked overthe mountain top into the Promised Land of manhood. 

XV

NOËL

The night was far spent and the Christmas dawn was graying in theremotest east when Tom, sleeping in his clothes on a lounge before thefire in the lower hall, roused himself and went noiselessly up stairs tobeg his father to go and lie down for a little while. 

There was a trained nurse from South Tredegar in charge of thesick-room; but from the beginning the three--husband, brother andson--had kept watch at the bedside of the stricken one. There was littleto be done; nothing, in fact; and the nurse would have spared them thenights. Yet no one of the three would surrender his privilege. 

His father relieved, Tom mended the fire in the grate; and when he foundthe nurse dozing in her chair, he woke her and persuaded her to go andrest in the adjoining room, promising to call her instantly if she wereneeded. 

Left alone with his mother, he tiptoed to the bedside and stood for manyminutes looking with sorrow-blurred eyes at the still, rigid face on thepillow. It was terribly like death; so like, that more than once he laidhis hand softly on the bed-covering to make sure that she stillbreathed. When he could bear it no longer, he crossed the room to thewestern window, drawing the draperies and standing between them to staremiserably out into the calm, starlit void. While he looked, a meteorburned its way across the inverted bowl of the heavens, and its passingkindled the embers of the inextinguishable fire. 

_And, lo, the star . .. Came and stood over where the young child was. _The curtains of the void were parted by invisible hands, and down thelong vista of the centuries he saw the familiar scene of the Nativity, dwelt on so often and so faithfully in his childhood training that itseemed almost like a part of the material scheme of the universe: theBabe in the manger; the shepherds watching their flocks; the heavenlyhost singing the triumphant anthem of the ages, _Glory to God in thehighest, and on earth, peace_; the star of Bethlehem shining serenelyabove a world lying in darkness and in the shadow of death. 

Was it all true? or was it only a beautiful myth? If it were true, wherewas the proof? Not in history, for this, the most wonderful andmiraculous thing in all the story of mankind, stands unrecorded save bythe pens of those who were themselves under the spell of it. Insubsequent marvels and wonder-workings?--he shook his head mournfully. If any such there had been, those impartial witnesses who must haveknown and should have spoken were silent, and now all the earth wassilent: storms rose in their fury and were calmed for no man's _Peace, be still_; earthquakes engulfed pagan and Christian believer alike; allnature was cruel, relentless, mechanical. 

Was there nothing then to reach down the ages from that Christmasmorning so long ago to make the beautiful first-century myth alatter-day reality? Tom cast about him hopelessly. There was theChurch--one and indivisible, if the myth were true. The slow Gordonsmile gathered at the corners of his eyes. He remembered a thing hismother had said to him long ago, when, in a moment of boyish confidence, he had told her of the climb to Crestcliffe Inn and its purpose. "Ardea's a dear girl, as the children of this world go, Thomas; she'sbeen right loving and kind to me since we've come to be such closeneighbors. But"--with a note of solemn warning in her voice--"you mustnever forget that she's an Episcopalian, a lost soul, dead in forms andceremonies and trespasses and sins. " So his mother scoffed at Ardea'sfaith; and Ardea--no, she did not scoff, her contempt was too generousfor that; but it was there, just the same. And the Methodistsfellowshiped neither, and the Baptists excluded the Methodists, and theCatholics retorted to the Protestant charge of apostasy with thecenturies-old cry of "heretics all"! Which of the scores of divisionsand subdivisions was the one true indivisible body of Christ? Tom shookhis head again. There was no hope of proof in the churches. 

And the world? He was only now verging on manhood, and he had seenlittle of the world. But that little was frankly indifferent to thethings which, if they were worthy of belief, should shake an unsavedworld to its very foundations. Its people bought and sold, built housesand laid up stores of the things that perish, grasped, overreached, didwhat they listed. But for that matter, even those who professed to befollowers of the Christ, who asserted most loudly their belief in theunproved things, fought and struggled and sinned in common with theworldlings, as far as Tom could see. 

He turned from the window and from the vision, and went to stand withhis back to the flickering blaze in the grate. It was going to leave ahuge rift in his life when this thing, with all its rootings andanchorings in childhood and boyhood, was torn out and cast aside. Themere thought of it was appalling. What would there be to fill the void?

As if the question had evoked them, alluring shapes began to rise out ofthe depths. Ambition, though he knew it not by name, was the first thatbeckoned. The craftsman's blood stirred to its reawakening: to know how, and to do things; to compel the iron and steel and the stubborn forcesof nature. This would be worthwhile; but better still, he would learn tobe a leader of men. The magic vista opened again, but this time itstretched away into the future, and he saw himself keeping step with theever-advancing march of progress--nay, even setting the pace in his owncorner of the vast field. His father was content to follow; he wouldlearn the trick of it and lead. The Farleys were said to be rich andsteadily growing richer--not out of Chiawassee Iron, to be sure, but inothers of their multifarious out-reachings; very good, --he would berich, too. What a Duxbury Farley could do, he would do; on a largerscale and with a stubborner patience. He--

It was a mere turning of the head that sent the air-castles tumbling andleft him choking in the dust of their dissolution. Something, he fanciedit was a noise or some slight movement, made him look quickly toward thebed; and at sight of the still, white face among the pillows, boyishlove--God Himself has made no stronger passion--swept doubt, distrust, rebellion, worldly ambition, all, into the abyss of renunciation. Hewent softly, groping because the quick tears blinded him, to kneel atthe bedside. She was his mother; for one thing she had lived and strivenand prayed; living or dying she must not, she should not, bedisappointed. And if his service must be of the lip and not of theheart, she should never suspect, never, never!

And so it came about that he knelt in the graying dawn of the Christmasmorning, with his soul in thick darkness, lifting the prayer that insome form has shaped itself in all the ages on lips of trembling: "OGod, if there be a God, have mercy on my soul, if I have a soul!"

XVI

THE BUBBLE, REPUTATION

It was not until late in the afternoon of Christmas Day that Ardea wasable to slip away from her guests long enough to run over to appriseherself of the condition of things at the Gordon house. 

Tom opened the door for her, and he made her come to the fire before hewould answer her questions. Even then he sat glowering at the cheerfulblaze as if he had forgotten her presence; and she was womanly enough, or amiable enough, to let him take his own time. When he began, it wasseemingly at a great distance from matters present and pressing. 

"Say, Ardea; do you believe in miracles?" he asked abruptly. 

It was a large question to be answered offhand, but she broke the backof it with a simple, "Yes. "

"How do you account for them? Did God make His laws so they could betaken apart and put together again when some little human ant loses itsway on a grass stalk or drops its grain of sugar?"

"I don't know, " she confessed frankly. "I am not sure that I ever triedto account for them; I suppose I have swallowed them whole, as you say Ihave swallowed my religion. "

"Well, you believe in them, anyway, " he said, "and that makes it easierto hit what I'm aiming at. Do you reckon they stopped short in theApostles' time?"

"I don't know that, either, " she admitted. 

"You ought to know it, if you're consistent, " he said, bluntly dogmatic. "Any answer to any prayer would be a miracle. "

"Would it? I never happened to think of it that way. "

"It certainly would. You chop a tree in two and it falls; that's causeand effect. If you ask God to make it stand up after it's cut in two, and it does stand, that's a miracle. "

"You are the queerest boy, " she commented. "I ran over here just for aminute to ask how your mother is, and you won't tell me. "

"I'm coming to that, " he rejoined gravely. "But I wanted to get thisother thing straightened out first. Now tell me this: did you pray formy mother last night, like you said you would?"

Once again he was offending the guardian of the inner shrines, and herheightened color was not all the reflection of the ruddy firelight. 

"You can be so barbarously personal when you try, Tom, " she protested. And then she added: "But I did. "

"Well, the miracle was wrought. Early this morning mother came toherself and asked for something to eat. Doctor Williams has been here, and now he tells us all the things he wouldn't tell us before. It wassome little clot in one of the veins or arteries of the brain, and ninetimes out of ten there is no hope. "

"O Tom!--and she will get well again?"

"She has more chances to-day of getting well than she had last night ofdying--so the doctor says. But it's a miracle, just the same. "

"I'm so glad! And now I really must go home. " And she got up. 

"No, sit down; I'm not through with you yet. I want to know what youthink about promises. "

She smiled and pushed her chair back from the soft-coal blaze in thefireplace. 

"Don't you know you are a perfect 'old man of the sea, ' Tom?"

"That's all right; but tell me: is a bad promise better broken or kept?"

"I am sure I couldn't say without knowing the circumstances. Tell me allabout it, " and she resigned herself to listen. 

"It was at daybreak this morning. I was alone with mother, looking ather lying there so still and helpless--dead, all but the little flickerof breath that seemed just about ready to go out. It came over me all ofa sudden that I couldn't disappoint her, living or dead; that I'd haveto go on and be what she has always wanted me to be. And I promisedher. "

"But she couldn't hear you?"

"No; it was before she came to herself. Nobody heard me but God; and Ireckon He wasn't paying much attention to anything I said. "

"Why do you say that?"

"Because--well, because it wasn't the kind of a promise that makes theangels glad. I said I'd go on and do it, if I had to be a hypocrite allthe rest of my life. "

"O Tom! would you have to be?"

"That's the way it looks to me now. I told you the other day that Ididn't know what I believed and what I didn't believe. But I do knowsome of the _don'ts_. For instance: if there is a hell--and I'm notanyways convinced that there is--I don't believe--but what's the use ofcataloguing it? They'd ask me a string of questions when I was ordained, and I'd have to lie like Ananias. "

She rose and met his gloomy eyes fairly. 

"Tom Gordon, if you should do that, you would be the wickedest thingalive--the basest thing that ever breathed!"

"That's about the way it strikes me, " he said coolly. "So you see itcomes down to a case of big wicked or little wicked; it's been that wayall along. Did you know that one time I asked God to kill you?"

She looked horrified, as was her undoubted right. 

"Why, of all things!" she gasped. 

"It's so. I took a notion that I'd be mad because your grandfatherbrought you here to Paradise. And when you took sick--well, I reckonthere isn't any hell deeper or hotter than the one I frizzled in forabout four days that summer. "

It was too deep in the past to be tragic, and she laughed. 

"I used to think then that you were the worst, as well as the queerest, boy I had ever seen. "

"And now you know it, " he said. Then: "What's your rush? I'm not tryingto get rid of you now. "

"I positively must go back. We have company, and I ran away withoutsaying a word. "

"Anybody I know?" inquired Tom. 

"Three somebodies whom you know, or ought to know, very well: Mr. Duxbury Farley, Mr. Vincent Farley, Miss Eva Farley. "

His eyes darkened suddenly. 

"I'd like to know how under the sun they managed to get on yourgrandfather's good side!" he grumbled. 

Ardea Dabney's expressive face mirrored dawning displeasure. 

"Why do you say that?" she retorted. "Eva was my classmate for years atMiss De Valle's. "

He made a boyish face of disapproval, saying bluntly: "I don't care ifshe was. You shouldn't make friends of them. They are not fit for you towipe your shoes on. "

For the second time since his home-coming, Tom saw the Dabneyimperiousness flash out; saw and felt it. 

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom Gordon! Less than an hour ago, we were speaking of you, and of what happened at Beersheba. Mr. Farleyand his son both stood up for you. "

"And you took the other side, I reckon, " he broke out, quiteunreasonably. It had not as yet come to blows between him and hisfather's business associates, but it made him immeasurably dissatisfiedto find them on social terms at Deer Trace Manor. 

"Perhaps I did, and perhaps I did not, " she answered, matching histartness. 

"Well, you can tell them both that I'm much obliged to them fornothing, " he said, rising and going to the door with her. "They would bemighty glad to see it patched up again and me back in the Beershebaschool. "

"Of course they would; so would all of your friends. "

"But they are not my friends. They have fooled my father, and they'llfool your grandfather, if he doesn't watch out. But they can't fool me. "

He had opened the outer door for her, and she drew herself up till shecould face him squarely, slate-blue eyes flashing scornfully into sullengray. 

"That is the first downright cowardly thing I have ever known you tosay!" she declared. "And I wish you to know, Mr. Thomas JeffersonGordon, that Mr. Duxbury Farley and Mr. Vincent Farley and Miss EvaFarley are my guests and my friends!" And with that for herleave-taking, she turned her back on him and went swiftly across the twolawns to the great gray house on the opposite knoll. 

For the first fortnight of his mother's convalescence Tom slept badly, and his days were as the days of the accused whose sentence has beensuspended; jail days, these, with chains to clank when he thought of thepromise made in the gray Christmas dawn; with whips to flog him when therespite grew shorter and the time drew near when his continued stay athome must be explained to his mother. 

Ardea had gone back to Carroll the Saturday before New Year's, and therewas no one to talk to. But for that matter, he had cut himself out ofher confidence by his assault on the Farleys. Every morning for a weekafter the Christmas-day clash, Scipio came over with the compliments of"Mawsteh Majah, " Miss Euphrasia, and Miss Dabney, and kindly inquiriestouching the progress of the invalid. But after New Year's, Tom remarkedthat there were only the Major and Miss Euphrasia to send compliments, and despair set in. For out of his boyhood he had brought upundiminished the longing for sympathy, or rather for a burden-bearer onwhom he might unload his troubles, and Ardea had begun to promise well. 

It was on a crisp morning in the second week of January when theprolonged agony of suspense drove him to the mountain. His mother wassitting up, and was rapidly recovering her strength. His father had goneback to his work in the iron plant, and his uncle was preparing toreturn to his charge in South Tredegar. With Uncle Silas and the nurseboth gone, Tom knew that the evil hour must come speedily; and it waswith some half-cowardly hope that his uncle would break the ice for himthat he ran away on the crisp morning of happenings. 

With no particular destination in view, it was only natural that hisfeet should find the familiar path leading up to the great boulder underthe cedars. He had not visited the rock of the spring since the summerday when he and Nan Bryerson had taken refuge from the shower in thehollow heart of it, nor had he seen Nan since their parting at the doorof her father's cabin under the cliff. Rumor in Gordonia had it thatTike Bryerson had been hunted out by the revenue officers; and, forreasons which he would have found it difficult to declare in words, Tomhad been shy about making inquiries. 

For this cause an apparition could scarcely have startled him more thandid the sight of Nan filling her bucket at the trickling barrel-springunder the cliff face of the great rock. He came on her suddenly at theend of the long climb up the wooded slopes, at a momentwhen--semi-tropical growth having had two full seasons in which tochange the natural aspect of things--he was half-bewildered with theunwonted look of the place. But there was no doubt about it; it was Nanin the flesh, a little fuller in the figure, something less childish inthe face, but with all the fascinating, wild-creature beauty of thechild-time promise to dazzle the eye and breed riot in the brain of theboy-man. 

When she stood up with a little cry of pleased surprise, the dark eyeslighting quick joy-fires, and the welcoming blush mounting swiftly toneck and cheek, Tom thought she was the most alluring thing he had everlooked on. Yet the bottom stone in the wall of recrudescent admirationwas the certainty that he had found a sympathetic ear. 

"Did you know I was coming? Were you waiting for me, Nan?" he bubbled, gazing into the great black eyes as eagerly as a freed dog plunges intothe first pool that offers. 

"How could I be knowin' to it?" she asked, taking him seriously, orappearing to. "I nev' knowed school let out this time o' year. "

"It's let out for me, Nan, " he said meaningly. "I came home--forgood--nearly three weeks ago. My mother has been sick. Didn't you hearof it?"

She shook her head gravely. 

"I hain't been as far as Paradise sence paw and me moved back from PineKnob, two months ago. I don't hear nothin' any more. "

In times long past, Tom, valley-born and of superior clay, used to bescornful of the mountain dialect. Now, on Nan's lips, it charmed him. It was blessedly reminiscent of the care-free days of yore. 

"Say, Nan; I hope you haven't got to hurry home, " he interposed, whenshe stooped to lift the overflowing bucket. "I want to talk to you--totell you something. "

She looked up quickly, and there were scrolls unreadable in the blackeyes. 

"Air you a man now, Tom-Jeff, or on'y a boy like you used to be?" sheasked. 

Tom squared his broad shoulders and laughed. 

"I'm big enough to be in my own way a good deal of the time. I believe Icould muddy Sim Cantrell's back for him now, at arm-holts. "

But there was still a question in the black eyes. 

"Where's your preacher's coat, Tom-Jeff? I was allowin' you'd be wearin'it nex' time we met up. "

"I reckon there isn't going to be any preacher's coat for me, Nan;that's one of the things I want to talk to you about. Let's go overyonder and sit down in the sun. "

The place he chose for her was a flat stone half embedded in theup-climbing slope beyond the great boulder. She sat facing the path andthe spring, listening, while Tom, stretched luxuriously on a bed of dryleaves at her feet, told her what had befallen; how he had been turnedout of Beersheba, and what for; how, all the former things having passedaway, he was torn and distracted in the struggle to find a footing inthe new order. 

In the midst of it he had a feeling that she was only dimlyapprehending; that some of his keenest pains--most of them, perhaps--didnot appeal to her. But there was comfort in her bodily presence, in thelistening ear. It was a shifting of the burden in some sort, and therebe times when the humblest pack animal may lighten a king's load. 

His fears touching her understanding, or her lack of it, were confirmedwhen he had reached a stopping-place. 

"They-all up yonder in that school where you was at hain't got muchsense, it looks like to me, " was her comment. "You're a man growed now, Tom-Jeff, and if you want to play cards or drink whisky, what-allbusiness is it o' their'n?"

He smiled at her elemental point of view; laughed outright when thesignificance of it struck him fairly. But it betokened allegiance of akind to gladden the heart of the masculine tyrant, and he rolled thedeclaration of fealty as a sweet morsel under his tongue. 

"You stand by your friends, right or wrong, don't you, girl?" he said, in sheerest self-gratulation. "That's what I like in you. You asked me alittle while back if I was a man or a boy; I believe you could make aman of me, Nan, if you'd try. "

He was looking up into her face as he said it and the change that cameover her lighted a strange fire in his blood. The black eyes kindled it, and the red lips, half parted, blew it into a blaze. His face flushedand he broke the eye-hold and looked down. In their primal state, whenNature mothered the race, the man was less daring than the woman. 

"If you'd said that two year ago, " she began, in a half-whisper thatmelted the marrow in his bones. "But you was on'y a boy then; and now Ireckon it's too late. "

"You mean that you don't care for me any more, Nan? I know better thanthat. You'd back me if I had come up here to tell you that I'd killedsomebody. Wouldn't you, now?"

He waited overlong for his answer. There were sounds in the air: ametallic tapping like the intermittent drumming of a woodpecker mingledwith a rustling as of some small animal scurrying back and forth overthe dead leaves. The girl leaned forward, listening intently. Then threemen appeared in the farther crooking of the spring path, and at thefirst glimpse of them she slipped from the flat stone to cower behindTom, trembling, shaking with terror. 

"Hide me, Tom-Jeff! Oh, for God's sake, hide me, quick!" she panted. "Lookee there!"

He looked and saw the three men walking slowly up the pipe-line whichdrained the barrel-spring. They were too far away to be recognizable tohim, and since they were stopping momently to examine the pipe, therewas good hope of an escape unseen. 

Tom waited breathless for the propitious instant when the tapping of thepipe-men's hammers should drown the noise of a dash for effacement. Whenit came, he flung himself backward, whipped Nan over his head and out ofthe line of sight as if she had been feather-light, and rolled swiftlyafter her. 

Before she could rise he had picked her up and was dragging her to theclimbing point under the lip of the boulder cave. 

"Up with you!" he commanded, making a step of his hand. "Give me yourfoot and then climb to my shoulder--quick!" But she drew back. 

"Oh, I can't!" she gasped. "I--I'm too skeered!"

Tom's brows went together in the Gordon frown. Bone-meltings andblood-firings apart, he was neither a fool nor a dastard, and he wasolder now than on that day when the storm had driven them to take refugein the heart of the great rock. And since he had decided that the cavernwas only big enough for one, he had meant to put Nan up, going himselfto meet the intruders to make sure that they should not discover her. But her trembling fit--a new and curious thing in the girl who used tomake his flesh creep with her reckless daring--spoiled the plan. 

"Can't you climb up?" he demanded. 

She shook her head despairingly, and he lost no time in trying topersuade her. Jumping to catch the lip of the cavern's mouth, heascended cat-like, and a moment later he had drawn her up after him. 

"I'd like to know what got the matter with you all at once, " he saidseverely, when they were crowded together in the narrow rock cell; andthen, without waiting for her answer: "You stay here while I drop downand keep those fellows away from this side of things. "

But it was too late. The men were already at the barrel-spring, as anindistinct murmur of voices testified. The girl had another tremblingfit when she heard them, and Tom's wonder was fast lapsing into contemptor something like it. 

"Oh-h-h!" she shuddered. "Do you reckon they saw us, Tom-Jeff?"

"I shouldn't wonder, " he whispered back unfeelingly. "We could see themplain enough. "

"He'll kill me, for shore, Tom-Jeff! O God!"

Tom's lip curled. The wolf does not mate with the jackal. Not all herbeauty could atone for such spiritless cringing. Love would have pitiedher, but passion is not moved by qualities opposite to those which haveevoked it. 

"Then you know them--or one of them, at least, " he said. "Who is he?"

She would not tell; and since the murmur of voices was still plainlyaudible, she begged in dumb-show for silence. Whereupon Tom shut hismouth and did not open it again until the sound of the voices had diedaway and the fainter tappings of the hammers on the pipe-line advertisedthe retreat of the inspection party. 

"They're gone now, " he said shortly. "Let's get out of here before westifle. "

But a second time ill chance intervened. Tom had a leg over the brinkand was looking for a soft leaf bed to drop into, when the baying of ahound broke on the restored quiet of the mountain side. "Oh, dang itall!" said Tom heartily, and drew back into hiding. 

The girl's ague fit of fear had passed, and she seemed less concernedabout the equivocal situation than a girl should be; at least, this isthe way Tom's thought was shaping itself. He tried to imagine Ardea inNan's place, but the thing was baldly unimaginable. A daughter of theDabneys would never run and cower and beg to be hidden at the possiblecost of her good name. And Nan's word did not help matters. 

"What makes you so cross to me, Tom-Jeff?" she asked, when he drew backwith the impatient exclamation. "I hain't done nothin' to make you leton like you hate me, have I?"

"I don't hate you, " said Tom, frowning. "If I did, I shouldn't care. "Just then the hound burst out of the laurel thicket on the brow of thelower slope, running with its nose to the ground, and he added: "That'sJaphe Pettigrass's dog; I hope to goodness he isn't anywhere behind it. "

But the horse-trader was behind the dog; so close behind that he cameout on the continuation of the pipe-line path while the hound was stillnosing among the leaves where Tom had lain sunning himself and tellinghis tale of woe. 

"Good dog--seek him! What is it, old boy?" Pettigrass came up, pattedthe hound, and sat down on the flat stone to look on curiously while thedog coursed back and forth among the dead leaves. "Find him, Cæsar; findhim, boy!" encouraged Japheth; and finally the hound pointed a sensitivenose toward the rift in the side of the great boulder and yelpedconclusively. 

"D'ye reckon he climm up thar', Cæsar?" Pettigrass unfolded his longlegs and stood up on the flat stone to attain an eye-level with theinterior of the little cavern. Tom crushed Nan into the farthest cranny, and flattened himself lizard-like against the nearer side wall. Thehorse-trader looked long and hard, and they could hear him still talkingto the dog. 

"You're an old fool, Cæsar--that's about what you are--and Solomonallowed thar' wasn't no fool like an old one. But you needn't to swallerthat whole, old boy; I've knowed some young ones in my time--sometimesgals, sometimes boys, sometimes _both_. But thar' ain't no 'possum upyonder, Cæsar; you've flew the track this time, for certain. Come on, old dog; let's be gettin' down the mountain. "

The baying dog and the whistling man were still within hearing when Tomswung Nan lightly to the ground and dropped beside her. No word wasspoken until she had emptied and refilled her bucket at the spring, thenTom said, with the bickering tang still on his tongue:

"Say, Nan, I want to know who it is that's going to kill you if hehappens to find you talking to me. "

She shook her head despondently. "I cayn't nev' tell you that, Tom-Jeff. "

"I'd like to know why you can't. "

"Because he'd shore kill me then. "

"Then I'll find out some other way. "

"What differ' does it make to you?" she asked; and again the dark eyessearched him till he was fain to look away from her. 

"I reckon it doesn't make any difference, if you don't want it to. Butone time you were willing enough to tell me your troubles, and--"

"And I'll nev' do it nare 'nother time; never, _never_. And let me tellyou somethin' else, Tom-Jeff Gordon: if you know what's good for you, don't you nev' come anigh me again. One time we usen to be a boy and agirl together; you're nothin' but a boy yet, but I--oh, God, Tom-Jeff--I'm a woman!"

And with that saying she snatched her bucket and was gone before hecould find a word wherewith to match it. 

XVII

ABSALOM, MY SON!

Three days after the episode at the barrel-spring, Tom went afieldagain, this time to gather plunging courage for the confession to hismother--a thing which, after so many postponements, could be put off nolonger. 

It was more instinct than purpose that led him to avoid the mountain. Thinking only of the crying need for solitude, he crossed the pike andthe creek and rambled aimlessly for an hour or more over that fartherhill ground beyond the country-house colony where he had once tried tobreak the Dabney spirit in a weary, bedraggled little girl withcolorless lips and saucer-like eyes. 

When he recrossed the stream, at a point some distance above theboy-time perch pools, the serving foot-log chanced to be that used bythe Little Zoar folk coming from beyond the boundary hills. Followingthe windings of the path he presently came out in the rear of theweather-beaten, wooden-shuttered church standing, blind-eyed and silent, in week-day desertion in the midst of its groving of pines. 

The spot was rife with memories, and Tom passed around the building tothe front, treading softly as on hallowed ground. Whatever the futuremight hold for him, there would always be heart-stirring recollectionsto cluster about this frail old building sheltered by the whisperingpines. 

How many times he had sat on the steps in the door-opening days ofboyhood, looking out across the dusty pike and up to the opposing steepsof Lebanon lifting the eastward horizon half-way to the zenith!Leg-weariness, and a sudden desire to live over again thus much of thepast turning him aside, he went to sit on the highest of the threesteps, with the brooding silence for company and the uplifted landscapeto revamp the boyhood memories. 

The sun had set for Paradise Valley, but his parting rays were stillvolleying in level lines against the great gray cliffs at the top ofLebanon, silvering the bare sandstone, blackening the cedars and pinesby contrast, and making a fine-lined tracery, blue on gray, of the twigsand leafless branches of the deciduous trees. Off to the left a touch ofsepia on the sky-line marked the chimneys of Crestcliffe Inn, andfarther around, and happily almost hidden by the shouldering of thehills, a grayer cloud hung over the industries at Gordonia. 

Nearer at hand were the wooded slopes of the Dabney lands--lordlyforests culled and cared for through three generations of land-loversuntil now their groves of oaks and hickories, tulip-trees and sweet-andblack-gums were like those the pioneers looked on when the land wasyoung. 

Thomas Jefferson had the appreciative eye and heart of one born with adeep and abiding love of the beautiful in nature, and for a time thesunset ravishment possessed him utterly. But the blurring of thefine-lined traceries and the fading of the silver and the gray intotwilight purple broke the spell. The postponed resolve was the thingpresent and pressing. His mother was as nearly recovered as she was everlikely to be, and his uncle would be returning to South Tredegar in themorning. The evil tale must be told while there was yet one to whom hismother could turn for help and sympathy in her hour of bitterdisappointment. 

He was rising from his seat on the church step when he heard sounds likemuffled groans. Recovering quickly from the first boyish startle of fearoozing like a cool breeze blowing up the back of his neck, he saw thatthe church door was ajar. By cautiously adding another inch to theaperture he could see the interior of the building, its outlines takingshape when his eyes had become accustomed to darkness relieved only bythe small fan-light over the door. Some one was in the church: a man, kneeling, with clasped hands uplifted, in the open space fronting therude pulpit. Tom recognized the voice and withdrew quickly. It was hisUncle Silas, praying fervently for a lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

In former times, with grim rebellion gripping him as it gripped him now, Tom would have run away. But there was a prompting stronger thanrebellion: a sudden melting of the heart that made him remember theloving-kindnesses, and not any of the austerities, of the man who waspraying for him, and he sat down on the lowest step to wait. 

The twilight was glooming to dusk when Silas Crafts came out of thechurch and locked the door behind him. If he were surprised to find Tomwaiting for him, he made no sign. Neither was there any word ofgreeting passed between them when he gathered his coat tails and satdown on the higher step, self-restraint being a heritage which had comedown undiminished from the Covenanter ancestors of both. A littlegrayer, a little thinner, but with the deep-set eyes still glowing withthe fires of utter convincement and the marvelous voice stillunimpaired, Silas Crafts would have refused to believe that the passingyears had changed him; yet now there was kinsman love to temper solemnausterity when he spoke to the lost sheep--as there might not have beenin the sterner years. 

"The way of the transgressor is hard, grievously hard, Thomas. I thinkyou are already finding it so, are you not?"

Tom shook his head slowly. 

"That doesn't mean what it used to, to me, Uncle Silas; nothing meansthe same any more. It's just as if somebody had hit that part of me witha club; it's all numb and dead. I'm sure of only one thing now: that is, that I'm not going to be a hypocrite after this, if I can help it. "

The man put his hand on the boy's knee. 

"Have you been that all along, Thomas?"

"I reckon so, "--monotonously. "At first it was partly scare, and partlybecause I knew what mother wanted. But ever since I've been big enoughto think, I've been asking why, and, as you would say, doubting. "

Silas Crafts was silent for a moment. Then he said:

"You have come to the years of discretion, Thomas, and you have chosendeath rather than life. If you go on as you have begun, you will bringthe gray hairs of your father and mother in sorrow to the grave. Leaving your own soul's salvation out of the question, can you go on anddrag an upright, honorable name in the dust and mire of degradation?"

"No, " said Tom definitely. "And what's more, I don't mean to. I don'tknow what Doctor Tollivar wrote you about me, and it doesn't make anydifference now. That's over and done with. You haven't been seeing meevery day for these three weeks without knowing that I'm ashamed of it. "

"Ashamed of the consequences, you mean, Thomas. You are not repentant. "

"Yes, I am, Uncle Silas; though maybe not in your way. I don't allow tomake a fool of myself again. "

The preacher's comment was a groan. 

"Tom, my boy, if any one had told me a year ago that a short twelvemonthwould make you, not only an apostate to the faith, but a shameless liaras well--"

Tom started as if he had been struck with a whip. 

"Hold on, Uncle Silas, " he broke in hardily. "That's mighty near afighting word, even between blood kin. When have you ever caught me in alie?"

"Now!" thundered the accusing voice; "this moment! You have been givingme to understand that your sinful rebellion at Beersheba was the worstthat could be charged against you. Answer me: isn't that what you wantme to believe?"

"I don't care whether you believe it or not. It's so. "

"It is not so. Here, at your own home, when your mother had just beenspared to you by the mercies of the God whose commandments you set atnaught, you have been wallowing in sin--in crime!"

Tom locked his clasped fingers fast around his knees and would not openthe flood-gates of passion. 

"If I can sit here and take that from you, it's because it isn't so, " hereplied soberly. 

Silas Crafts rose, stern and pitiless. 

"Wretched boy! Out of your own mouth you shall be convicted. Where wereyou on Wednesday morning?"

Tom had to think back before he could place the Wednesday morning, andhis momentary hesitation was immediately set down to the score ofconscious guilt. 

"I was at home most of the time; between ten o'clock and noon I was onthe mountain. "

"Alone?"

"No; not all of the time. "

"You say well. There were three of you: a hardened, degraded boy, awoman no less wicked and abandoned, and the devil who tempted you. "

The flood-gates of passion would hold no longer. 

"It's a lie!" he denied hotly. "I just happened to meet Nan Bryerson atthe spring under the big rock, and--"

"Well, go on, " said the inexorable voice. 

Tom choked in a sudden fit of rage and helplessness. He saw howincredible the simple truth would sound; how like a clumsy equivocationit must appear to one who already believed the worst of him. So he tookrefuge in the last resort alike of badgered innocence and hardenedguilt. 

"I don't have to defend myself!" he burst out. "If you can believe I'mthat low-down, you're welcome to!" Then, abruptly: "I reckon we'd betterbe going on home; they'll be waiting dinner for us at the house. "

He got on his feet with that, but the accuser was still confrontinghim, with the dark eyes glowing and a monitory finger pointed to detainhim. 

"Not yet, Thomas Gordon; there is a duty laid on me. I had hoped andprayed that I might find you repentant; you are not repentant. "

"No, " said Tom, and he confirmed it with an oath in sheer bravado. 

"Peace, miserable boy! God is not mocked. Your father has a letter fromDoctor Tollivar; the doors of Beersheba are open to you again. I hadhoped--" The pause was not for effect. It was merely that the man andthe kinsman in Silas Crafts had throttled the righteous judge. "Itbreaks my heart, Thomas, but I must say it. You have put it out of yourpower to say with the Psalmist, 'I will wash mine hands in innocency: sowill I compass thine altar, O Lord. ' You must give up all thoughts ofgoing back to Beersheba. "

"Don't trouble yourself, " said Tom, with more bravado. "I wouldn't goback there if it was the only place on earth. " Then suddenly: "Who wasit that told on me, Uncle Silas?"

"Never mind about that. It was one who could have no object inmisstating the fact--which you have not denied. Let us go home. "

The mile walk down the pike, lying white and ghostly under thestarlight, was paced in silence, man and boy striding side by side andeach busy with his own thoughts. As they were passing the Deer Tracegates a loose-jointed figure loomed black against the palings, and thevoice of Japheth Pettigrass said:

"Why, howdy, Brother Silas! Thought ye'd gone back to South Tredegar. When are ye comin' out to Little Zoar ag'in to give us another o' themold-fashioned, spiritual times o' refreshin' from the presence of theLord?"

Silas Crafts turned short on the scoffer. 

"Why do you ask that, Japheth Pettigrass? The Lord will deal with you, one day. "

"Yes, I reckon so; that's what makes me say what I does. There's a heapo' sinners left round here, yit, Brother Silas. There's the Major, forone, and I know you're always countin' me in for another. I dunno butyou might snatch me as a brand from the burnin', if you could make outto try it one more lap around the you'se. I been thinkin' rightp'intedly about--"

But the preacher had cut in with a curt "Good night, " and was gone, withhis broad-shouldered nephew at his heels; and the horse-trader went on, with the stars for his audience. 

"Look at that, now, will ye? Old Brother Silas is gettin' right smarttetchy with the passin' of the years; he is, so. But he's a powerfulpreacher. If anybody ever gits me for a star in their crown, it'sBrother Silas ag'inst the field, even money up. "

Pettigrass turned and was groping for the gate latch when a hand fell onhis shoulder, and a clutch that was more than half a blow twirled himabout to face the roadway. He was doubling his fists for defense when hesaw who his assailant was. 

"Why, Tom-Jeff! what's ailin' ye?" he began; but Tom broke in withgaspings of rage. 

"Japhe Pettigrass, what did you think you saw last Wednesday forenoon upyonder at Big Rock Spring on the mountain? Tell it straight, this time, or by the God you don't believe in, I'll dig the truth out of you withmy bare hands!"

"Sho, now, Tom-Jeff; don't you git so servigrous over nothin'. I didn'tsee nothin' but a couple o' young fly-aways playin' 'possum in a hole inthe big rock. And I'll leave it to you if I didn't call Cæsar off and gomy ways, jes' like I'd like to be done by. "

"Yes, " snarled Tom, dog-mad and furious in this second submergence ofthe wave of wrath. "Yes; and then you came straight down here and toldmy uncle!" The hand he had been holding behind him came to the front, clutching a stone snatched up from the metaling of the pike as he ran. "If I should break your face in with this, Japhe Pettigrass, it wouldn'tbe any more than you've earned!"

"By gravy! _I_ tell Brother Silas on you, Tom-Jeff? You show me the man'at says I done any such low-down thing as that, and I'll frazzle afifty-dollar hawsswhip out on his ornery hide--I will, so. Say, boy; youdon't certain'y believe that o' me, do ye?"

"I don't want to believe it of you, Japhe, " quavered Tom, as near totears as the pride of his eighteen years would sanction. "But somebodysaw and told, and made it a heap worse than it was. " He leaned over thetop of the wall and put his face in the crook of his elbow, beingnothing better than a hurt child, for all his bigness. 

"Well, now; I wouldn't let a little thing like that gravel me, if I wasyou, Tom-Jeff, " said Pettigrass, turned comforter. "Nan's a mightypretty gal, and you ort to be willin' to stand a little devilin' on heraccount--more especially as you've--"

Tom put up his arm as if to ward a blow. 

"Don't you say it, Japhe, or I'll go mad again, " he broke out. 

"I ain't sayin' nothin'. But who do you reckon it was told on you? Wasthere anybody else in the big woods that mornin'?"

"Yes; there were three men testing the pipe-line. We both saw them, andNan was scared stiff at sight of one of them; that's why I put her up inthat hole. "

"Who was the man?"

"I don't know. I didn't recognize any of them--they were too far offwhen I saw them. And afterward, Nan wouldn't tell me. "

"Did any of 'em see you and Nan?"

"I thought not. Nan was sitting on the flat rock where you stood andlooked into the cave, and when she began to whimper, I flung her overinto the leaves and ran with her to the hole. "

"H'm, " said Japheth. "When you find out who that feller is that Nan'sskeered of, you can lay your hand on the man that told Brother Silas onyou. But I wouldn't trouble about it none, if I was you. You've got along ways the best of him, whoever he is, and--"

But Tom had turned to go home, feeling his way by the wall because theangry tears were still blinding him, and the horse-trader fell back intohis star-gazing. 

"Law, law, " he mused; "'the horrible pit an' the miry clay. ' What asufferin' pity it is we pore sinners cayn't dance a little now and ag'in'thout havin' to walk right up and pay the fiddler! Tom-Jeff, there, now, he's a-thinkin' the price is toler'ble high; and I don't know butit is--I don't know but what it is. "

The dinner at Woodlawn that night was a stiff and comfortless meal, asit had come to be with the taking on of four-tined forks and the otherconventions for which an oak-paneled dining-room in an ornate brickmansion sets the pace. Caleb Gordon was fathoms deep in the mechanicalproblems of the day's work, as was his wont. Silas Crafts was abstractedand silent. Tom's food choked him, as it had need under the sharp stressof things; and the convalescent housemother remained at table only longenough to pour the coffee. 

Tom excused himself a few minutes later, and followed his mother to herroom, climbing the stair to her door, leaden-footed and with his heartready to burst. 

"Is that you, Thomas?" said the gentle voice within, answering his tapon the panel. "Come in, son; come in and sit by my fire. It's rightchilly to-night. "

Thomas Jefferson entered and placed his chair so that she could not seehim without turning, and for many minutes the silence was unbroken. Thenhe began, as begin he must, sometime and in some way. 

"Mammy, " he said, feeling unconsciously for the childish phrase, "Mammy, has Uncle Silas been telling you anything about me?"

She gave a little nod of assent. 

"Something, Thomas, but not a great deal. You have had some trouble withDoctor Tollivar?"

"Yes. "

"I have known that for some little time. Your uncle might have told memore, but I wouldn't let him. There has never been anything between usto break confidence, Tom. I knew you would tell me yourself, when thetime came. "

"I have come to tell you to-night, mammy. You must hear it all, frombeginning to end. It goes back a long way--back to the time when youused to let me kneel with my head in your lap to say my prayers; whenyou used to think I was good. .. . "

The fire had died down to a few glowing masses of coke on the grate barswhen he had finished the story of his wanderings in the valley of drybones. Through it all, Martha Gordon had sat silent and rigid, her thinhands lying clasped in her lap, and her low willow rocking-chair barelymoving at the touch of her foot on the fender. 

But when it was over; when Tom, his voice breaking in spite of hisefforts to control it, told her that he could walk in the way she hadchosen for him only at the price a conscious hypocrite must pay, shereached up quickly and took him in her arms and wept over him as thosewho sorrow without hope, crying again and again, _"O my son Absalom, myson, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"_

XVIII

THE AWAKENING

Once in a lifetime for every youngling climbing the facile or difficultslope of the years there comes a day of realization, of a suddenextension of vision, of Rubicon-crossing from the hither shore of joyousand irresponsible adolescence to that further one of consciousgrapplings with the adult fact. 

For Thomas Jefferson, grinding tenaciously in the Boston technicalschool, whither he had gone late in the winter of Beersheban discontent, the stream-crossing fell in the spring of the panic year 1893, what timehe was twenty-one, a quarter-back on his college eleven, fit, hardy, studious and athletic; a pace-setter for his fellows and the pride ofthe faculty, but still little more than an overgrown, care-free boy inhis outlook on life. Glimpses there had been over into the Promised Landof manhood, but the brimming cup of college work and play quaffed inhealth-giving heartiness is the elixir of youth. The speculative habitof the boy slept in the college undergraduate. The days were full, eachof the things of itself, and if Tom looked forward to the workadayfuture, --as he did by times, --the boyish impatience to be at it wasgone. Chiawassee Consolidated was moderately prosperous; the homeletters were mere chronicles of sleepy Paradise. The skies were clear, and the present was acutely present. Tom studied hard and played hard;ate like an ogre and slept like a log. And when he finally awoke to findhimself stumbling bewildered on the bank of the epoch-marking Rubicon, he was over and across before he could realize how so narrow a streamshould fill so vast a chasm. 

The call of the ferryman--to keep the figure whole--was a letter fromhis father, a letter longer than the commonplace chronicles, andpainfully written with the mechanic hand on both sides of a companyletter-head. Caleb Gordon wrote chiefly of business. Mutterings of thestorm of financial depression were already in the air. Iron, moresensitive than the stock-market, was the barometer, and its readings inthe Southern field were growing portentous. Within the month several ofthe smaller furnaces had gone out of blast, and Chiawassee Consolidated, though still presenting a fair exterior, was, Caleb feared, rotten atheart. What would Tom advise?

Tom found this letter in his mail-box one evening after a strenuous dayin the laboratory; and that night he sat up with the corpse of his laterboyhood, though he was far enough from putting it that way. His fatherwas in trouble, and the letter was a call for help. It seemed vastlyincredible. Thomas Jefferson's ideal of steady courage, of invinciblehuman puissance, was formed on the model of the stout-hearted oldsoldier who had fought under Stonewall Jackson. What a trumpet blast ofalarm must have sounded to make such a man turn to a raw recruit forhelp!

Suddenly Tom began to realize that he was no longer a raw recruit, aboy to ride care-free while men were afoot and fighting. It astoundedhim that the realization had been so slow in arriving. It was as if hehad been led blindfolded to the firing line, there to have the bandageplucked from his eyes by an unseen hand. Tumultuously it rushed on himthat he was weaponed as the men of his father's generation could not be;that his hand could be steady and his heart fearless under threateningsthat might well shake the courage of the old man who had borne only theburden and the heat of the day of smaller things. 

He sat long with his elbows on the study table and his chin resting onhis hands. The room was small but the walls gave before the steady gazeof the gray eyes, and Tom saw afar; down a vistaed highway wherein astrong man walked, leading a boy by the hand. Swiftly, with a click likethat of the mechanism in a kinetoscope, the scene changed. The highwaywas the same, but now the man's steps had grown cautious and uncertainand he was groping for the shoulder of the boy, as for a leaning-staff. 

Tom broke the eye-hold on the vision and sprang up to pace the narrowlimits of the study. 

"It's up to me, " he mused, "and I'd like to know what I've been thinkingof all this time. Why, pappy's old! he was forty before I was born. AndI've been up here taking it easy and having all sorts of a good time, while he's been playing Sindbad to Duxbury Farley's Old Man of the Sea. Coming, pappy!" he shouted; and forthwith flung himself down at thetable to write a letter that was to put new life into a weary old manwho was fighting against odds in the far-away Southland. 

The lone soldier was to take heart of grace, remembering that he had ason; remembering also that the son was now a man grown, stout of arm, steady of head, and otherwise fighting-fit. If the storm should come, the watchword must be to hold on all, keeping steerage-way on theChiawassee Consolidated craft at all hazards. The June examinations werenot far off, and these disposed of, the man-son would be ready to layhold. Meanwhile, let Caleb Gordon, in his capacity of principal minorstock-holder, insist on a full and exact statement of the company'saffairs, and--here the new manhood asserted itself boldly--let thatstatement, or a copy of it, come to Boston by the first mail. 

To this letter there was a grateful reply in which Tom read with a smilehis father's half-bewildered attempt to get over to the new point ofview. It began, "Dear Buddy, " and ended, "Your affectionate pappy, " butthere was man-to-man matter between the salutation and the signature. The inquiry into the affairs of Chiawassee Consolidated had revealedlittle or nothing more than the general manager already knew. Thepresident had turned the inquiring stock-holder over to Dyckman, thebookkeeper, with instructions to give Mr. Gordon the fullest possibleinformation, and:

"Dyckman slid out of it, smooth and easy-like, " Caleb's letter went on. "He allowed he was _mighty_ busy, right about then. Wouldn't I just makemyself at home and examine the books for myself? I reckon that was aboutwhat Farley wanted him to do. I'm no book expert, and I couldn't makehead or tail out of Dyckman's spider tracks. Looks to me like all thebooks are good for is to keep people from finding where the company isat. What little I found out, young Norman told me. He says we're in ahole, and the first wagon-load of dirt that comes along will bury us outof sight. "

Tom, driven now with the closing work of the college year, yet took timeto write another heartening letter to the hard-pressed old soldier. Ithad been his good fortune to win the Clarkson prize for crucible tests, and to have gained thereby a speaking acquaintance with themultimillionaire iron king who had founded it. Mr. Clarkson did notbelieve that the financial storm would grow to panic size. As forhimself, Tom thought the hazard was less in the times than in theFarleys. Father Caleb was to keep his finger on the pulse of the mainoffice, wiring Boston at the first sign of its weakening. 

The junior metallurgical was in the thick of the June examinations whenthe catastrophe befell. The brief story of it came to Tom in the firstdictated letter he had ever received from his father, and the tremulousshakiness of the signature pointed eloquently to the reason. ChiawasseeConsolidated was out of blast--"temporarily suspended, " in the pleasanteuphemism of the elder Farley; the force, clerical and manual, wasdischarged, with only Dyckman left in the deserted South Tredegaroffices to answer questions; and the three Farleys, with Major Dabney, Ardea and Miss Euphrasia, were to spend the summer in Europe. 

Caleb wrote in some bitterness of spirit. Though the Gordon holdings inthe company, increased from time to time as the iron-master hadprospered, amounted to a little more than a third of the capital stock, everything had been done secretly. The general manager's own notice ofthe shut-down had come in the posted "Notice to Employees. " When theFarleys should leave, he would be utterly helpless; on their return theycould repudiate everything he might do in their absence. Meantime, ruinwas imminent. The affairs of the company were in the utmost confusion;the treasury was empty, and there were no apparent assets apart from theidle plant. Creditors were pressing; the discharged workmen, led by thewhite coal-miners, were on the verge of riot; and Major Dabney'sroyalties on the coal lands were many months in arrears. 

Tom rose promptly to the occasion, and in all the stress of things foundspace to wonder how it chanced that he knew instinctively what to do andhow to go about it. Before his information was an hour old a rushtelegram had gone to his father, asking from what port and by whatsteamer the Farleys would sail; asking also that certain documents besent to a given New York address by first mail. 

This done, he laid the exigencies frankly before the examiners in thetechnical school, praying for such lenity as might be extended under thecircumstances. Since all things are possible for an honor-man, belovedof those whose mission it is to grind the human weapon to its edge, thedifficulties in this field vanished. Mr. Gordon could go on with theexaminations until his presence was needed elsewhere; and after thestressful moment was passed he could return and finish. 

Tom, the boy, could not have gone on. It would have been blanklyimpossible. But Tom, the man, was a new creature. While waiting for thereply to his telegram, he plunged doggedly back into the scholasticwhirlpool, kicked, struggled, strangled, got his head above water, andfound, vastly to his own amazement, that the thing was actuallycompassable in spite of the mighty distractions. 

The return telegram from Gordonia was a day late. Knowing diplomacy onlyby name, Caleb Gordon had gone directly to Dyckman for informationregarding the Farleys' movements. Dyckman was polite to the generalmanager, but unhappily he knew nothing of Mr. Farley's plans. Calebtried elsewhere, and the little mystery thickened. At his club, Mr. Farley had spoken of taking a Cunarder from Boston; to a friend in theSouth Tredegar Manufacturers' Association he had confided his intentionof sailing from Philadelphia. But at the railway ticket office he hadengaged Pullman reservations for six persons to New York. 

This last was conclusive, as far as it went; and Japheth Pettigrasssupplied the missing item. The Dabneys and the Farleys made one party, and Japheth knew the steamer and the sailing date. 

"Party will sail by White Star Line Baltic, New York, to-morrow. NewYork address, Fifth Avenue Hotel. Papers to you care 271 Broadway bymail yesterday, " was the message which was signed for by the doorkeeperat the mines and metallurgy examination room in Boston, late in theforenoon of the second day; and Tom looked at the clock. Nothing wouldbe gained by taking a train which would land him in New York late in theevening; so he plunged again into the examination pool and thought nomore of Chiawassee Consolidated until his paper on qualitative analysishad been neatly folded, docketed and handed to the examiner. 

The hands of his watch were pointing to eight o'clock the followingmorning when Tom made his way through the throng in the Grand Centralstation and found a cab. The sailing hour of the _Baltic_ was ten, andhe picked his cabman accordingly. 

"I shall want you for a couple of hours, and it's double fare if youdon't miss. 271 Broadway, first, " was his fillip for the driver; and hewas speedily rattling away to the down-town address. 

The taking of the cab was his first mistake, and he discovered it beforehe had gone very far. Time was precious, and the horse, pushed to thepolice limit, was too slow. Tom signaled his Irishman. 

"Get me over to the Elevated, and then go to Madison Square and wait forme, " he ordered; and by this change of conveyance he obtained his mailand won back to the Fifth Avenue Hotel by late breakfast time. 

From that on, luck was with him. The Farleys, father and son, were inthe lobby of the hotel, waiting for the others to come down to the cafébreakfast. Tom saw them, confronted them, and went at things veryconcisely. 

"I have come all the way from Boston to ask for a few minutes of yourtime, Mr. Farley, " he said to the president. "Will you give it to menow?"

"Surely!" was the genial reply, and the promoter signed to his son anddrew apart with the importunate one. "Well, go on, my boy; what can I dofor you at this last American moment?--some message from your goodfather?"

"No, " said Tom shortly; "it's from me, individually. You know in whatshape you have left things at home; they've got to be stood on theirfeet before you go aboard the _Baltic_. "

"What's this--what's this? Why, my dear young man! what can you possiblymean?"--this in buttered tones of the gentlest expostulation. 

"I mean just about what I say. You have smashed Chiawassee Consolidated, and now you are going off to leave my father to hold the bag. Or ratherI should say, you are taking the bag with you. "

The president was visibly moved. 

"Why, Thomas--you must be losing your mind! You've--you've been studyingtoo hard; that's it--the term work up there in Boston has been too muchfor you. "

"Cut it out, Mr. Farley, " said Tom savagely, all the Gordon fightingblood singing in his veins. "You've got a thing to do, and it is goingto be done before you leave America. Will you talk straight business, ornot?"

The president adjusted his eye-glasses, and gave this brand-new Gordon acalm over-look. 

"And if I decline to discuss business matters with a rude school-boy?"he intimated mildly. 

"Then it will be rather the worse for you, " was the defiant rejoinder. "Acting for my father and the minority stock-holders, I shall try tohave you and your son held in America, pending an expert examination ofthe company's affairs. "

It was a long shot, with a thousand chances of missing. If there wasanything criminal in the Farley administration, the evidences weredoubtless well buried. But Tom was looking deep into the shifty blueeyes of his antagonist when he fired, and he saw that he had not whollymissed. None the less, the president attempted to carry it off lightly. 

"What do you think of this, Vincent?" he said, turning to his son. "Hereis Tom Gordon--our Tom--talking wildly about investigations and arrests, and I don't know what all. Shall we give him his breakfast and send himback to school?"

Tom cut in quickly before Vincent could make a reply. 

"If you're sparring to gain time, it's no use, Mr. Farley. I mean what Isay, and I'm dead in earnest. " Then he tried another long shot: "I tellyou right now we've had this thing cocked and primed ever since we foundout what you and Vincent meant to do. You must turn over the control ofChiawassee Consolidated, legally and formally, to my father before yougo aboard the _Baltic_, or--_you don't go aboard_!"

"Let me understand, " said the treasurer, cutting in. "Are you accusingus of crime?"

"You will find out what the accusation is, later on, " said Tom, takingyet another cartridge from the long-range box. "What I want now is aplain, straightforward yes or no, if either of you is capable of sayingit. "

The president took his son aside. 

"Do you suppose Dyckman has been talking too much?" he asked hurriedly. 

Vincent shook his head. 

"You can't tell . .. It looks a little rocky. Of course, we had a rightto do as we pleased with our own, but we don't want to have anunfriendly construction put on things. "

"But they can't do anything!" protested the president. "Why, I'd beperfectly willing to turn over my private papers, if they were askedfor!"

"Yes, of course. But there would be misconstruction. There is thatcontract with the combination, for example; we had a right to manipulatethings so we'd have to close down, and it might not transpire that wemade money by doing it. But, on the other hand, it might leak out, andthere'd be no end of a row. Then there is another thing: there issomebody behind this who is bigger than the old soldier or this youngfoot-ball tough. It's too nicely timed. "

"But, heavens and earth! you wouldn't turn the property over to Gordon, would you?"

The younger man's smile was a mere contortion of the lips. "It's asucked orange, " he said. "Let the old man have it. He may work a miracleof some sort and pull out alive. I should call it a snap, and take himup too quick. If he wins out, so much the better for all concerned. Ifhe doesn't, why, we left the property entirely in his hands, and hesmashed it. Don't you see the beauty of it?"

The president wheeled short on Tom. 

"What you may think you are extorting, my dear boy, you are going to getthrough sheer good-will and a desire to give your father every chance inthe world, " he said blandly. "We discussed the plan of electing himvice-president, with power to act, before we left home, but there seemedto be some objections. We are willing to give him full control--and thisaltogether apart from any foolish threats you have seen fit to make. Bring your legal counsel to Room 327 after breakfast and we will gothrough the formalities. Are you satisfied?"

"I shall be a lot better satisfied after the fact, " said Tom bluntly;and he turned away to avoid meeting Major Dabney and the ladies, whowere coming from the elevator to join the two early risers. He had seennext to nothing of Ardea during the three Boston years, and wouldwillingly have seen more. But the new manhood was warning him that timewas short, and that he must not mix business with sentiment. So Ardeasaw nothing but his back, which, curiously enough, she failed torecognize. 

Picking up his cab at the curb, Tom had himself driven quickly to theoffice of the corporation lawyer whose name he had obtained from Mr. Clarkson the day before, and with whom he had made a wire appointmentbefore leaving Boston. The attorney was waiting for him, and Tom statedthe case succinctly, adding a brief of the interview which had justtaken place at the hotel. 

"You say they agreed to your proposal?" observed the lawyer. "Did Mr. Farley indicate the method?"

"No. "

"Have you a copy of the by-laws of your company?"

Tom produced the packet of papers received that morning from his father, and handed the required pamphlet to Mr. Croswell. 

"H'm--ha! the usual form. A stock-holders' meeting, with a resolution, would be the simplest way out of it; but that can't be held without thepublished call. You say your father is a stock-holder?"

"He has four hundred and three of the original one thousand shares. Ihold his proxy. "

The attorney smiled shrewdly. 

"You are a very remarkable young man. You seem to have come prepared atall points. I assume that you are acting under your father'sinstructions?"

"Why, with his approval, of course, " Tom amended. "But it is my owninitiative, under the advice of a good friend of mine in Boston, thusfar. Oh, I know what I'm about, " he added, in answer to the latentquestion in the lawyer's eyes. 

"You seem to, " was the laconic reply. "Now let us see exactly what it isthat you want Mr. Farley to concede. "

"I want him to turn over the entire control of the company's business, operative and financial, to my father. "

The lawyer smiled again. 

"That is a pretty big asking. Have you any reason to suppose that Mr. Farley will accede to any such demand?"

"Yes; I have very good reasons, but I reckon we needn't go into themhere and now. The time is too short; their liner sails at ten. "

The attorney tilted his chair and became reflective. 

"The simple way out of it is to have Mr. Farley constitute your father, or yourself, his proxy to vote his stock at a certain specified meetingof the stock-holders, which can be called later. Of course, with amajority vote of the stock, you can rearrange matters to suityourselves, subject only to Mr. Farley's disarrangement when he resumescontrol of his holdings. How would that serve?"

"You're the doctor, " said Tom bruskly. "Any way to get him out and getmy father in. "

"It's the simplest way, as I say. But if the property is worth anythingat all, I should think Mr. Farley would fight you to a finish before hewould consent. "

"You fix up the papers, Mr. Croswell, and I'll see to it that heconsents. Make the proxy run in my father's name. "

The attorney went into another room and dictated to his stenographer. While he was absent, Tom sat, watch in hand, counting the minutes. Itwas his first pitched battle with the Farleys, and victory promised. Butwith industrial panic in the air the victory threatened to be of theCadmean sort, and a scowl of anxiety gathered between his eyes. 

"Never mind, " he gritted, with an out-thrust of the square jaw; "it'sthe Gordon fighting chance; and pappy says that's all we've everasked--it's all I'm going to ask, anyway. But I wish Ardea wasn't goingover with that crowd!"

The conference in Room 327, Fifth Avenue Hotel, held while the carriageswere waiting to take the steamer party to the pier, was brief andbusinesslike. Something to Tom's surprise, Major Dabney was present; anda little later he learned, with a shock of resentment, that the Majorwas also a minority stock-holder in the moribund ChiawasseeConsolidated. The master of Deer Trace was as gracious to Caleb Gordon'sson as only a Dabney knew how to be. 

"Nothing could give me greateh pleasure, my deah boy, than this plan ofhaving youh fatheh in command at Gordonia, " he beamed, shaking Tom'shand effusively. "I hope you'll have us all made millionaihs when we getback home again; I do, for a fact, suh. "

Tom smiled and shook his head. 

"It looks pretty black, just now, Major. I'm afraid we're in for roughweather. "

"Oh, no; not that, son; a meah passing cloud. " And then, with the bigDabney laugh: "You youngstehs oughtn't to leave it for us old fellows tokeep up the stock of optimism, suh. A word in youh ear, young man: ifthese heah damned Yankee rascals would quit thei-uh monkeying right heahin Wall Street, the country would take on a new lease of life, suh; itwould for a fact, " and he said it loudly enough to be heard in thecorridor. 

During this bit of side play the attorney was laboring with the twoFarleys, and Tom, watching narrowly, saw that there was a hitch of somekind. 

"What is it?" he demanded, turning shortly on the trio at the table. 

The lawyer explained. Mr. Farley thought the plan proposed was entirelytoo far-reaching in its effects, or possible effects. He was willing todelegate his authority as president of the company to Caleb Gordon inwriting. Would not that answer all the requirements?

Tom asked his attorney with his eyes if it would answer, and read thenegative reply very clearly. So he shook his head. 

"No, " he said, turning his back on the Major and lowering his voice. "Wemust have your proxy, Mr. Farley. "

"And if I don't choose to accede to your demands?"

"I don't think we need to go over that ground again, " said Tom coolly. "If you don't sign that paper, you'll miss your steamer. "

The president glanced toward the open door, as if he half expected tosee an officer waiting for him. Then he said, "Oh, well; it's as broadas it is long, " and signed. 

The leave-takings were brief, and somewhat constrained, save those ofthe genial Major. Tom pleaded business, further business, with hisattorney, when the Major would have had him wait to tell the ladiesgood-by; hence he saw no more of the tourists after the conference brokeup. 

Not to lose time, Tom took a noon train back to Boston, first wiring hisfather to try and keep things in _statu quo_ at Gordonia for anotherweek at all hazards. Winning back to the technical school, he plungedonce more into the examination whirlpool, doing his best to forgetChiawassee Consolidated and its mortal sickness for the time being, andsucceeding so well that he passed with colors flying. 

But the school task done, he turned down the old leaf, pasting it firmlyin place. Telegraphing his father to meet him, on the morning of thethird day following, at the station in South Tredegar, he allowedhimself a few hours for a run up the North Shore and a conference withthe Michigan iron king; after which he turned his face southward and wassoon speeding to the battle-field through a land by this time shaking toits industrial foundations in the throes of the panic earthquake. 

XIX

ISSACHAR

In accordance with Tom's telegram, Caleb Gordon met his son at thestation in South Tredegar, and they went together to breakfast in one ofthe dining-rooms of the Marlboro. Tom's heart burned within him when hesaw how the late stress of things had aged his father, and for the firsttime in his life he opened a vengeance account: if the Farleys ever cameback there should be reckoning for more than the looting of ChiawasseeConsolidated. But this was only the primitive under-thought. Uppermostat the moment was the joy of the young soldier arrived, fit andvigorous, on his maiden battle-field. 

"You don't know how good it seems to get back home again, pappy, " hesaid, over the bacon and eggs. "I've been grinding pretty hard thisyear, and now it's over, I feel as if I could whip my weight inwildcats, as Japheth used to say. By the way, how is Japheth?"

Caleb Gordon smiled in spite of the corroding industrial anxieties. 

"Japheth's going to surprise you some, I reckon, son; he's gone and gotreligion. "

Tom put down his knife and fork. 

"Why, the old sinner!" he laughed. "How did that happen?"

"Oh, just about the way it always does, " said Caleb slowly. "The spiritmoved your Uncle Silas to come out to Little Zoar and hold a protractedmeetin', and Japhe joined the mourners and was gathered into the fold. "

"Pshaw!" said Tom, in good-natured incredulity. "Why, the very meat andmarrow of his existence is his horse-trading; and who could swap horsesand tell the truth at the same time?"

"I don't know, " was the doubtful reply. "But Brother Japheth allowsthat's about what he aims to do. It's sort o' curious the way it worksout, too. About a week after the baptizin', Jim Bledsoe came down fromPine Knob with a horse to swap. 'Long about sundown he met up withJaphe, and struck him for a trade on a piebald that the Major wouldn'tlet run in the same lot with the Deer Trace stock. They had it up oneside and down the other; Brother Japhe tryin' to tell Bledsoe that hispiebald was about the no-accountest horse in the valley, and Jim takin'it all by contraries and gettin' more and more p'intedly anxious totrade. "

"Well?" said Tom, enjoying his return to nature like any creature freedof the urban cage. 

"They came to the trade, after a tolerable spell of it, " Caleb went on, "and the last thing I heard Japhe say was, 'now you recollect, BrotherBledsoe, I done told you that there piebald's no account on the face ofthe earth--a-lovin' of my neighbor like I promise' Brother Silas Iwould. '"

Tom laughed again. There was the smell of the good red soil in thelittle story, a whiff of the home earth reminiscent and heartening. Butthe under-thought laid hold on Japheth and his change of heart. 

"Japhe was about the last man in Paradise, always excepting MajorDabney, " he said half-musingly. "Haven't you often wondered what sort ofa maggot it is that gets into the human brain to give it thesuperstitious twist?"

Caleb's gentle frown was the upcast of paternal bewilderment, partlyprideful, partly disconcerting. He was not yet fully acquainted withthis young giant with the frank face, the sober gray eyes, and theconscious grasp of himself. More than once since their meeting at thesteps of the Pullman car he had felt obliged to reassure himself bysaying, "This is Tom; this is my son. " There were so many and suchmarked changes: the quick, curt speech, caught in the Northland; thenervous, sure-footed stride, and the athletic swing of the shoulders;the easy manner and confident air, not of college-boy conceit, but ofthe assurance of young manhood; and, lastly, this blunt right-about-facein matters of religion. Caleb was not quite sure that this latter changewas entirely welcome. 

"Whereabouts did ye learn to call it superstition, son? Not at yourmammy's knee, leastwise, " he said, in sober deprecation. 

Tom shook his head. "No; and not altogether at yours. But I guess I'veworked around to your point of view, after so long a time. "

"It's your mammy's faith, all the same, Buddy, " said the father gravely. "Let's not belittle it any more'n we can help. "

"I don't belittle it, " was the quick response. "In some of its phases itis grand--magnificent. We can't always be prying into the cause; theeffect is what counts. And there is no denying that the fairy talewhich we call Christianity has built some of the most godlike heroes theworld has ever seen. "

"You're right sure now that it is a fairy story, son?" said the old man, a little wistfully. 

"There is no doubt about that, " was the decisive rejoinder. "There isroom for credulity only in ignorance. Any thinking person who is broughtface to face with the materialistic facts--"

Caleb held up a toil-hardened hand. 

"Hold on, Buddy; you'll have to pick a place where the water deepenssort o' gradually for the old man or you'll have him flounderin'. Ireckon I been sittin' up on the bank all my life, waitin' for somebodyto come along and pole the bottom for me in that pool. "

"No, " said Tom definitively. "There isn't any bank to that pool. You'rein it, or you are out of it; one or the other. That was the notion Itook with me to Boston. I thought I'd get well up above the eternalwrangle and look down on it--wouldn't believe, wouldn't disbelieve. Itcan't be done. Jesus, Himself, said, if they've reported Him straight, 'He that is not with me is against me. '"

"Well, " said the father, still deprecating, "that's some farther alongthan I've ever been able to get--not sayin' that I wouldn't be willin'to go. " And then: "You don't allow to argue with your mammy about thesethings, do you, Tom?"

Tom's rejoinder was gravely considerate. 

"It is a sealed book between us, now, pappy. She knows--and knows itcan't be helped. If I wasn't her son, I hope I should still be the lastperson in the world to try to shake her faith--or any one's, for thatmatter. I have merely turned my own back--because I had to. "

The old man put down his coffee-cup and the look in his eyes washalf-appealing. 

"What was it turned you, son?--nothing I've ever said or done, I hope?"

Tom shook his big blond head slowly. 

"No, not directly; though I suppose a man does go back to his father fora measuring-stick. But indirectly you, and the other Gordons, areresponsible for the best there is in me--and that's the questioningpart. Given the doubt, I hunted till I found the man who could resolveor confirm it. "

"Who was he?" inquired Caleb, willing to hear more particularly. 

"His name is Bauer--the man I've been rooming with. He is a Germanbiologist who was to have been educated for the Lutheran ministry. Hispeople made the capital mistake of sending him to Freiburg for a coupleof years as a preliminary, and, when they found out what the Germanuniversity had done for him, they sent him to Boston, under theimpression that the Puritan American city might correct some of hismaterialism. "

Caleb smiled. "That ain't just the way we think of Boston over here, " heremarked. 

"No; and, of course, Bauer didn't change his point of view. We used tohave it up hill and down. I had Scripture--mother and the Beershebanshad taught me that--and Bauer had immense reading, flinty Dutch commonsense, and a huge lack of the reverence for the so-called sacredsubjects which seems to be ingrained in every race but the Teutonic. Ifought hard, both for mother's sake and because it was the first time Ihad ever met a man with his sword out on the other side. "

"Well?" said Caleb. 

"He downed me, horse, foot and artillery; made me realize as I never hadbefore what an absolute begging of the premises the entire Christianargument is. "

"But how?" persisted the iron-master. 

"Held me up at the muzzle of the cold facts. For example: do you happento know that the oldest Bible manuscripts in existence go back only tothe fourth century, and are doubtless copies of copies of copies?"

The father had pushed back his chair and was trying to fold his napkinin the original creases. 

"No; there's a heap o' things I don't know, son, but I'm willin' tolearn. One o' these days, if we ever get out o' this business tanglealive, we'll sit down quiet together and you'll do for me what thisDutchman has done for you. For, in spite of what you say, I've beensittin' on the fence all these years, and I reckon you're the one tohelp me down. "

Tom smiled first at the thought of it and then grew suddenly sober. Itis one thing to be serenely critical for oneself, and quite another toset the pace for a disciple. And when that disciple chances to be one'sfather?

"I don't know about that, pappy, " he said, rather dubiously. "I'd liketo have you meet some of the people on my side of the road first. Maybeyou wouldn't like the company. "

But Caleb would not have it so. "If they're good enough for you, son, they're good enough for me, " he said. "Not but what there's some mightygood folks trampin' along on the other side, too. "

"Yes, and some mighty bad ones, " said Tom, thinking of the promotervestryman of St. Michael's and his Bible-class-teaching son. "We aregoing right now to investigate the financiering methods of a pair ofthem. Is Dyckman still on duty? Or are the offices closed?"

"Dyckman's there, " was the answer; and they left the breakfast-roomtogether to go around the block and have themselves lifted to the fifthfloor of the Coosa Building, where half a dozen gilt-lettered glassdoors advertised the administrative headquarters of ChiawasseeConsolidated. 

If Caleb Gordon had been mildly bewildered by the outward and instantlyvisible changes in his college-bred son, he was quite lost in wonderingadmiration when the young man had climbed fairly into the businesssaddle and gathered his grip on the reins. Notwithstanding the fact ofhis stock-holding, Caleb the iron-master had always stood a little inawe of the general office grandeurs; of chief priest Dyckman inparticular. But Tom seemed to recognize no distinctions of class, age, or previous condition of overlordship. Dyckman was found busily loungingin the absent president's easy-chair, smoking a good cigar and readingthe morning papers. At the outset he was inclined to be geniallysupercilious, thus:

"Ah, good morning, Mr. Gordon! Hello, Tom! Back from college, are you?The books and papers? They are over in the vaults of the Iron CityNational--by Mr. Farley's orders. I suppose he thought they'd be saferthere in case of fire. Won't you sit down and have a fresh cigar?"

What Tom said, or the precise wording of it, Caleb could never remember. But the staccato sentence or two had the effect of instantlyelectrifying Mr. Dyckman. Certainly; whatever Mr. Thomas desired shouldbe done. He--Dyckman--had had no notice of the change in the plans ofthe company, and Mr. Farley's instructions--

Tom cut the oath of fealty short and stated his desires succinctly. Thebookkeeper was to reassemble his office force immediately, takingparticular care to reinstate Norman, the correspondence man. That done, he was to prepare full and complete exhibits of the company's condition:assets, liabilities, contracts, in short, the results in statement formof a thorough and searching house-cleaning in the accounting andadministrative departments. 

"I am going to put you on your good behavior, Dyckman, " said the newtyrant in conclusion, driving the words home with a shrewd sword-thrustof the gray eyes. "At first I thought I'd bring an expert accountantdown here from New York and put him on your books; but I'm going tospare you that--on one condition. Those exhibits must be made absolutelywithout fear or favor; they must contain the exact truth and all of it. If you tinker them, you'll not be able to run fast enough nor far enoughto get away from me. Do I make it plain?"

"Very plain, indeed, Mr. Tom; the office boy would catch your meaning, Ithink. "

"All right, then; gather up your force and pitch in. I haven't time towatch you, and I don't mean to take it. But I shall know it when youbegin to flicker. "

When the two early morning disturbers of Mr. Dyckman's peace were oncemore in the street and on the way to the station to take the train forGordonia and the seat of war, Caleb found speech. 

"Son, " he said gravely, "do you know that you've made a mighty bitterenemy in the last fifteen minutes? Dyckman is Farley's confidential man, and when he gets his knife ground good and sharp he's goin' to cut youwith it, once for himself and once for his boss. "

Tom's laugh was an easing of strains. 

"It does me a heap of good to know that I can crack the whip where you'dbe putting on the brakes, pappy; it does, for a fact. But you needn'tworry about Dyckman. He won't quarrel with his bread and butter. I don'tcare anything about his personal loyalty so long as he does his work. "

Again Caleb had to withdraw a little and look his stalwart young captainover and say: "It is Tom; it's just Buddy, grown up and come to be aman. " But it was hard to realize. 

"I reckon you've got it all figured out--what-all we're goin' to do, Tom, " he said, when they were seated in the car of the accommodationtrain. 

"Yes, I think I have; at least, I have the beginning struck out. We aregoing to call a stock-holders' meeting, vote you into the presidency, take the bull squarely by the horns and blow in the Chiawassee furnaceagain--dig coal, roast coke and make iron. "

"But, son! at the present price of iron, we can't make any money;couldn't clear a dollar a car if the buyers would push their cars rightinto our yard. And there ain't any buyers. "

Tom was looking out of the window at the procession of smokeless factorychimneys. The blight had already fallen on the South Tredegarindustries. 

"It's going to be a battle to the strong, to the fellow who can wait, and work while he waits, " he said, half to himself. Then, moreparticularly to his father's protest: "I know, we are in pretty badshape. When we get those exhibits we shall find that the Farleys havepicked the bones, leaving them for us to bury decently out of sight. Then, when the funeral is over, they'll come back and charge it all tothe Gordon mismanagement. It's a cinch, isn't it?"

The old iron-master was silent for the train-speed's measuring of a longmile. Then he said slowly:

"I don't aim to go back on you, Buddy; not a foot 'r an inch. But itdoes seem to me like you put your finger in the fire when you hilt upDuxbury Farley for that proxy paper in New York. If we go under--and thegood Lord only knows how we can he'p it--they'll come out of it withclean clothes, and we'll have to take all the mud-slingin', just as yousay. "

Tom's smile would have stamped him as the son of the grim oldex-artilleryman in any court of inquiry. 

"Did your old general ever go into battle with the idea that he wasbound to be licked, pappy?" he asked. 

"Who? Stonewall Jackson? Well, I reckon not, son. "

"Neither shall we, " said Tom laconically. "We are going in to win. Weare in bad shape, I admit, but we are better off than a lot of thesefurnaces that are shutting down. We have our own ore beds, and our owncoking plant. Our coal costs us seventy-five cents less than Pocahontas, our water is free, and we can hold the property as long as we can standthe sheriff off. My notion is to make iron and hold it; stack it in theyards, mortgage it for what we can get, and make more iron. Some day thecountry will get iron hungry; then we'll have it to sell when the otherfellows will have to make it first and sell it afterward. Have I got itstraight?"

Caleb nodded. 

"Yes; I don't know but what you have. What's puzzlin' me right now, son, is _where_ you got it. "

Tom's laugh was a tonic for sore nerves. 

"I'd like to know what you've been spending your good money on me for ifit wasn't to give me a chance to get it. Do you think I've been playingfoot-ball all the time?"

"No; but--well, Tom, the last I knew of you, you was just a littleshaver, spattin' around barefooted in the dust o' the Paradise pike, andI can't seem to climb up to where you're at now. "

Tom laughed again. 

"You'll come to it, after while. I reckon I haven't much more sense, insome ways, than the little shaver had; but I've been trying my levelbest to learn my trade. There is only one thing about this tangle thatis worrying me: that's the labor end of it. "

"We can get all the labor we want, " said Caleb. 

"Yes; but didn't you write me that the men were on strike?"

"I said the white miners were likely to make trouble if they got hungryenough. "

"Was there any pay in arrears when you shut down?"

"No. Farley wanted to scale the men, but I fought him out o' that. "

"Good! Then what are they kicking about?"

"Oh, because they're out of a job. There are always a lot of keen nosesin a crowd the size of ours, and they've smelled out some o' the Farleydoin's. Of course, they don't believe in the cry of hard times; laborin'men are always the last to believe that. "

The train was tracking thunderously around the nose of Lebanon, and Tomwas looking out of the window again, this time for the first glimpse ofthe Gordonia chimney-stacks and the bounding hills of the home valley. 

"That is where you will have to put your shoulder into the collar withme, pappy, " he said. "Most of the older men know me as a boy who hasgrown up among them. When I spring my proposition, they'll howl, if onlyfor that reason. "

But now Caleb was shaking his gray head more dubiously than ever. 

"You won't get any help from the men, Buddy, more 'n what you pay for. You know the whites--Welshmen, Cornishmen, and a good sprinklin' o''huckleberries. ' And the blacks don't count, one way or the other. "

The engineer of the accommodation had whistled for Gordonia, and Tom wasgathering his dunnage. 

"Our scramble is going to depend very largely on the outcome of themeeting which I'm going to ask you to call for say, two o'clock thisafternoon on the floor of the foundry building, " he said. "Will you stayin town and get the men together, while I go home and see mother andshape up my talk?"

Caleb Gordon acquiesced, glad of a chance to have somewhat to do. Andso, in the very beginning of things, it was the son and not the fatherwho took the helm of the tempest-driven ship. 

XX

DRY WELLS

As early as one o'clock in the afternoon, the elder Helgerson, acting asday watchman at the iron-works, had opened the great yard gates, and themen began to gather by twos and threes and in little caucusing knots onthe sand floor of the huge, iron-roofed foundry building. Some of themore heedful set to work making seats of the wooden flask frames andbottom boards; and in the pouring space fronting one of the cupolas theybuilt a rough-and-ready platform out of the same materials. 

As the numbers increased the men fell into groups, dividing first on thecolor-line, and then by trades, with the white miners in the majorityand doing most of the talking. 

"What's all this buzzin' round about young Tom?" queried one of the menin the miners' caucus. "Might' nigh every other word with old Caleb was, 'Tom; my son, Tom. ' Why, I riccollect him when he wasn't no more'nknee-high to a hop-toad!"

"Well, you bet your life he's a heap higher'n that now, " said another, who had chanced to be at the station when the Gordons, father and son, left the train together. "He's a half a head taller than the old man, an' built like one o' Maje' Dabney's thoroughbreds. But I reckon heain't nothin' but a school-boy, for all o' that. "

"Gar-r-r!" spat a third. "We've had one kid too many in this outfit, allalong. I'll bet, if the truth was knowed, th't that young Farley'd skina louse for the hide and tallow. "

"Yes, " chimed in a fourth, a "huckleberry" miner from the Bald Mountaindistrict, "and I reckon whar thar's sich a hell of a smoke, thar's aright smart heap o' fire, ef it could on'y be onkivered. "

But all of this was in a manner beside the mark, and there were many toinquire what the Gordons were going to do. Ludlow, check weigher inNumber Two entry, and the head of the local union, took it on himself toreply. 

"B'gosh! I don't b'lieve the old man knows, himself. He fit around andfit around, talkin' to me, and never said nothin' more'n that there wasgoin' to be a meetin' here at two o'clock, and Tom--his son Tom--wasgoin' to speak to it. "

"All right; we're a-waitin' on son Tom right now, " said a grizzled oldcoal-digger on the outer edge of the group. "And ef he's got anything tosay, he cayn't say hit none too sudden. My ol' woman told me thismornin' she was a-hittin' the bottom o' the meal bar'l, kerchuck! ever'time she was dippin' into hit. Hit's erbout time there was somepindoin', ez I allow. "

"Saw it off!" warned Ludlow. "Here they come, both of 'em. "

Tom and his father had entered the building from the cupola side, andTom mounted the flask-built platform while the men were scattering tofind seats. He made a goodly figure of young manhood, standing at easeon the pile of frames until quiet should prevail, and the glances flungup from the throng of workmen were friendly rather than critical. Whenthe time came, he began to speak quietly, but with a certain masterfulquality in his voice that unmistakably constrained attention. 

"I suppose you have all been told why the works are shut down--why youare out of a job in the middle of summer; and I understand you are notfully satisfied with the reason that was given--hard times. You havebeen saying among yourselves that if the president and the treasurercould go off on a holiday trip to Europe, the situation couldn't be sovery desperate. Isn't that so?"

"That's so; you've hit it in the head first crack out o' the box, " wasthe swift reply from a score of the men. 

"Good; then we'll settle that point before we go any further. I want totell you men that the hard times are here, sure enough. We are allhoping that they won't last very long; but the fact remains that thewheels have stopped. Let me tell you: I've just come down from theNorth, and the streets of the cities up there are full of idle men. Allthe way down here I didn't see a single iron-furnace in blast, and thoseof you who have been over to South Tredegar know what the conditions arethere. Mr. Farley has gone to Europe because he believes there isnothing to be done here, and the facts are on his side. For anybody withmoney enough to live on, this is a mighty good time to take a vacation. "

There was a murmur of protest, voicing itself generally in a denial ofthe possibility for men who wrought with their hands and ate in thesweat of their brows. 

"I know that, " was Tom's rejoinder. "Some of us can't afford to take alay-off; I can't, for one. And that's why we are here this afternoon. Chiawassee can blow in again and stay in blast if we've all got nerveenough to hang on. If we start up and go on making pig, it'll be on adead market and we'll have to sell it at a loss or stack it in theyards. We can't do the first, and I needn't tell you that it is going totake a mighty long purse to do the stacking. It will be all outgo and noincome. If--"

"Spit it out, " called Ludlow, from the forefront of the miners'division. "I reckon we all know what's comin'. "

Gordon thrust out his square jaw and gave them the fact bluntly. 

"It's a case of half a loaf or no bread. If Chiawassee blows in again, it will be on borrowed money. If you men will take half-pay in cash andhalf in promises, the promised half to be paid when we can sell thestacked pig, we go on. If not, we don't. Talk it over among yourselvesand let us have your decision. "

There was hot caucusing and a fair imitation of pandemonium on thefoundry floor following this bomb-hurling, and Tom sat down on the edgeof the platform to give the men time. Caleb Gordon sat within arm'sreach, nursing his knee, diligently saying nothing. It was Tom, undoubtedly, but a Tom who had become a citizen of another world, anewer world than the one the ex-artilleryman knew and lived in. He--Caleb--had freely predicted a riot as the result of the half-payproposal; yet Tom had applied the match and there was no explosion. Thebuzzing, arguing groups were not riotous--only fiercely questioning. 

It was Ludlow, hammering clamorously for silence on the shell of the bigcrane ladle, who acted as spokesman when the uproar was quelled. 

"You're all right, Tom Gordon--you and your daddy. But you've hit usplum' 'twixt dinner and supper. If you two was the company--"

Tom stood up and interrupted. 

"We are the company. While Mr. Farley is away we're the bosses; what wesay, goes. "

"All right, " Ludlow went on. "That's a little better. But we've got akick or two comin'. Is this half-pay goin' to be in orders on thecompany's store?"

"I said cash, " said Tom briefly. 

"Good enough. But I s'pose we'd have to spend it at the company's store, jest the same, 'r get fired. "

"No!"--emphatically. "I'm not even sure that we should reopen the store. We shall not reopen it unless you men want it. If you do want it, we'llmake it strictly coöperative, dividing the profits with every employeeaccording to his purchases. "

"Well, by gol, that's white, anyway, " commented one of the coke burners. "Be a mighty col' day in July when old man Farley'd talk as straight asthat. "

"Ag'in, " said Ludlow, "what's this half-pay to be figured on--thereg'lar scale?"

"Of course. "

"And what security do we have that t'other half 'll be paid, some time?"

"My father's word, and mine. "

"And if old man Farley says no?"

"Mr. Farley is out of it for the present, and he has nothing to sayabout it. You are making this deal with Gordon and Gordon. "

"Well, now, that's a heap more like it. " Ludlow turned to the miners. "What d'ye say, boys? Fish or cut bait? Hands up!"

There was a good showing of hands among the white miners and the cokeburners, but the negro foundry men did not vote. Patty, the mulattoforeman who was Helgerson's second, explained the reason. 

"You ain't said nuttin' 'bout de foundry, Boss Tom. W-w-w-w-we-all boysbeen wukkin' short ti-ti-time, and m-m-m-makin' pig ain't gwine givewe-all n-n-nuttin' ter do. " Patty had a painful impediment in hisspeech, and the strain of the public occasion doubled it. 

"We are going to run the foundry, too, Patty, and on full time. Therewill be work for all of you on the terms I have named. "

Caleb Gordon closed his eyes and put his face in his hands. For weeksbefore the shut-down the foundry had been run on short time, becausethere was no market for its miscellaneous output. Surely Tom must belosing his mind!

But the negro foundry men were taking his word for it, as the minershad. "Pup-pup-put up yo' hands, boys!" said Patty, and again the ayeshad it. 

Tom looked vastly relieved. 

"Well, that was a short horse soon curried, " he said bruskly. "The powergoes on to-morrow morning, and we'll blow in as soon as the furnaces arerelined. Ludlow, you come to the office at five o'clock and I'll listthe shifts with you. Patty, you report to Mr. Helgerson, and you and thepattern-maker show up at half-past five. I want to talk over some newwork with you. Anybody else got anything to say? If not, we'll adjourn. "

Caleb followed his son out and across the yard to the old log homesteadwhich still served as the superintendent's office and laboratory. Whenthe door was shut, he dropped heavily into a chair. 

"Son, " he said brokenly, "you're--you're crazy--plum' crazy. Don't youknow you can't do the first one o' these things you've been promisin'?"

Tom was already busy at the desk, emptying the pigeonholes one afteranother and rapidly scanning their contents. 

"If I believed that, I'd be taking to the high grass and the talltimber. But don't you worry, pappy; we're going to do them--all ofthem. "

"But, Buddy, you can't sell a pound of foundry product! We may be ableto make pig cheaper than some others, but when it comes to the foundryfloor, South Tredegar can choke us off in less'n a week. "

"Wait, " said Tom, still rummaging. "There is one thing we can make--andsell. "

"I'd like tolerable well to know what it is, " was the hopelessrejoinder. 

"You ought to know, better than any one else. It's cast-ironpipe--water-pipe. Where are the plans of that invention of yours thatFarley wouldn't let you install?"

Caleb found the blue-prints, and his hands were trembling. Theinvention, a pit machine process for molding and casting water-andgas-pipe at a cost that would put all other makers of the commodity outof the field, had been wrought out and perfected in Tom's second Bostonyear. It was Caleb's one ewe lamb, and he had nursed it by hand througha long preparatory period. 

Tom took the blue-prints and spread them on the desk, absorbing thedetails as his father leaned over him and pointed them out. He sawclearly that the invention would revolutionize pipe-making. The acceptedmethod was to cast each piece separately in a floor flask made in twoparts, rammed by hand, once for the drag and again for the cope, withreversings, crane-handlings and all the manipulations necessary for themolding of any heavy casting. But the new process substituted machinery. A cistern-like pit; a circular table pivoted over it, with a hundred ormore iron flasks suspended upright from its edges; a huge crane carryinga mechanical ram, these were the main points of the machine which, witha single small gang of men, would do the work of an entire foundryfloor. 

"It's great!" said Tom enthusiastically. "I got your idea pretty wellfrom your letters, but you've improved on it since then. I wonder Farleydidn't snap at it. "

"He was willin' to, " said Caleb grimly. "Only he wanted me to transferthe patents to the company; in other words, to make him a present of thecontrolling interest. I bucked at that, and we come near havin' afall-out. If there was any market for pipe now--"

"There is a market, " said Tom hopefully. "I got a pointer on that beforeI left Boston. Did I tell you I had a little talk with Mr. Clarkson theday I came away?"

"No. "

"Well, I did. I told him the conditions and asked his advice. Amongother things, I spoke of this pipe pit of yours, and he said at once, 'There is your chance. Cast-iron water-pipe is like bread, or sugar, orbutcher's meat--it's a necessity, in good times or bad. If that machineis practicable, you can make pipe for less than half the present laborcost. ' Then we talked ways and means. Money is tighter than a shutfist--up East as well as everywhere else. But men with money to investwill still bet on a sure thing. Mr. Clarkson advised me to try our ownbanks first. Failing with them, he authorized me to call on him. Now youknow where I'm digging my sand. "

The old iron-master sat back in his chair with his hands locked over oneknee, once more taking the measure of this new creation calling itselfTom Gordon and purporting to be his son. 

"Say, Buddy, " he said at length, "are there many more like you outyonder in the big road?--young fellows that can walk right out o' schooland tell their daddies how to run things?"

Tom's laugh was boyishly hearty. 

"Plenty of 'em, pappy; lots of 'em! The old world is moving right along;it would be a pity if it didn't, don't you think? But about this pipebusiness: I want you to make over these patents to me. "

"They're yours now, Tom; everything I've got will be yours in a littlewhile, " said the father; but his voice betrayed the depth of thatthrust. Was the new Tom beginning so soon to grasp and reach outavariciously for the fruit of the old tree?

"You ought to know I don't mean it that way, " said Tom, frowning alittle. "But here is the way it sizes up. There is money in thispipe-making; some money now, and big money later on. Farley has refusedto go into it unless you make it a company proposition; as president anda controlling stock-holder you can't very well go into it now withoutmaking it in some sort a company proposition. But you can transfer thepatents to me, and I can contract with Chiawassee Consolidated to makepipe for me. "

Caleb Gordon's frown matched that of his son. 

"That would certainly be givin' Colonel Duxbury a dose of his ownmedicine; but I don't like it, Tom. It looks as if we were takingadvantage of him. "

"No. I'd make the proposition to him, personally, if he were here, andthe boss; and he'd be a fool if he didn't jump at it, " said Tomearnestly. "But there is more to it than that. If we make a go of this, and don't protect ourselves, the two Farleys will come back and put thewhole thing in their pockets. I won't go into it on any such terms. Whenthey do come back, I'm going to have money to fight them with, and thisis our one little ghost of a chance. Ring up Judge Bates and get him tocome over here and make a legal transfer of these patents to me. "

The thing was done, though not without some misgivings on Caleb's part. Honesty and fair dealing, even with a known enemy, had been the rule ofhis life; and while he could not put his finger on the equivocal thingin Tom's plan, he was vaguely troubled. Analyzed after the fact, thetrouble was vicarious, and for Tom. It defined itself more clearly whenthey went together to South Tredegar to have an attorney draw up theagreement under which Tom's pipe venture was to be conducted. Tom, asthe owner of the patents, was fair with the Chiawassee Consolidated, buthe was not liberal; indeed, he would have been quite illiberal if theattorney had not warned him that an agreement, to be defensible, must beequitable as well as legal. 

At this stage in the journey Tom could not have accounted for himself inthe ethical field. Something, a thing intangible, had gone out of him. He could not tell what it was; but he missed it. The kindly Gordonnature was intact, or he hoped it was, but the neighbor-love, which washis father's rule of life, seemed not to have come down to him in itslargeness. Ruth for the Farleys was not to be expected of him, heargued; but behind this was a vaster ruthlessness, arming him to win theindustrial battle, making him a hard man as he had suddenly become astrong one. 

And the experiences of the summer were all hardening. He plungedheadlong into the world of business, into a panic-time competition whichwas in grim reality a fight for life, and there seemed to be little tochoose between trampling or being trampled. By early autumn the ironindustries of the country were gasping, and the stacks of pig in theChiawassee yards, kept down a little during the summer by a few meagerorders, grew and spread until they covered acres. As long as money couldbe had, the iron was bonded as fast as it was made, and the proceedswere turned into wages to make more. But when money was no longerobtainable from this source, the pipe venture was the only hope. 

With the entire foundry force at the Chiawassee making pipe, Tom hadgone early into the market with his low-priced product. But thecommercial side of the struggle was fire-new to him, and he foundhimself matched against men who knew buying and selling as he knewsmelting and casting. They routed him, easily at first, with increasingdifficulty as he learned the new trade, but always with certainty. Itwas Norman, the correspondence man, transformed now into a sales agent, who gave him his first hint of the inwardnesses. 

"We're too straight, Mr. Gordon; that's at the bottom of it, " he said toTom, over a grill-room luncheon at the Marlboro one day. "It takes moneyto make money. "

Tom's eyebrows went up and his ears were open. The battle had growndesperate. 

"Our prices are right, " he said. "Isn't that enough?"

"No, " said Norman, looking down. Like all the others, he stood a littlein awe of the young boss. 

"Why?"

"Four times out of five we have to sell to a municipal committee, andthe other time we have to monkey with the purchasing agent of acorporation. In either case it takes money--other money besides thedifference in price. "

Tom wagged his head in a slow affirmative. "It's rotten!" he said. 

Norman smiled. 

"It's our privilege to cuss it out; but it's a condition. "

Tom was in town that day for the purpose of taking a train toLouisville, where he was to meet the officials of an Indiana cityforced, despite the hard times, to relay many miles of worn-outwater-mains. He made a pencil computation on the back of an envelope. The contract was a large one, and his bid, which he was confident waslower than any competitor could make, would still stand a cut and leavea margin of profit. Before he took the train he went to the bank, and, when he reached the Kentucky metropolis, his first care was to assurethe "wheel-horse" member of the municipal purchasing board that he wasready to talk business on a modern business basis. 

Notwithstanding, he lost the contract. Other people were growingdesperate, too, it appeared, and his bribe was not great enough. Onemember of the committee stood by him and gave him the facts. A check hadbeen passed, and it was a bigger check than Tom could draw withouttrenching on the balance left in the Iron City National to meet themonth's pay-roll at Gordonia. 

"You sent a boy to mill, " said the loyal one. "And now it's all over, Idon't mind telling you that you sent him to the wrong mill, at that. Bullinger's a hog. "

"I'd like to do him up, " said Tom vindictively. 

"Well, that might be done, too. But it would cost you something. "

Tom did not take the hint; he was not buying vengeance. But on the wayhome he grew bitterer with every subtracted mile. He could meet one morepay-day, and possibly another; and then the end would come. This onecontract would have saved the day, and it was lost. 

The homing train, rushing around the boundary hills of Paradise, set himdown at Gordonia late in the afternoon. There was no one at the stationto meet him, but there was bad news in the air which needed no heraldto proclaim it. Though it still wanted half an hour of quitting time, the big plant was silent and deserted. 

Tom walked out the pike and found his father smoking gloomily on theWoodlawn porch. 

"You needn't say it, son, " was his low greeting, when Tom had flunghimself into a chair. "It was in the South Tredegar papers thismorning. "

"What was in the papers?"

"About our losin' the Indiany contract. I reckon it was what did thebusiness for us, though there were a-plenty of black looks and a stormbrewin' when we missed the pay-day yesterday. "

Tom started as if he had been stung. 

"Missed the pay-day? Why, I left money in bank for it when I went toLouisville!"

"Yes, I know you did. When Dyckman didn't come out with the pay-rollsyesterday evening I telephoned him. He said Vint Farley, as treasurer ofthe company, had made a draft on him and taken it all. "

Tom sprang out of his chair and the bitter oaths upbubbled and chokedhim. But he stifled them long enough to say: "And the men?"

"The miners went out at ten o'clock this morning. The blacks would havestood by us, but Ludlow's men drove 'em out--made 'em quit. We're done, Buddy. "

Tom dashed his hat on the floor, and the Gordon rage, slow to fire andfierce to scorch and burn when once it was aflame, made for the moment ayelling, cursing maniac of him. In the midst of it he turned, and thetempest of imprecation spent itself in a gasp of dismay. His mother wasstanding in the doorway, thin, frail, with the sorrow in her eyes thathad been there since the long night of chastenings three years agone. 

As he looked he saw the growing pallor in her face, the growingspeechless horror in her gaze. Then she put out her hands as one gropingin darkness and fell before he could reach her. 

It was her stalwart son who carried Martha Gordon to her room and laidher gently on the bed, with the husband to follow helplessly behind. Also, it was Tom, tender and loving now as a woman, who sat upon theedge of the bed, chafing the bloodless hands and striving as he could torevive her. 

"I'm afeard you've killed her for sure, this time, son!" groaned theman. 

But Tom saw the pale lips move and bent low to catch their whisperings. What he heard was only the echo of the despairing cry of the brokenheart: "_Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son_!"

XXI

GILGAL

In these days of slowing wheels and silenced anvils South Tredegar hadits own troubles, and when some one telephoned the editor of the_Morning Tribune_ that Chiawassee Consolidated had succumbed at last, hedid not deem it worth while to inquire whether the strike at Gordoniawas the cause or the consequence of the sudden shut-down. 

But a day or two later, when rumors of threatened violence began totrickle in over the telephone wires, a _Tribune_ man called, in passing, at the general offices in the Coosa Building, and was promptly put tosleep by the astute Dyckman, who, for reasons of his own, was quitewilling to conceal the true state of affairs. Yes, there was asuspension of active operations at Gordonia, and he believed there hadbeen some hot-headed talk among the miners. But there would be notrouble. Mr. Farley was at present in London negotiating for Englishcapital. When he should return, the capital stock of the company wouldbe increased, and the plant would probably be removed to South Tredegarand enlarged. 

All of which was duly jotted down to be passed into the _Tribune's_archives; and the following morning Tom, doing guard duty with hisfather, the two Helgersons and a squad of the yard men at the threatenedplant, read a pointless editorial in which misstatement of fact andsympathy for the absent and struggling Farleys were equally andimpartially blended. 

"Look at that!" he growled wrathfully, handing the paper across theoffice desk to Caleb. "One of these fine days I'm going to land thatfellow Dyckman in the penitentiary. "

The iron-master put on his spectacles and plodded slowly andconscientiously through the editorial, turning the paper, at length, toglance over the headings on the telegraphic page. In the middle of it helooked up suddenly to say:

"Son, what was the name o' that Indiany town with the big water-pipecontract?"

Tom gave it in a word, and Caleb passed the paper back, with his thumbon one of the press despatches. 

"Read that, " he said. 

Tom read, and the wrathful scowl evoked by the foolish editorial gaveplace to a flitting smile of triumph. There was trouble in the Indianacity over the awarding of the pipe contract. In some way unknown to thepress reporter, it had leaked out that a much lower bid than the oneaccepted had been ignored by the purchasing committee. A municipalelection was pending, and the people were up in arms. Rumors of awholesale indictment of the suspected officials were rife, and the cityoffices were in a state of siege. 

Tom put the paper down and smote on the desk. 

"Damn them!" he said; "I thought perhaps I could give them a run fortheir money. "

"You?" said Caleb, removing his glasses. "How's that?"

The new recruit in the army of business chicane nodded his head. 

"It was a shot in the dark, and I didn't want to brag beforehand, " heexplained. "I wrestled it out Saturday night when I was tramping thehills after Doc Williams had brought mother around. One member of thepurchasing committee was ready to dodge; he gave me a pointer before Ileft Louisville. I didn't see anything in it then but revenge; butafterward I saw how we might spend some money to a possible advantage. "

Caleb's eyes had grown narrow. 

"I reckon I'm sort o' dull, Buddy; what-all did you do?"

"Wired the disgruntled one that there was a letter and a check in themail for him, to be followed by another and a bigger if his pole provedlong enough to reach the persimmons. "

The old iron-master left his chair and began to walk the floor, sixsteps and a turn. After a little he said:

"Tom, is that business?"

"It is the modern definition of it. "

"What's goin' to happen up yonder in Indiany?"

"If I knew, I'd be a good bit easier in my mind. What I'm hoping is thatthe rumpus will be big enough to make 'em turn the contract our way. "

Caleb stopped short. 

"My God!" he ejaculated. "Where's your heart, Buddy? Would you take thechance of sendin' these fellows to jail for the sake of gettin' thatcontract?"

"Cheerfully, " said Tom. "They're rascals; I could have bought them ifI'd had money enough; and the other fellow did buy them. "

The old man resumed his monotonous tramp up and down the room. Thehardness in Tom's voice unnerved him. After another interval of silencehe spoke again. 

"I wish you hadn't done it, son. It's a dirty job, any way you look atit. "

Tom shrugged. 

"Norman says it's a condition, not a theory; and he is right. We areliving under a new order of things, and if we want to stay alive, we'vegot to conform to it. It gagged me at first: I reckon there are sometraces of the Christian tradition left. But, pappy, I'm going to win. That is what I'm here for. "

Caleb Gordon shook his head as one who deprecates helplessly, but he satdown again and asked Tom what the programme was to be. 

"There is nothing for us to do but to sit tight and wait. If we get atelegram from Indiana before these idiots of ours lose their heads andgo to rioting and burning, we shall still have a fighting chance. Ifnot, we're smashed. "

"You mustn't be too hard on the men, Buddy. They've been mightypatient. "

The scowl deepened between the level gray eyes. 

"If I could do what I'd like to, I'd fire the last man of them. It makesme savage to have them turn up and knock us on the head after we've beensweating blood to pull through. Have you seen Ludlow?"

"Yes; I saw him last night. He's right ugly; swore he wouldn't raise ahand even if the boys took kerosene and dynamite to us. "

"Well, if they do, he'll be the first man to pay for it, " said Tom; andhe left the office and the house to make the round of the guarded gates. 

Ludlow was as good as his word. On the night following the day ofsuspense an attempt was made to wreck the inclined railway running fromthe mines on Lebanon to the coke yard. It was happily frustrated; butwhen Tom and his handful of guards got back to the foot of the hill theyfound a fire started in a pile of wooden flasks heaped against the endof the foundry building. 

The fire was easily extinguishable by a willing hand or two, but Tomtried an experiment. Steam had been kept up in a single battery ofboilers against emergencies, and he directed Helgerson to throw open thegreat gates while he ran to the boiler room and sent the fire call ofthe huge siren whistle shrieking out on the night. 

The experiment was only meagerly successful. Less than a score of thestrikers answered the call, but these worked with a will, and the firewas quickly put out. 

Tom was under the arc-light at the gates when the volunteers straggledout. He had a word for each man, --a word of appreciation and a plea forsuspended judgment. Most of the men shook their heads despondently, buta few of them promised to stand on the side of law and order. Tom tookthe names of the few, and went back to his guard duty with the burden alittle lightened. But the succeeding night there were more attempts atviolence, three of them so determined as to leave no doubt that thecrisis was at hand. This was Tom's discouraged admission when his fathercame to relieve him in the morning. 

"We're about at the end of the rope, " he said wearily, when Caleb hadclosed the door of the log-house yard office behind him. "The twoHelgersons are played out, and neither of us can stand this strain foranother twenty-four hours. I'm just about dead on my feet for sleep, andI know you are. "

The old ex-artilleryman stifled a yawn, and admitted the fact. 

"I'm gettin' right old and no-account, son; there's no denyin' that. Andyou can't make out to shoulder it all, stout as you are. But what-allcan we do different?"

"I know what I'm going to do. I had a 'phone wire from Bradley, thesheriff, last night after you went home. He funked like a boy; said hecouldn't raise a posse in South Tredegar that would serve againststriking workmen. Then I wired the governor, and his answer came an hourago. We can have the soldiers if we make a formal demand for them. "

"But, Tom, son; you wouldn't do that!" protested Caleb tremulously. Then, getting up to walk the floor as was his wont under sharp stress:"Let's try to hold out a little spell longer, Buddy. It'll be like fireto tow; there'll be men killed--men that I've known ever since they wereboys: men killed, and women made widders. Tom, I've seen enough of warto last me. "

"I know, " said Tom. None the less, he found a telegraph blank and beganto write the message. There had been shots fired in the night, in asally on the inclined railway, and one of them had scored his arm. Ifthe rioters needed the strong hand to curb them, they should have it. 

"Think of what it'll mean for this town that we've built up, son. We'llhave to stay here--'er leastwise, I will, and there'll be blood on thestreets for me to see as long as I walk 'em. "

"I know, " Tom reiterated, in the same monotonous tone. But his pen didnot pause. 

"Then there's your mammy, " Caleb pleaded, and now the pen stopped. 

"Mother must not know. "

"How can we he'p her knowin', Buddy? I tell you, son, the very stones o'Paradise'll rise up to testify against us, now, and at the last greatday, maybe. "

The frown deepened between the young man's eyes. 

"The old, old phantom!" he said, half to himself. "Will it never belaid, even for those who know it to be a myth?" And then to his father:"It's no use, pappy. I tell you we've got to take this thing by theneck. See here; that's how near they came to settling me last night, "and he showed the perforated coat-sleeve. 

Caleb Gordon was silenced. He resumed his restless pacing while Tomsigned the call for help, read it over methodically, and placed itbetween dampened sheets in the letter-press. He had pushed the electricbutton which summoned Stub Helgerson, when the door opened silently andJeff Ludlow's boy thrust face and hand through the aperture. 

"Well; what is it?" demanded Tom, more sharply than he meant to. Thestrain was beginning to tell on his nerves. 

"Hit's a letter for you-all from Mr. Stamford at the dee-po, " said theboy. "He allowed maybe you-all'd gimme a nickel for bringin' hit. "

The coin was found and passed, and the small boy was whooping andyelling for Helgerson to come and let him through the gates when Tomtore the envelope across and read the telegram. It was from the Indianacity, and it was signed by the chairman of the Board of Public Works. 

"Proposals for water-pipe have been reopened, and your bid is accepted. Wire how soon you can begin to ship eighteen-inch mains, " was what itsaid. Tom handed it to his father and stepped quickly to the telephone. There was a little delay in getting the ear of the president of the IronCity National at South Tredegar, and the bounding, pulsing blood ofimpatience made it seem interminable. 

"Is that you, Mr. Henniker? This is Gordon at the Chiawassee plant, Gordonia. We have secured that Indiana contract I was telling you about, and I'll be in to see you on the ten o'clock train. Will you save fiveminutes for me? Thank you. Good-by. "

Tom hung the ear-piece on its hook and turned to face his father. 

"Have you surrounded it?" he laughed, with a little quaver of excitementin his voice, which he had been careful to master in the announcement tothe bank president. "We live, pappy; we live and win! Get word to themen to come up here at three o'clock for their pay. Tell them we blow inagain to-morrow, and they can all come back to work and no questionsasked. Can you stay on your feet long enough to do all that?"

Caleb was nodding gravely; yet bewilderment was still in the saddle. 

"But the money for the pay-rolls, son--this is only an order to go towork, " he said, fingering the telegram doubtfully. 

Tom laughed joyously. 

"If I can't make Mr. Henniker believe that he can afford to carry us awhile longer on the strength of that bit of yellow paper, I'll rob hisbank. You get the men together by three o'clock, and I'll be here withthe money. If I'm not, it will be because somebody has sandbagged mebetween the bank and the train. "

Caleb was still wrestling with the incredible thing, but light wasbreaking in on him slowly. 

"Hold on, son, " he said, and the old-time smile was wrinkling at thecorners of his eyes; "how much did you allow to make out o' this job? Idisremember what you said when you talked about it before. "

Tom checked off the items on his fingers. 

"Enough to put us through the winter; enough to stand us on our feetindependent of Duxbury Farley and his son; enough to let us pay MajorDabney the back royalties on the coal. More than this, it's going to useup iron--hundreds of tons of it. We'll buy out of our own yards, and themen shall have the back-pay dividends. "

The general manager had taken his burned-out corn-cob pipe from hispocket and was looking at it speculatively. 

"Well, now, if that's the case, I reckon I can go down to Hargis's andbuy me a new pipe, Buddy; and I--I'll be switched if I don't do it rightnow. "

And in such gladsome easing of the strain were the wheels of ChiawasseeConsolidated oiled to their new whirlings on the road to fortune. IfCaleb Gordon remembered how the miracle had been wrought, he said noword to clench his disapproval; and as for Tom--ah, well; it was not thefirst time in the history of the race that the end has served to justifythe means--to make them clean and white and spotless, if need were. 

XXII

LOVE

If Tom Gordon could have known how slightly the Dabney's European planscoincided with those of the Farleys, he might have had fewerheartburnings in those intervals when the harassing struggle forindustrial existence gave him time to think of Ardea. 

As a strict matter of fact, the voyage across, and some littleguide-book touring of England, were the sum total of coincidence. Onleaving London the Farleys set out on the grand tour which was to landthem in Naples for the winter, while the Dabneys went directly to Parisand to a modest pension in the Rue Cambon to spend the European holidayin a manner better befitting the purse of a country gentleman. 

So it befell that by the time Miss Eva Farley was rhapsodizing over theRhine castles in twenty-page letters, boring Ardea a little, if thetruth must be told, the Dabneys had settled down to their quiet life inthe French capital. Ardea was anxious to do something with her musicunder a Parisian master--and was doing it. The Major found melancholypleasure in reviewing at large the city of his son's long exile; andMiss Euphrasia came and went with one or the other of her cousins, asthe exigencies of chaperonage or companionship constrained her. 

In such moderate pleasuring the French summer began for the Major andhis charges; so it continued, and so it ended; and late in Septemberthey began to talk about going home. 

"We really mean it this time, " wrote Ardea in a letter to Martha Gordon. "I confess we are all a little homesick for America, and Paradise, anddear old Deer Trace Manor. The Farleys are settled for the remainder ofthe year or longer in a fine old palazzo on the Bay of Naples, and wehave a very pressing invitation to go and help them inhabit it. But thusfar we have not been tempted beyond our strength. Major Grandpa istalking more and more pointedly about the Morgan mares, and is growing ahabit of comparison-drawing in which America profits at the expense ofEurope; so I suppose by the time you are reading this we shall have madeour sailing arrangements. Nevertheless, the Naples invitation is dyinghard. Eva seems to have set her heart on having us for the winter. "

Ardea's figure of speech was no figure. The palazzo-sharing invitationdid die hard; and when Miss Farley's letters failed, Mr. Vincent Farleymade a journey to Paris for the express purpose of persuading theDabneys to reconsider. Miss Euphrasia was neutral. The Major washomesick for a sight of his native Southland, but for Ardea's sake hegenerously concealed the symptoms--or thought he did. So the decisionwas finally left to Ardea. 

She said no, and adhered to it, partly because she knew her grandfatherwas pining for Paradise, and partly on her own account. Ardea at twentywas a young woman who might have made King Solomon pause with suspendedpen when he was writing that saying about his inability to find onewoman among a thousand. She was not beautiful beyond compare, as theSouthern young woman is so likely to be under the pencil of her loyallimners. She had the Dabney nose, which was not quite classical, and theCourtenay mouth, well-lined and expressive, rather than too suggestive, of feminine softness. But her eyes were beautiful, and her luxuriantmasses of copper-gold hair fitted her shapely head like a gloriousaureole; also, she had that indefinable adorableness called charm, andthe sweet, direct, childlike frankness of speech which is itscharacteristic. 

This was the external Ardea, known of men, and of those women who werelarge-minded enough not to envy her. But the inner Ardea was a beingapart--high-seated, alone, self-sufficient in the sense that it saw tooclearly to be hoodwinked, infinitely reasonable, with vision uncloudedeither by passion or the conventions. This inner Ardea knew VincentFarley better than he knew himself: the small mind, the mask of outwardcorrectness, the coldness of heart, the utter lack of the heroicsoul-strength which, even in a brutal man, may sometimes draw andconquer and merge within itself the woman-soul that, yielding, stillyields open-eyed and undeceived. 

He was the most moderate of lovers, as such a man must needs be, but hisanxiety to second the wishes of his father and sister was not to bemisunderstood by the clear-eyed inner Ardea, whose intuition served heras a sixth sense. She knew that sometime he would ask her to marry him;and in that region where her answer should lie she found only a vastindecision. He was not her ideal, but the all-seeing inner self toldher that she would never find the ideal. There comes to every woman, sooner or later, the conviction that if she would marry she must takemen as they are, weighing the good against the evil, choosing as she maythe man whose vices may be condoned or whose virtues are great enough toovershadow them. Ardea knew that Vincent Farley was not great in eitherfield; but the little virtues were not to be despised. If he were not, in the best sense of the word, well-bred, he had at least been wellnurtured, well schooled in the conventions. Ardea sighed. It was in herto be something more than the conventional wife, yet she saw no reasonto believe that she would ever be called on to be anything else. Bywhich it will be apparent that the sacred flame of love had not yet beenkindled in her maiden heart. 

As for Vincent Farley, the real man, Ardea's appraisal of him was notgreatly at fault. He was tall, like his father, but there theresemblance paused. The promoter's shifty blue eyes were always at thepoint of lighting up with enthusiasm; the son's, of precisely the samehue, were cold and calmly calculating. The human polyhedron has as manyfacets as a curiously-cut gem, and Vincent Farley's gift lay in theability always to present the same side to the same person. His attitudetoward Ardea had always been a pose; but it was a pose maintained sofaithfully that it had become one of the facets of the polyhedron. Suchmen do not love, as a woman defines love; they merely have the matinginstinct. And even lust finds a cold hearth in such hearts, though onoccasion it will rake the embers together and make shift to blow theminto some brief, fierce flame. At times, Farley's thought of Ardea waslibertine; but oftener she figured as the woman who would grace the homeof affluence, giving it charm and tone. Also, he had an affection forthe Dabney manorial acres, and especially for that portion of themoverlying the coal measures. 

The pose-facet was at the precisely effective angle when he came toParis as his sister's messenger and pictured, with what warmth there wasin him, the delights in the prospect of a Neapolitan winter. But Ardea, shrinking from a six months' guesting with any one, said no, and toldher grandfather she was ready to go home. 

The start was from Havre, and Vincent, with time on his hands, was hercompanion on the railway journey, her _courrier du place_ in theembarkation, and her faithful shadow up to the instant when the warningcry for the shore-goers rang through the ship. It was scarcely a momentfor sentimental passages, and under the most favoring conditions, Vincent Farley was something less than sentimental. Yet he found time todeclare himself in conventional fashion, modestly asking only for theright to hope. 

Ardea was not ready to give an answer, even to the tentative question;yet she did it--was, in a manner, surprised into doing it. For the youngwoman who has not loved, it is easy to doubt the existence of theseventh Heaven, or at least to reckon without its possibilities. At thevery crucial moment the clear-sighted inner self was assuring her thatthis cold-eyed young man, who walked in the paths of righteousnessbecause he found them easier and pleasanter than the way of thetransgressor, was at best only a mildly exciting apotheosis of thenegative virtues. But the negative virtues, failing to scorebrilliantly, nevertheless have the advantage of continuous innings. Ardea was turned twenty in the year of the European holiday, and shehad--or believed she had--her heritage of the Dabney impetuosity well inhand. Vincent's self-restraint was admirable, and his gentle deference, conventional as it was, rose almost to the height of sentiment. So shegave him his answer; gave him her hand at parting, and stood dutifullyfluttering her handkerchief for him while the liner drew out of its slipand pointed its prow toward the headlands. 

With rough weather on the homeward passage, she had space andopportunity to consider the consequences. Being the only good sailor inthe trio, she had her own self-communings for company during the greaterpart of the six days, and the incident sentimental took on an aspect offinality which was rather dismaying. It was quite in vain that shesought comfort in the reflection that she was committed to nothingconclusive. Vincent Farley had not taken that view of it. True, he hadasked for nothing more than a favorable attitude on her part; but shethought he would be less than a man if he had not seen his final answerforeshadowed in her acquiescence. 

The finality admitted, a query arose. Was Vincent Farley the man who, giving her his best, could call out the best there was in her? Itannoyed her to admit the query, or rather the doubt which fathered it;it distressed her when the doubt appeared to grow with the lengtheningleagues of distance. 

Now vacillation was not a Dabney failing; and the aftermath of thesestorm-tossed musings made for Vincent Farley's cause. Romance also, inthe eternal feminine, is a constant quantity, and if it be denied theRomeo-and-Juliet form of expression, will find another. Vincent Farley, as man or as lover, presented obstacles to any idealizing process, butArdea set herself resolutely to overcome them. Distance and time haveother potentialities besides the obliterative: they may breed halos. When the French liner reached its New York slip, Ardea was rememberingonly the studied kindnesses, the conventional refinements, thecorrectnesses which, if they did seem artificial at times, were so manyguarantees of self-respect: when the Great Southwestern train had roaredaround the cliffs of Lebanon with the returning exiles, and thelocomotive whistle was sounding for Gordonia, some other of the negativevirtues had become definitely positive, and the halo was beginning to bedistinctly visible. 

How Tom Gordon had informed himself of the precise day and train oftheir home-coming, Ardea did not think to inquire. But he was on theplatform when the train drew in, and was the first to welcome them. 

She was quick to see and appreciate the changes wrought in him, by time, by the Boston sojourn, by the summer's struggle with adverse men andthings--though of this last she knew nothing as yet. It seemed scarcelycredible that the big, handsome young fellow who was shaking hands withher grandfather, helping Miss Euphrasia with her multifariousbelongings, and making himself generally useful and hospitable, could bea later reincarnation of the abashed school-boy who had sweated throughthe trying luncheon at Crestcliffe Inn. 

"Not a word for me, Tom?" she said, when the last of Cousin Euphrasia'streasures had been rescued from the impatient train porter and added tothe heap on the platform. 

"All the words are for you--or they shall be presently, " he laughed. "Just let me get your luggage out of pawn and started Deer-Traceward, and I'll talk you to a finish. "

She stood by and looked on while he did it. Surely, he had grown andmatured in the three broadening years! There was conscious manhood, effectiveness, in every movement; in the very bigness of him. She had alittle attack of patriotism, saying to herself that they did not fashionsuch young men in the Old World--could not, perhaps. 

Mammy Juliet's grandson, Pete, was down with the family carriage, and hetook his orders from Tom touching the bestowal of the luggage as hewould have taken them from Major Dabney. Ardea marked this, too, andbeing Southern bred, wrote the Gordon name still a little higher on thescroll of esteem. Pete's respectful obedience was, in its way, a patentof nobility. The negro house-servant, to the manner born, draws the linesharply between gentle and simple and is swift to resent interlopings. 

When Pete had done his office with the European gatherings of the partythe ancient carriage looked like a van, and there was scant room insidefor three passengers. 

"That means us for old Longfellow and the buggy, " said Tom to Ardea. "Do you mind? Longfellow is fearfully and wonderfully slow, same asever, but he's reasonably sure. "

"Any way, " said Ardea; so he put her into the buggy and they drew inbehind the carriage. Before they were half-way to the iron-works theyhad the pike to themselves, and Tom was not urging the leisurely horse. 

"My land! but it's good for tired eyes to have another sight of you!" hedeclared, applying the remedy till she laughed and blushed a little. Then: "It has been a full month of Sundays. Do you realize that?"

"Since we saw each other? It has been much longer than that, hasn't it?"

"Not so very much. I saw you in New York the day you sailed. "

"You did! Where was I?"

"You had just come down in the elevator at the hotel with yourgrandfather and Miss Euphrasia. "

"And you wouldn't stop to speak to us? I think that was simplybarbarous!"

"Wasn't it?" he laughed. "But the time was horribly unpropitious. "

"Why?"

He looked at her quizzically. 

"I'm wondering whether I'd better lie out of it; say I knew you were onyour way to breakfast, and that I hoped to have a later opportunity, andall that. Shall I do it?"

She did not reply at once. The undeceived inner self was telling herthat here lay the parting of the ways; that on her answer would be builtthe structure, formal or confidential, of their future intercourse. Loyalty to the halo demanded self-restraint; but every other fiber ofher was reaching out for a reëstablishment of the old boy-and-girlopenness of heart and mind. Her hesitation was only momentary. 

"You are just as rude and Gothic as you used to be, aren't you, Tom?Don't you know, I'm childishly glad of it; I was afraid you might bechanged in that way, too, --and I don't want to find anything changed. You needn't be polite at the expense of truth--not with me. "

He looked at her with love in his eyes. 

"This time, you mean--or all the time. "

"All the time, if you like. "

"I do like; there has got to be some one person in this world to whom Ican talk straight, Ardea. "

She laughed a little laugh of half-constraint. 

"You speak as if there had been a vacancy. "

"There has been--for just about three years. I remember you told me oncethat I'd find two kinds of friends: those who would refuse to believeanything bad of me, and those who would size me up and still stick tome. You are the only one of that second lot I have discovered thus far. "

"We are getting miles away from the Fifth Avenue Hotel, " she remindedhim. 

"No; we are just now approaching it from the proper direction. I had mywar paint on that morning, and I wasn't fit to talk to you. "

"Business?" she queried. 

"Yes. Didn't the Major tell you about it?"

"Not a word. I hope you didn't quarrel with him, too?"

He marked the adverb of addition and wondered if Vincent Farley hadbeen less reticent than Major Dabney. 

"No; I didn't quarrel with your grandfather. "

"But you did quarrel with Mr. Farley?--or was it with Vincent?"

He smiled and shook his head. 

"We can't do it, Ardea--go back to the old way, you know. You seethere's a stump in the road, the very first thing. "

"I shan't admit it, " she said half-defiantly. "I am going to make youlike the Farleys. "

He shook his head again. "You'll have to make a Christian of me first, and teach me how to love my enemies. "

"Don't you do that now?"

"No; not unless you are my enemy; I love you. "

She looked up at him appealingly. 

"Don't make fun of such things, Tom. Love is sacred. "

"I was never further from making fun of things in my life. I mean itwith every drop of blood in me. You said you didn't want to find mechanged; I'm not changed in that, at least. "

"You ridiculous boy!" she said; but that was only a stop-gap, andLongfellow added another by coming to a stand opposite a vastobstruction of building material half damming the white road. "What areyou doing here--building more additions?" she asked. 

"No, " said Tom. "It is a new plant--a pipe foundry. "

"Don't tell me we are going to have more neighbors in Paradise, " shesaid in mock concern. 

"I'll tell you something that may shock you worse than that: the ownerof this new plant has camped down right next door to Deer Trace. "

"How dreadful! You don't mean that!"

"Oh, but I do. He's a young man, of poor but honest parentage, with alarge eye for the main chance. I shouldn't be surprised if he took everyopportunity to make love to you. "

"How absurd you can be, Tom! Who is he?"

"He is Mr. Caleb Gordon's son. I think you think you know him, but youdon't; nobody does. "

"Really, Tom? Have you gone into business for yourself? I thought youhad another year at Boston. "

"I have another year coming to me, but I don't know when I shall get it. And I am in business for myself; though perhaps I should be modest andcall it a firm--Gordon and Gordon. "

"What does the firm do?"

"A number of things; among others, it buys the entire iron output of theChiawassee Consolidated, just at present. "

"Dear me!" she said; "how fine and large that sounds! If I should sayanything like that you would tell me that Brag was a good dog, but--"

He grinned ecstatically. It was so like old times--the good oldtimes--to be bandying good-tempered abuse with her. 

"I do brag a lot, don't I? But have you ever noticed that I 'most alwayshave something to brag about? This time, for instance. I built this newfirm, and it is all that has kept Chiawassee from going into thesheriff's hands any time during the past six months. "

Longfellow had picked his way judiciously around the obstructions andthrough the gap in the boundary hills, and was jogging in a verticaltrot up the valley pike made clean and hard and stony-white by thesweeping and hammering of the autumn rains. The mingled clamor of theindustries was left behind, but the throbbing pulsations of the bigblowing-engines hung in the air like the sighings of an imprisonedgiant. They were passing the miniature copy of Morwenstow Church whenArdea spoke again. 

"You have been home all summer?" she asked. 

"At home and on the road, trying to hypnotize somebody into buyingsomething--anything--made out of cast-iron. Ah, girl! it's been a bitterfight!"

She was instantly sympathetic; more, there was a little thrill ofvicarious triumph to go with the sympathy. She was sure he had won, orwas winning, the battle. 

"We read something about the hard times in the American papers, " shesaid. "You don't know how far away anything like that seems when thereis an ocean between. And I was hoping all the time that our homelanddown here was escaping. "

"Escaping? You came through South Tredegar a little while ago; it isdead--too dead to bury. You hear the sob of those blowing-engines?--youwill travel two hundred miles in the iron belt before you will hear itagain. When I came home in June we were smashed, like all the otherfurnaces in the South--only worse. "

"How worse, Tom?"

He forgot the tacit truce for the moment. 

"Duxbury Farley and his son had deliberately wrecked the company. "

She laid a restraining hand on his arm. 

"Let us understand each other, " she said gently. "You must not say suchthings of Mr. Farley and--and his son to me. If you do, I can't listen. "

"You don't believe what I say?"

"I believe you have convinced yourself. But you are vindictive; you knowyou are. And I mean to be fair and just. "

He let the plodding horse measure a full half-mile before he turned andlooked at her with anger and despair glooming in his eyes. 

"Tell me one thing, Ardea, and maybe it will shut my mouth. What isVincent Parley to you--anything more than Eva's brother?"

Another young woman might have claimed her undoubted right to evade sucha pointed question. But Ardea saw safety only in instant frankness. 

"He has asked me to be his wife, Tom. "

"And you have consented?"

"I wonder if I have, " she said half-musingly. 

"Don't you _know_?" he demanded. And then, "Ardea, I'd rather see youdead and in your coffin!"

"Just why--apart from your prejudice?"

"It's Beauty and the Beast over again. You don't know Vint Farley. "

"Don't I? My opportunities have been very much better than yours, " sheretorted. 

"That may be, but I say you don't know him. He is a whited sepulcher. "

"But you can not particularize, " she insisted. "And the evidence is allthe other way. "

Tom was silent. During the summer of strugglings he had gone prettydeeply into the history of Chiawassee Consolidated, and there wascommercial sharp practice in plenty, with some nice balancings on theedge of criminality. Once, indeed, the balance had been quite lost, butit was Dyckman who had been thrust into the breach, or who had beeninduced to enter it by falsifying his books. Yet these were merebusiness matters, without standing in the present court. 

"The evidence isn't all one-sided, " he asserted. "If you were a man, Icould convince you in two minutes that both of the Farleys are rascalsand hypocrites. "

"Yet they are your father's business associates, " she reminded him. 

He saw the hopelessness of any argument on that side, and was silentagain, this time until they had passed the Deer Trace gates and he hadcut the buggy before the great Greek-pillared portico of themanor-house. When he had helped her out, she thanked him and gave himher hand quite in the old way; and he held it while he asked a singleblunt question. 

"Tell me one thing more, Ardea: do you love Vincent Farley?"

Her swift blush answered him, and he did not wait for her word. 

"That settles it; you needn't say it in so many words. Isn't it a hellof a world, Ardea? I love you--love you as this man never will, nevercould. And with half his chance, I could have made you love me. I--"

"Don't, Tom! please don't, " she begged, trying to free her hand. 

"I must, for this once; then we'll quit and go back to the formerthings. You said a while ago that I was vindictive; I'll show you thatI am not. When the time comes for me to put my foot on Vint Farley'sneck, I'm going to spare him for your sake. Then you'll know what itmeans to have a man's love. Good-by; I'm coming over for a few minutesthis evening if you'll let me. "

XXIII

TARRED ROPES

"Now jest you listen at me, Tom-Jeff; you ain't goin' to make out tofind no better hawss 'n that this side o' the Blue Grass. Sound as adollar in lung _and_ leg, highstepper--my Land! jest look at the way heholds his head--rides like a baby's cradle; why, that hawss is a perfectgentleman, Tom-Jeff. "

Since her return from Europe Miss Ardea Dabney had taken to horsebackriding, a five-mile canter before breakfast in the fine brisk air of theautumn mornings; and Tom had discovered that he needed a saddle animal. Wherefore Brother Japheth was parading a handsome bay up and down beforethe door of the small office building of the new foundry, descantingglowingly on its merits, while Tom lounged on the step and pretended tomake difficulties. 

"You think he's a pretty good horse, do you, Japhe--worth the money?" hequeried, with the air of one who is about to surrender, not to the fact, but to the presentation of it. 

"If you cayn't stable him this winter and then get your money back onhim in ary hawss market this side o' the Ohio River, I'll eat hawss forthe rest o' my bawn days. Now that's fair, ain't it?"

"It's more than fair; it's generous. But let me ask you: is thisprotracted-meeting talk you're giving me, or just plain, every-day horselies?"

Brother Japheth halted the parade and there was aggrievedreproachfulness in every line of his long, lantern-jawed face. 

"Now lookee here; I didn't 'low to find _you_ a-sittin' in the seat ofthe scornful, Tom-Jeff; I shore didn't. Ain't the good cause precious toyour soul no mo' sence you to'd loose f'om your mammy's apron-string?"

Tom's shrewd overlooking of the horse-trader spoke eloquently of thespiritual landmarks past and left behind. 

"I don't know about you, Japhe. A fair half of the time you have mecornered; and the other half I'm wondering if you are just ordinary, canting hypocrite, like the majority of 'the brethren. '"

"Now see here, Tom-Jeff, you know a heap better'n that! First andfo'most, the majority ain't the majority, not by three sights and ahorn-blow. Hit don't take more'n one good, perseverin' hypocrite in thechu'ch to spile the name o' chu'ch-member as fur as ye can holler it. You been on a railroad train and seen the con-duc-tor havin' a fursswith the feller 'at pays for one seat and tries to hog four, and you'veset back and said, 'My gosh! what a lot o' swine the human race is whenhit gits away f'om home!' And right at that ve'y minute, mebbe, ther'was forty-five 'r fifty other people in that cyar goin' erlong, mindin'their own business, and not hoggin' any more 'n they paid for. "

Tom smiled. "And you think that's the way it is in the church, do you?"

"I don't think nare' thing about hit; I know sufferin' well that's thehow of it. Lord forgive me! didn't I let one scribe-an'-Pharisee keep meout o' the Isra'l o' God for nigh on to twenty year?"

"Who was it?" asked Tom, tranquilly curious. 

"That ther' Jim Bledsoe, Brother Bill Layne's brother-in-law. He kep'Brother Bill out, too, for a right smart spell. "

Tom was turning the memory pages half-absently. 

"Let me see, " he said. "Didn't I hear something about your whaling theeverlasting daylights out of Bledsoe sometime last winter?"

Japheth hung his head after the manner of one who has spoiled a goodargument by overstating it. 

"That ther's jest like me, " he said disgustedly. "I nev' do know enoughto quit when I git thoo. Ain't it somewher's in the Bible 'at it sayssome folks is bawn troublesome, and some goes round huntin' for trouble, and some has trouble jammed up ag'inst 'em?"

"You can't prove it by me, " Tom laughed. "I believe Shakespeare saidsomething like that about greatness. "

"Well, nev' mind; whoa, Saladin, boy, we'll git round to you ag'in, bime-by. As I was sayin', this here furss with Jim Bledsoe jestnatchelly couldn't be holped, nohow. Hit was thisaway: 'long late in thefall I swapped Jim a piebald that was jest erbout the no-accountesthawss 'at ever had a bit in his mouth. I done told Jim all his meanness;but Jim, he 'lowed I was lyin' and made the trade anyhow. Inside of aweek he was back here, callin' me names. I turned him first one cheekand then t'other, like the Good Book says, till they was jest plum' wo'out; and then I says, says I: 'Lookee here, Jim, you've done smack' meon both sides o' the jaw, and that ther's your priv'lege--me bein' achu'ch-member in good and reg'lar standin', and no low-down, in-fergotten, turkey-trodden hypocrite like you. But right here thetorections erbout what I'm bounden to do sort o' peter out. I got asmany cheeks to turn as any of 'em, but that ain't sayin' that thestock's immortil' With that he ups and allows a heap mo' things about mymorils; and me havin' turned both cheeks till my neck ached, and nothavin' any mo' _toe_ turn, what-all could I do--what-all would you 'a'done, Tom-Jeff?"

"Don't ask me. I'm one of the hair-hung and breeze-shaken majority. Ishould most probably have punched his head. "

"Well, that's jest what I did. I says, says I, 'Jim, whom the Lordloveth He chasteneth, and jest at this time present, I'm theinstru_ment_. ' And when the dust got settled down, Jim he druv' homewith that ther' piebald, allowin' he wasn't such an all-fired bad hawssafter all. But lookee here, Tom-Jeff, this ain't sellin' you the finestsaddle-hawss in the valley. What do ye say about Saladin?"

"Oh, I don't know, " said Tom. "I don't love horses very much. You knowwhat the Bible says: _A horse is a vain thing for safety_. Is this baygoing to make me lose my temper and knock his pinhead brains out thefirst time I put a leg over him?"

"No-o-o, suh! Why, he's as kind and gentle and lovin as a woman. Youjest natchelly _couldn't_ whup this here bay, Tom-Jeff!"

"All right, Japhe; I was only deviling you a little. Take him up to theWoodlawn stables and tell William Henry Harrison to give him the boxstall. I'll try him to-morrow morning, if the weather is good. "

Brother Japheth's business was concluded, and the architect who wasbuilding the latest extension to the pipe-pit floor was heading acrossthe yard to consult the young boss. Pettigrass paused with his foot inthe stirrup to say, "Old Tike Bryerson's on the rampage ag'in; folks upat the valley head say he's a-lookin' for you, Tom-Jeff. "

"For me?" said Tom; then he laughed easily. "I don't owe him anything, and I'm not very hard to find. What's the matter?"

He thought it a little singular at the time that Japheth gave him acurious look and mounted and rode away without answering his question. But the building activities were clamoring for time and attention, andhis father was waiting to consult him about a run of iron that was notquite up to the pipe-making test requirements. So he forgot Japheth'shalf-accusing glance at parting, and the implied warning that hadpreceded it, until an incident at the day's end reminded him of both. 

The incident turned on the fact of his walking home. Ordinarily hestruck work when the furnace whistle blew, riding home with his fatherbehind old Longfellow; but on this particular evening Kinderling, thearchitect, missed his South Tredegar train, and Tom spent an extra hourwith him, discussing further and future possibilities of expansion. Kinderling got away on a later train, and Tom closed his office and tookthe long mile up the pike afoot in the dusk of the autumn evening, thinking pointedly of many things mechanical and industrial, and neverby any chance forereaching to the epoch-marking event that was awaitinghim at the Woodlawn gate. 

His hand was upon the latch of the ornamental side wicket opening on thehome foot-path when a woman, crouching in the shadow of the great-gatepillar, rose suddenly and stood before him. He did not recognize her atfirst; it was nearly dark, and her head was snooded in a shawl. Then shespoke, and he saw that it was Nancy Bryerson--a Nan sadly and terriblychanged, but with much of the wild-creature beauty of face and formstill remaining. 

"You done forgot me, Tom-Jeff?" she asked; and then, at his start ofrecognition: "I allow I have changed some. "

"Surely I haven't forgotten you, Nan. But you took me by surprise; and Ican't see in the dark any better than most people. What are you doingdown here in the valley so late in the evening?" He tried to say itsuperiorly, paternally, as an older man might have said it--and was notaltogether successful. The mere sight of her set his blood aswing in theold throbbing ebb and flow, though, if he had known it, it was pity nowrather than passion that gave the impetus. 

"You allow it ain't fittin' for me to be out alone after night?" shesaid, with a hard little laugh. "I reckon it ain't goin' to hurt menone; anyways, I had to come. Paw's been red-eyed for a week, and he'shuntin' for you, Tom-Jeff. "

Then Tom recalled Japheth's word of the morning. 

"Hunting for me? Well, I'm not very hard to find, " he said, unconsciously repeating the answer he had made to the horse-trader'swarning. 

"Couldn't you make out to go off somewheres for a little spell?" sheasked half-pleadingly. 

"Run away, you mean? Hardly; I'm too busy just at present. Besides, Ihaven't any quarrel with your father. What's he making trouble aboutnow?"

She put her face in her hands, and though she was silent, he could seethat sobs were shaking her. Being neither more nor less than a man, hertears made him foolish. He put his arm around her and was trying to findthe comforting word, when the heavens fell. 

How Ardea and Miss Euphrasia, going the round-about way from one houseto the other to avoid the dew-wet grass of the lawns, came fairly withinarm's-reach before he saw or heard them, remained a thing inexplicable. But when he looked up they were there, Miss Euphrasia straighteningherself aloof in virtuous disapproval, and Ardea looking as if some onehad suddenly shown her the head of Medusa. 

Tom separated himself from Nan in hot-hearted confusion and stood as aculprit taken in the act. Nan hid her face again and turned away. It wasMiss Dabney the younger who found words to break the smarting silence. 

"Don't mind us, Mr. Gordon, " she said icily. "We were going to Woodlawnto see if your father and mother could come over after dinner. "

Tom smote himself alive and made haste to open the foot-path gate forthem. There was nothing more said, or to be said; but when they weregone and he was once more alone with Nan, he was fighting desperatelywith a very manlike desire to smash something; to relieve the wrathfulpressure by hurting somebody. Let it be written down to his creditthat he did not wreak his vengeance on the defenseless. ThomasJefferson, the boy, would not have hesitated. 

[Illustration: Tom made haste to open the foot-path gate for them. ]

"You were going to tell me about your father, " he said, striving to holdthe interruption as if it had not been, and yet tingling in every nerveto be free. "Did you come all the way down the mountain to warn me?"

She nodded, adding: "But that didn't make no differ'; I had to comeanyway. He run me out, paw did. "

"Heavens!" ejaculated Tom, prickling now with a new sensation. "And youhaven't any place to stay?"

She shook her head. 

"No. I was allowin' maybe your paw'd let me sleep where you-uns keep thehawsses--jest for a little spell till I could make out what-all I'mgoin' to do. "

He was too rageful to be quite clear-sighted. Yet he conceived that hehad a duty laid on him. Once in the foolish, infatuated long-ago he hadtold her he would take care of her; he remembered it; doubtless she wasremembering it, too. But her suggestion was not to be considered for amoment. 

"I can't let you go to the stables, " he objected. "The horse-boys sleepthere. But I'll put a roof over you, some way. Wait here a minute till Icome back. "

His thought was to go to his mother and ask her help; but half-way tothe house his courage failed him. Since the breach in spiritualconfidence he had been better able to see the lovable side of hismother's faith; but he could not be blind to that quality of hardness init which, even in such chastened souls as Martha Gordon's, findsexpression in woman's inhumanity to woman. Besides, Ardea and her cousinwere still in the way. 

He swung on his heel undecided. On the hillside back of the new foundrythere was a one-roomed cabin built on the Gordon land years before by ahermit watchman of the Chiawassee plant. It was vacant, and Tomremembered that the few bits of furniture had not been removed when theold watchman died. Would the miserable shack do for a temporary refugefor the outcast? He concluded it would have to do; and, making a widecircuit of the house, he went around to the stables to harnessLongfellow to the buggy. Luckily, the negroes were all in the detachedkitchen, eating their supper, so he was able to go and come undetected. 

When he drove down to the gate he found Nan waiting where he had lefther; but now she had a bundle in her arms. As he got out to swing thedriveway grille, the house door opened; a flood of light from the halllamp banded the lawn, and there were voices and footsteps on theveranda. He flung a nervous glance over his shoulder; Ardea and hercousin were returning down the foot-path. Wherefore he made haste, meaning not to be caught again, if he could help it. But the fates wereagainst him. Longfellow, snatched ruthlessly from his half-emptied oatbox, made equine protest, yawing and veering and earning himself asavage cut of the whip before he consented to place the buggy at thestone mounting-step. 

"Quick!" said Tom, flinging the reins on the dashboard. "Chuck yourbundle under the seat and climb in!"

But Nan was provokingly slow, and when she tried to get in with thebundle still in her arms, the buggy hood was in the way. Tom had to helpher, was in the act of lifting her to the step, when the wicket latch, clicked and Ardea and Miss Euphrasia came out. They passed on withoutcomment, but Tom could feel the electric shock of righteous scornthrough the back of his head. That was why he drove half-way to thelower end of the pike before he turned on Nan to say:

"What's in that bundle you're so careful of? Why don't you put it underthe seat?"

She looked around at him, and dark as it was, he saw that the greatblack eyes were shining with a strange light--strange to him. 

"I reckon you wouldn't want me to do that, Tom-Jeff, " she answeredsimply. "Hit's my baby--my little Tom. "

He was struck dumb. It often happens that in the fiercest storm ofgossip the one most nearly concerned goes his way without so much assuspecting that the sun is hidden. But Tom had not been exposed to theviolence of the storm. Nan's shame was old, and the gossip tongues hadwagged themselves weary two years before, when the child was born. SoTom was quite free to think only of his companion. A great anger roseand swelled in his heart. What scoundrel had taken advantage of anignorance so profound as to be the blood sister of innocence? He wouldhave given much to know; and yet the true delicacy of a manly soul madehim hold his peace. 

Thus it befell that they drove in silence to the deserted cabin on thehillside; and Tom went down to the foundry office and brought a lamp forlight. The cabin was a mere shelter; but when he would have madeexcuses, Nan stopped him. 

"Hit's as good as I been usen to, as you know mighty well, Tom-Jeff. Ion'y wisht--"

He was on his knees at the hearth, kindling a fire, and he looked up tosee why she did not finish. She was sitting on the edge of the oldwatchman's rude bed, bowed low over the sleeping child, and again sobswere shaking her like an ague fit. There was something heartrending inthis silent, wordless anguish; but there was nothing to be said, and Tomwent on making the fire. After a little she sat up and continuedmonotonously:

"_He_ was liken to me thataway, too; the Man 'at I heard your UncleSilas tellin' about one night when I sot on the doorstep at LittleZoar--He hadn't no place to lay His'n head; not so much as the red foxes'r the birds . .. And I hain't. "

The blaze was racing up the chimney now with a cheerful roar, and Tomrose to his feet, every good emotion in him stirring to its awakening. 

"Such as it is, Nan, this place is yours, for as long as you want tostay, " he said soberly. And then: "You straighten things around here tosuit you, and I'll be back in a little while. "

He was gone less than half an hour, but in that short interval helighted another fire: a blaze of curiosity and comment to tingle theears and loosen the tongues of the circle of loungers in Hargis's storein Gordonia. He ignored the stove-hugging contingent pointedly while hewas giving his curt orders to the storekeeper; and the contingentavenged itself when he was out of hearing. 

"Te-he!" chuckled Simeon Cantrell the elder, pursing his lips around thestem of his corn-cob pipe; "looks like Tom-Jeff was goin' tohouse-keepin' right late in the evenin'. "

"By gol, I wonder what's doin'?" said another. "Reckon he's done tuk upwith Nan Bryerson, afte' all's been said an' done?"

Bastrop Clegg, whose distinction was that of being the oldest loafer inthe circle, spat accurately into the drafthole of the stove, sat backand tilted his hat over his eyes. 

"Well, boys, I reckon hit's erbout time, ain't hit?" he moralized. "Leetle Tom must be a-goin' awn two year old; and I don't recommember ezTom 'r his pappy has ever done a livin' thing for Nan. "

Whereupon one member of the group got up and addressed himself to thedoor. It was Japheth Pettigrass; and what he said was said to thestarlit night outside. 

"My Lord! that ther' boy _was_ lyin' to me, after all! I didn't believehit that night when he r'ared and took on so to me and 'lowed to chunkme with a rock, and I don't want to believe hit now. But Lordy gracious!hit do look mighty bad, with him a-buyin' all that outfit and loadin'hit in his pappy's buggy; hit do, for shore!"

A half-hour later, Brother Japheth, trudging back to Deer Trace on thepike, saw the light in the long-deserted cabin back of the new foundryplant; saw this and was overtaken at the Woodlawn gates by ThomasJefferson with Longfellow and the buggy. And he could not well helpobserving that the buggy had been lightened of its burden of householdsupplies. 

Tom turned the horse over to William Henry Harrison and went in to hisbelated dinner somberly reflective. He was not sorry to find that hismother and father had gone over to the manor-house. Solitude wasgrateful at the moment; he was glad of the chance to try to thinkhimself uninterruptedly out of the snarl of misunderstanding in whichhis impulsiveness had entangled him. 

The pointing of the thought was to see Ardea and have it out with her atonce. Reconsidered, it appeared the part of prudence to wait a little. The muddiest pool will settle if time and freedom from ill-judgeddisturbance be given it. But we, who have known Thomas Jefferson fromhis beginnings, may be sure that it was the action-thought thattriumphed. _They also serve who only stand and wait_, was meaninglesscomfort to him; and when he had finished his solitary dinner and hadchanged his clothes, he strode across the double lawns and rang themanor-house bell. 

XXIV

THE UNDER-DEPTHS

The Deer Trace family and the two guests from Woodlawn were in themusic-room when Tom was admitted, with Ardea at the piano playing warsongs for the pleasuring of her grandfather and the ex-artilleryman. Under cover of the music, Tom slipped into the circle of listeners andwent to sit beside his mother. There was a courteous hand-wave ofwelcome from Major Dabney, but Miss Euphrasia seemed not to see him. Hesaw and understood, and was obstinately impervious to the chilling eastwind in that quarter. It was with Ardea that he must make his peace, andhe settled himself to wait for his opportunity. 

It bade fair to be a long time coming. Ardea's repertoire was apparentlyinexhaustible, and at the end of an added hour he began to suspect thatshe knew what was in store for her and was willing to postpone theafflictive moment. From the battle hymns of the Confederacy to themilitant revival melodies best loved by Martha Gordon the transition waseasy; and from these she drifted through a Beethoven sonata to Mozart, and from Mozart to Chopin. 

Thomas Jefferson knew music as the barbarian knows it, which is to saythat it lighted strange fires in him; stirred and thrilled him incertain heart or soul labyrinths locked against all other influences. AsArdea's fingers sought the changing chords he felt vaguely that she wasspeaking to him, now scorning, now rebuking, now pleading, but always ina tongue that he only half comprehended. He stole a glance at his watch, impatient to come to hand-grips with her and have it over. The suspensecould not last much longer. It was past ten; the Major was dozingpeacefully in his great arm-chair, and Miss Euphrasia yawned decorouslybehind her hand. 

Ardea lingered lovingly on the closing harmonies of the nocturne, andwhen the final chord was struck her hands lingered on the keys until thesweet voices of the strings had sung themselves afar into the highersound heaven. Then she turned quickly and surprised her anesthetizedaudience. 

"You poor things!" she laughed. "In another five minutes the last one ofyou would have succumbed. Why didn't somebody stop me?"

The iron-master said something about the heavy work of the day, andhelped his wife to her feet. The Major came awake with a start andbestirred himself hospitably, and Miss Euphrasia rose to speed theparting guests--or rather the two of them who had been invited. In thedrift down the wide hall Ardea fell behind with Tom, whom CousinEuphrasia continued to ignore. 

"I came to tell you, " he said in a low tone, snatching his opportunity. "I can't sleep until I have fought it out with you. "

"You don't deserve a hearing, even from your best friend, " was herdiscouraging reply; but when they were at the door she gave him aformal reprieve. "I shall walk for a few minutes on the portico to restmy nerves, " she said. "If you want to come back--"

He thanked her gravely, and went obediently when his mother called tohim from the steps. But on the Woodlawn veranda he excused himself tosmoke a cigar in the open; and when the door closed behind the twoin-going, he swiftly recrossed the lawns to pay the penalty. 

The front door of the manor-house was shut and the broad, pillaredportico was untenanted. He sat down in one of the rustic chairs andsearched absently in his pockets for a cigar. Before he could find itthe door opened and closed and Ardea stood before him. She had thrown awrap over her shoulders, and the light from the music-room windowsilluminated her. There was cool scorn in the slate-blue eyes, but inTom's thought she had never appeared more unutterably beautiful anddesirable--and unattainable. 

"I have come, " she said, in a tone that cut him to the heart for itsvery indifference. "What have you to say for yourself?"

He rose quickly and offered her the chair; and when she would not takeit, he put his back to the wall and stood with her. 

"I'm afraid I haven't left myself much to say, " he began penitently. "Iwas born foolish, and it seems that I haven't outgrown it. But, really, if you could know--"

"Unhappily, I do know, " she interrupted. "If I did not, I might listento you with better patience. "

"It did look pretty bad, " he confessed. "And that's what I wanted tosay; it looked a great deal worse than it was, you know. "

"I _don't_ know, " she retorted. 

"You are tangling me, " he said, gaining something in self-possessionunder the flick of the whip. "First you say you know, and then you sayyou don't know. Which is which?"

"If you are flippant I shall go in, " she threatened. "There are thingsthat not even the most loyal friendship can condone. "

"That's the difference between friendship and love, " he asserted. "Ibelieve I'd enjoy a little more real confidence and a little less of thedutiful kind of loyalty. "

"You ask too much, " she said, quite coolly. "Forgiveness impliespenitence and continued good behavior. "

"No, it doesn't, anything of the kind, " he denied, matching her tone. "That is the purely pagan point of view, and you are barred from takingit. You are bound to consider the motive. "

"I am bound to believe what I see with my own eyes, " she rejoined. "Perhaps you can make it appear that seeing is not believing. "

"Of course I can't, if you take that attitude, " he complained. And thenhe said irritably: "You talk about friendship! You don't know themeaning of the word!"

"If I didn't, I should hardly be here at this moment, " she suggested. "You don't seem to apprehend to what degrading depths you have sunk. "

His sins in the business field rose before him accusingly and promptedhis reply. 

"Yes, I do; but that is another matter. We were speaking of what yousaw this evening. Will you let me try to explain?"

"Yes, if you will tell the plain truth. "

"Lacking imagination, I can't do anything else. Nan has had afalling-out with the old scamp of a moonshiner who calls himself herfather. She came to me for help, and broke down in the midst of tellingme about it. I can't stand a woman's crying any better than other men. "

The slate-blue eyes were transfixing him. 

"And that was all--absolutely all, Tom?"

"I don't lie--to you, " he said briefly. 

She gave him her hand with an impulsive return to the old comradeship. "I believe you, Tom, in the face of all the--the unlikelinesses. Butplease don't try me again. After what has happened--" she stopped indeference to something in his eyes, half anger, half bewilderment, or amost skilful simulation of both. 

"Go on, " he said; "tell me what has happened. I seem to have missedsomething. "

"No, " she said, with sudden gravity. "I don't want to be your accuser oryour confessor; and if you should try to prevaricate, I should hateyou!"

"There is nothing for me to confess to you, Ardea, " he said soberly, still holding the hand she had given him. "You have known the worst ofme, always and all along, I think. "

"Yes, I _have_ known, " she replied, freeing the imprisoned hand andturning from him. "And I have been sorry, sorry; not less for you thanfor poor Nancy Bryerson. You know now what I thought--what I _had_ tothink--when I saw you with her this evening. "

It was slowly beating its way into his brain. Little things, atoms ofsuggestion, were separating themselves from the mass of thingsdisregarded to cluster thickly on this nucleus of revealment: the oldstory of his companying with Nan on the mountain; his uncle's andJapheth's accusation at the time; and now the old moonshiner's enmity, Japheth's meaning look and distrustful silence, Nan's appearance with achild bearing his own name, the glances askance in Hargis's store whenhe was buying the little stock of necessaries for the poor outcast. Itwas all plain enough. For reasons best known to herself, Nan had notrevealed the name of her betrayer, and all Gordonia, and all Paradise, believed him to be the man. Even Ardea . .. 

She had moved aside out of the square of window light, and he followedher. 

"Tell me, " he said thickly; "you heard this: you have believed it. HaveI been misjudging you?"

"Not more than I misjudged you, perhaps. But that is all over, now: I amtrusting you again, Tom. Only, as I said before, you mustn't try me toohard. "

"Let me understand, " he went on, still in the same strained tone. "Knowing this, or believing it, you could still find a place in yourheart for me--you could still forgive me, Ardea?"

"I could still be your friend; yes, " she replied. "I believed--othersbelieved--that your punishment would be great enough; there are all thecoming years for you to be sorry in, Tom. But in the fullness of time Imeant to remind you of your duty. The time has come; you must play theman's part now. What have you done with her?"

"Wait a moment. I must know one other thing, " he insisted. "You heardthis before you went to Europe?"

"Long before. "

"And it didn't make any difference in the way you felt toward me?"

"It did; it made the vastest difference. " They were pacing slowly up anddown the portico, and she waited until they had made the turn at theWoodlawn end before she went on. "I thought I knew you when we were boyand girl together, and, girl-like, I suppose I had idealized you in someways. I thought I knew your wickednesses, and that they were notweaknesses; so--so it was a miserable shock. But it was not for me tojudge you--only as you might rise or sink from that desperate startingpoint. When I came home I was sure that you had risen; I have been sureof it ever since until--until these few wretched hours to-night. Theyare past, and now I'm going to be sure of it some more, Tom. "

It was his turn to be silent, and they had measured twice the length ofthe pillared floor when at last he said:

"What if I should tell you that you are mistaken--that all of them aremistaken?"

"Don't, " she said softly. "That would only be smashing what is left ofthe ideal. I think I couldn't bear that. "

"God in Heaven!" he said, under his breath. "And you've been callingthis friendship! Ardea, girl, it's _love_!"

She shook her head slowly. 

"No, " she rejoined gravely. "At one time I thought--I was afraid--thatit might be. But now I know it isn't. "

"How do you know it?"

"Because love, as I think of it, is stronger than the traditions, stronger than anything else in the world. And the traditions are stillwith me. I admit the existence of the social pale, and as long as I livewithin it I have a right to demand certain things of the man who marriesme. "

"And love doesn't demand anything, " he said, putting the remainder ofthe thought into words for her. "You are right. If I could clear myselfwith a word, I should not say it. "

"Why?"

"Because your--loyalty, let us call it, is too precious to be exchangedfor anything else you could give me in place of it--esteem, respect, andall the other well-behaved and virtuous bestowals. "

"But the loyalty is based on the belief that you are trying to earn thewell-behaved approvals, " she continued. 

"No, it isn't. It exists 'in spite of' everything, and not 'because of'anything. The traditions may try to make you stand it on the other leg, it's a way they have; but the fact remains. "

She shook her head in deprecation. 

"The 'traditions, ' are about to send me into the house, and theprincipal problem is yet untouched. What have you done with Nancy?"

He told her briefly and exactly, adding nothing and omitting nothing;and her word for it was "impossible. "

"Don't you understand?" she objected. "I may choose to believe thatthis home making for poor Nan and her waif is merely a bit of tardyjustice on your part and honor you for it. But nobody else will takethat view of it. If you keep her in that little cabin of yours, MountainView Avenue will have a fit--and very properly. "

"I don't see why it should, " he protested densely. 

"Don't you? That's because you are still so hopelessly primeval. Peoplewon't give you credit for the good motive; they will quote thatScripture about the dog and the sow. You must think of some other way. "

"Supposing I say I don't care a hang?"

"Oh, but you do. You have your father and mother and--and me toconsider, however reckless you may be for yourself and Nancy. Youmustn't leave her where she is for a single day. "

"I can leave her there if I like. I've told her she may stay as long asshe wants to. "

They had paused in front of the great door, and Ardea's hand was on theknob. 

"No, " she said decisively, "you will have a perfect hornets' nest aboutyour ears. Every move you make will be watched and commented on. Don'tyou see that you are playing the part of the headstrong, obstinate boyagain?"

"Yet you think I ought to provide for Nan, in some way; how am I goingto do it unless I ignore the hornets?"

"Now you are more reasonable, " she said approvingly. "I shall rideto-morrow morning, and if you should happen to overtake me, we mightthink up something. "

The door was opening gently under the pressure of her hand, but he wasloath to go. 

"I wouldn't take five added years of life for what I've learnedto-night, Ardea;" he said passionately. And then: "Have you fully madeup your mind to marry Vincent Farley?"

In the twinkling of an eye she was another woman--cold, unapproachable, with pride kindling as if she had received a mortal affront. 

"Sometimes--and they are bad times for you, Mr. Gordon--I am tempted toforget the boy-and-girl anchorings in the past. Have you no sense of thefitness of things--no shame?"

"Not very much of either, I guess, " he said quite calmly. "Love hasn'tany shame; and it doesn't concern itself much about the fitness ofanything but its object. "

And then he bade her good night and went his way with a lilting song oftriumph in his heart which not even the chilling rebuff of theleave-taking was sufficient to silence. 

"She loves me! She would still love me if she were ten times VincentFarley's wife!" he said, over and over to himself; the words were on hislips when he fell asleep, and they were still ringing in his ears thenext morning at dawn-break when he rose and made ready to go to ridewith her. 

XXV

THE PLOW IN THE FURROW

One of Miss Ardea Dabney's illuminating graces was the ability to returneasily and amicably to the _status quo ante bellum_; to "kiss and befriends, " in the unfettered phrase of Margaret Catherwood, her chum androom-mate at Carroll College. 

Wherefore, when Tom, mounted on Saladin, overtook her on the morningnext after the night of offenses, she greeted him quite as if nothinghad happened, challenging him gaily to a gallop with the valley head forits goal, and refusing to be drawn into anything more serious thanjoyous persiflage until they were returning at a walk down aboulder-strewn wood road at the back of the Dabney horse pasture. Then, and not till then, was the question of Nancy Bryerson's future sufferedto present itself. 

For Miss Dabney the question was settled before it came up fordiscussion. In the Major's young manhood Deer Trace had maintained apack of foxhounds, and it was the Major's bride, a city-bred Charlestonbelle, who first objected to the dooryard kennels and the clamor of thedogs. Back of the horse pasture, and a hundred yards vertical above theroad Ardea and Tom were traversing, a pocket-like glen indented themountain side, and in this glen the kennels had been established, witha substantial log cabin for the convenience of the dog-keeper. 

Dogs and dog-keeper had long since gone the way of most of the old-timeSouthern manorial largenesses; but the cabin still stood solidly plantedin the midst of its overgrown garden patch, with a dense thicket ofmountain laurel backgrounding it, and a giant tulip-tree standingsentinel over a gate hanging by one rusted hinge. 

This was what Tom saw when he had followed Ardea's lead up the steep bitof path climbing from the road and the pasture wall, and it evokedmemories. Often in the boyhood days, when the Nazarite fit was on, hehad climbed to the deserted solitude of the glen to sit on the broaddoor-stone of the dog-keeper's cabin as a hermit at large, --monarch forthe monastic moment of a kingdom as remote as that of John the Baptistin the Wilderness of Sin. 

"I thought of it last night, " said Ardea, nodding toward the cabin. "Itis just the place for Nancy, if she can not, or will not, go back to herfather. After breakfast, I shall send Dinah and a man up to set thingsin order, and she can come as soon as she likes. She won't mind theloneliness?"

Tom shook his head. "I should think not; she has never been used toanything else. I'll bring her and the youngster over in the buggy anytime you telephone. " He had quite forgotten his lesson of the previousevening. 

"Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind, " was the quick reply. "Japhethwill go after her when we are ready; and if you are prudently wise youwill have business in South Tredegar for the next few days. "

The blue-grass, seeded once in the dog-keeper's dooryard, had spread tothe farthest limits of the glen, and the autumn rains had given it aspring-like start. Tom let Saladin crop a dozen mouthfuls uncheckedbefore he said:

"That looks like dodging; and I don't like to dodge. "

"You will have to do many things you don't like before you say your _aveatque vale_, " she remarked. "But you shall be permitted to carry yourfull share of the burden. I mean to let you give me some money, if youcan afford it, and I'll spend it for you. "

"Charity itself couldn't be kinder, " he asseverated. "And, luckily, Ican afford it. But--"

He was looking at her wistfully, and the old longing for sympathy, forthe sympathy which has been quite to the bottom of the well where truthlies, was about to cry out against this riveting of the fetters ofmisunderstanding and false accusation. 

"But you would rather spend it yourself?" she broke in, fancying she haddivined his thought. "That cannot be. The one condition on which I shallconsent to help is the completest isolation for Nan. You must promise meyou will not try to see her. I am hoping against hope that none of theMountain View Avenue people will find out what you did last night. "

"Oh, confound their gossiping tongues!" he railed; adding hastily: "Notthat I care so very much what they say, either. "

Ardea let her horse pick his way down to the wood road, and when theywere approaching the Deer Trace gate: "You haven't promised yet, Tom;and you must, you know. "

"Not to see Nan? That's easy. I'll keep out of her way, if you can keepher out of mine. All I care is to know that she is comfortably providedfor. "

This he said, thinking only of the boy-time obligation voluntarilyassumed; but it was quite inevitable that Ardea should mistake themotive. 

"It is right and proper that you should care about that, " she saidjudicially. And a little farther along she added: "But I don't like yourattitude. "

"I don't like it myself, " he rejoined heartily. "I never wanted so badlyto say things in all my life! But you've nailed the lid on and I can't. "

"They are better unsaid, " she returned quickly. "Will you take that foryour cue in the future?"

"Certainly; it is for you to command, " he said lightly, swinging fromhis saddle to open the pasture gate for her; and so the morning ridecame to its end. 

Since provincialism is by no means the exclusive distinction of thelandward bred, there was an immediate restirring of the gossip pool whenthe story of Tom's befriending of Nancy Bryerson and her child gotabroad in Gordonia and among the country colonists. 

In the comment of the simpler-minded Gordonia folk, the iron-master'sson had finally "made it up" with Nancy, and here the note of approvalwas not wholly lacking. There were good-hearted souls to say that boyswill be boys, and to express the hope that Tom would go on from thisbeginning and make an honest woman of Nancy by marrying her. 

Quite naturally, the point of view of the country-house people wasdifferent; more critical, if not less charitable. Though the socialacceptance of the Gordons, as an ancient family, as friends of theDabneys, and as land-holding neighbors was fairly complete, it stilllacked somewhat of the class kinship which breeds leniency and theclosed eye to the sins of its own household. But for Tom, personally, asa distinct social improvement on honest Caleb, the welcome into thecharmed circle of Mountain View Avenue had been warm enough to make hissudden apparent relapse into the primitive figure as an affront to thecolony. Hence, there were rods laid in pickle for the sinner, as whenMrs. Vancourt Henniker gave the footman at Rook Hill a hint that for thepresent the Misses Henniker were not at home to Mr. Thomas Gordon; andif Tom had known it, there were other and similar chastenings lying inwait for him behind more of the colonial doors. 

But Tom did not know it. He was in the crucial month of the panic year, striving desperately to maintain the foothold given to him by thepipe-casting invention, and he had little time for the amenities. So itcame about that he escaped for the moment; or, which was quite the same, he did not know he was pursued. Another Northern city, with its fullcomplement of grafting officials, was in the market for some train-loadsof water-mains, and again Thomas Jefferson was fighting the old battleof conscience against expediency, this time in the evil-smelling ditcheswhere the dead and wounded lie. 

"You are sure you went into it thoroughly, Norman?" he demanded of hislieutenant, when the latter returned from a personal reconnaissance ofthe field. "The break they are making at us seems almost too rank to betaken at its face value. "

"Oh, yes; I dug it up from the bottom, " said the henchman. "It's rottenand riotous. The political machine runs the town, and the bosses own themachine. So much to this one, so much to that, so much to half a dozenothers, and we get the contract. Otherwise, most emphatically _nit_. "

"That comes straight, does it?"

"As straight as a shot out of a gun. They got together on it, eight ofthe big bosses, called me in and told me flat-footed what we had to do, "said the salesman. "Oh, I tell you, those fellows are on to their job. "

"No chance to go behind the returns and stir up popular indignation, aswe did in Indiana?" suggested Tom. 

"No show on top of earth. The ring owns or controls two of the dailies, and has the other two scared. Besides, they've just had their municipalelection. "

The Gordon-and-Gordon manager was absently jabbing holes in the deskblotter with the paper-knife. 

"Well, we can do what we have to, I suppose, " he said, after a hesitantpause. "Say nothing to my father, but make your arrangements to take thetrain for the North again to-night. I'll meet you in town at theMarlboro at four o'clock. "

To prepare for the new exigency, Tom took the afternoon local for SouthTredegar. The lump sum required for the bribery was considerably inexcess of his balance in bank. Notwithstanding the stringency of thetimes, he made sure he could borrow; but it was in some vague hope thatthe moral chasm might be widened to impassibility, or decently bridgedfor him, that he was moved to state the case in detail to PresidentHenniker of the Iron City National. Mr. Vancourt Henniker could digditches, on occasion, making them too vast for the boldest borrower tocross; but Tom's credit was gilt-edged, and in the present instance thepresident chose rather to build bridges. 

"We have to shut our eyes to a good many disagreeable things inbusiness, Mr. Gordon, " he said, genially didactic. "Our problem in thisday and generation is so to draw the line of distinction that thesenecessary concessions to human frailty will not debauch us; may be madewithout prejudice to that high sense of personal honor and integritywhich must be the corner-stone of any successful business career. Thisstate of affairs which you describe is deplorable--most deplorable;but--well, we may think of such obstacles as we do of toll-gates on thehighway. The road is a public utility, and it should be free; but we paythe toll, under protest, and pass on. "

Mr. Henniker was a large man, benign and full-favored, not to sayunctuous; and his manner in delivering an opinion was blandlyimpressive, and convincing to many. Yet Tom was not convinced. 

"Of course, I came to ask for the loan, and not specially to justifyit, " he said, in mild irony which was quite lost on the philosopher inthe president's chair. "I wasn't sure just how you would regard it ifyou should know the object for which we are borrowing, and this highsense of personal honor you speak of impelled me to be altogether frankwith you. "

"Quite right; you were quite right, Mr. Gordon, " said the bankerurbanely. "You are young in business, but you have learned the firstlesson in the book of success--to be perfectly open and outspoken withyour banker. As I have said, the venality of these men with whom you aredealing is most deplorable, but. .. . "

There was some further glozing over of the putrid fact, a good bit ofit, and Tom sat back in his chair and listened, outwardly respectful, inwardly hot-hearted and contemptuous. Was this smooth-spoken, oracularprince of the market-place a predetermined hypocrite, shaping his wordsto fit the money-gathering end without regard to their demoralizingeffect? Or was he only a subconscious Pharisee, self-deceived andcomplacent? Tom's thought ran lightning-like over the long list of theVancourt Hennikers: men of the business world successful to the Croesusmark, large and liberal benefactors, founders of colleges, libraries andhospitals, gift-givers to their fellow men, irreproachable in privatelife, and yet apparently stone blind on the side of the larger equities. Could it be possible that such men deliberately admitted and acceptedthe double standard in morals? It seemed fairly incredible, and yettheir lives appeared to proclaim it. 

When the president had finished his apology for those who bow the headin the house of Rimmon, Tom rose to take his bit of approved paperaround to the cashier's window. The bridge was built, and he meant tocross it; but he was honest enough, or blunt enough, to give his ownpoint of view in a crisp sentence or two. 

"I wish I could look at it in some such way as you do, Mr. Henniker, butI can't, " he objected. "To me it is just plain bribery; the corruptingof officials who have sworn, among other things, to administer theiroffices honestly. I'm immoral, or unmoral, enough to yield to theapparent necessity, but it is quite without prejudice to a firmconviction that I am no better than the men I am going to purchase. "

Having obtained the sinews of war, he kept the appointment with Norman, and their joint discussion of the business situation made him too latefor the early dinner at Woodlawn. To complete the delay, the eveningtrain lost half an hour with a hot box at a point a mile short ofGordonia. Two things came of these combined time-killings: a man in aslouched hat and the brown jeans of the mountaineers, who had beenwatching the Woodlawn gates since dusk from his hiding-place behind thefield wall across the pike, got up stiffly and went away; and Tomreached home just in time to intercept Ardea on the steps of thepicturesque veranda. 

"Been visiting the little mother?" he asked, when she paused on the stepabove him. 

"Yes--no; I ran over to tell you that we moved Nancy to-day. "

"Oh! Well, that's comfortable. She was willing?"

"Y-es: almost, at first; and altogether willing when I told her thatI--that she--" There was an embarrassed moment and then the truth cameout. "Perhaps I should have asked you first: but she was quite satisfiedwhen I told her that she owed her changed condition to the person whoseduty it was to provide for her. You don't mind, do you?"

The question was almost a beseechment; but Tom was thinking of somethingelse. 

"No, I don't mind, " he said absently, and the under-thought dealtsavagely with Nan--with a woman who, for the sake of the loaves and thefishes, and the shielding of the real offender, would suffer an innocentman to go to the social gallows for lack of the word which would havecleared him. He laughed rather bitterly and added, out of the heart ofthe under-thought: "I'm glad I'm not naturally inclined to bepessimistic. "

"What makes you say that?"

"Because, after hearing"--he changed his mind suddenly, and transferredthe hard word from Nan to Mr. Vancourt Henniker--"after what I've beenhearing this afternoon I find myself more in the notion of weeping withthe angels than of laughing with the devils. "

"What has happened?" she asked, sympathetically alive to his need in onebreath, and keenly apprehensive for her own peace of mind in the next. 

"An exceedingly small thing, as the world's measurements go. I was intown, and made a business call on Mr. Henniker. He's a member of yourchurch, isn't he?"

"Of St. Michael's in the city, " she corrected. "You know I claimmembership here at home in St. John's. "

"Well, it's all the same. He is what you would call a Christian man, Itake it?"

"Why not?" she demanded. "What has he done to make you doubt it?"

"Oh, nothing worth mentioning, perhaps. I needed some money to bribe alot of political grafters in a Pennsylvania city where I'm trying tosell a bill of water-pipe. I went to Mr. Henniker to borrow it. "

"And, of course, he wouldn't let you have it for any such wretchedpurpose!" she flamed out. 

"No, you are mistaken; it's just the other way around. I told him whatit was for, hoping rather vaguely, I think, that he'd sit on me and makethe crime impossible. But he didn't. "

"You don't mean that he lent you the money after you had told him whatyou purposed doing with it?" It was too dark for him to see her face, but there was something like a breath-catching of horror in her voice. 

"I'm sorry it shocks you, but he did. More than that, he took thetrouble to try to explain away my scruples; made it seem quite avirtuous thing before he got through. You wouldn't believe it now, wouldyou?"

"But, Tom! you didn't take the money?"

"How could I refuse so good a man? Norman is on his way to Pennsylvaniaat this present moment, with a letter of credit in his pocket big enoughto make the mouth of even a professional grafter water. At least, I hopeit is big enough. "

She was hurt, shocked, horrified, and he knew it and found pleasure of acertain sort in the knowledge. When a man has done violence to his ownbest impulses, the thing that comes nearest to the holy joy of penitenceis the unholy joy of making somebody else sorry for him. There wereunmistakable tears in her voice when she said:

"Tom, why have you told me this--this unspeakable thing?"

"Why--I guess it was because I wanted to ask you how you supposed theMr. Henniker kind of men square such things with their conscience; ordon't they have any conscience?"

"That is _not_ the reason, " she faltered. 

"You are right, " he rejoined quickly. "It was diabolism pure andunstrained. I had hurt myself, and I wanted to pass it along--to hurtsome one else. But it is too cold to keep you standing here. Won't youcome in again?"

"No; I must go home. " And she went down the broad steps. 

He drew her arm through his and walked with her, down one grassy slopeand up the other. At the manor-house steps he found at last sufficientgrace to say: "It was a currish thing to do; will you forgive me, Ardea?"

"I don't know, " she said, in a tone that thrilled him curiously. "Suchthings are hard to forgive. I don't mean your slapping me in the facewith it, that is nothing. But to know that you have gone so far aside. .. That you have sunk your manhood and all the promise of it. .. . "

He nodded perfect intelligence. "I know; it's hell, Ardea. I've beenfrizzling in it for the past six months, more or less; ever since I camehome with the one sole, single determination to climb out of the panicditch if I had to make steps of dead bodies or lost souls. I'm doing it, and I'm paying the price. Sometimes I can find it in my heart to cursethe mistaken mother-love that gave me to eat of the fruit of the tree ofthe knowledge of good and evil. I'm pagan in all else, but I can't sinlike a pagan. Why is it? Why can't I be a smug, peaceful, sound-sleepingscoundrel like other men?"

She was standing on the step above him, as she had stood on the otherside of the two dew-wet lawns. 

"I have a theory, " she rejoined, "but you wouldn't accept it. You'llnever be able to do wrong without paying for it. Is it worth while totry?"

"Nothing is worth while--nothing at all. I don't mean that I'm going toquit; I shall doubtless go on trampling and grinding the face of thepoor, and the rich, if they come in my way. But at the end of the ends Ishall curse God and die, as Job's wife wanted him to. "

She put her hands on his shoulders impulsively, and again the tears werein her voice. 

"What can I say to help you, Tom? God knows I would do anything that atrue friend may do!"

He freed himself of the touch of her hands, but very gently. 

"There might have been a thing; but you have made it impossible. No, don't freeze me again--it's the last time. If I could have won your love. .. But what is the use of trying to put it in words; you know--you havealways known. And now it is too late. "

For a single instant Vincent Farley's chance of marrying the Deer Tracecoal lands trembled in the balance. Ardea forgot him, forgot Nan, thought of nothing but the passionate yearning that was drawing her likegripping hands toward the man who had bared his inmost heart to her. Again she leaned on him with a touch so light that he scarcely felt it, and her lips brushed his forehead. 

"It is not too late for you to be a man, noble, upright, honorable. Letthe world find that for which it is looking, my friend--my brother: thestrong man armed who can stand where others faint and fall. Oh, I wish Iknew how to say the word that would make you the man you were meant tobe!"

When it was said, she was gone and the sound of the closing door was inhis ears when he turned and went slowly down the driveway and out on thewhite pike, lying like a snowy ribbon under the December stars. On thehighway he hung undecided for a moment; but an hour later, WilliamLayne, driving homeward from South Tredegar, overtook him ploddingslowly southward far beyond the head of Paradise; and it was nearingmidnight when he won back, pacing steadily past the Deer Trace andWoodlawn gates and holding his way down the pike to Gordonia. 

The railway station was his goal; and when he had aroused the sleepynight operator and gained admittance, he sat at the telegraph table towrite a message. It was to Norman, addressed to intercept the salesmanat the breakfast stop. 

"Cancel Pennsylvania date and come in at once to take managership ofplant, " was the wording of it; and at the breakfast-table the followingmorning Tom announced his intention of leaving the industrial plow inthe furrow while he should go to Boston to complete his course in thetechnical school. 

XXVI

AS WITH A MANTLE

The month of March in the great, southward-reaching bight of theTennessee River is the pattern and form of fickleness climatic. Normallyit is the time of starting sap and swelling buds and steaming leaf bedsodorous of spring; the month when the migratory crows wing their flightnorthward, and Nature, lightest of winter sleepers in the azurinelatitudes, stirs to her vernal awakening. None the less, in theTennessee March the orchardist, watching the high-blown clouds in skiesof the softest blue, is glad if the peach buds are slow in responding tothe touch of the wooing airs, or, chewing a black birch twig as he makesthe leisurely round of his line fence, warns his gardening neighbor thatit is too early to plant beans. True, the poplars may be showing a tingeof green, and the buds of the hickory may have lighted their tiny candleflames on the winter-bared boughs; but the "blackberry winter" is yet tocome, and there are rigorous possibilities still lingering in thehigh-flying clouds and the sudden-shifting winds. 

It was on the fourth Sunday in the month that Ardea rose early and wentfasting to the communion service at St. John's-in-Paradise. Primarily, St. John's was merely the religious factor in Mr. Duxbury Farley'sscheme of country-colony promotion, and for the greater part of the yearits silver-toned bell was silent and its appeal was mainly to theartistic eye. But latterly St. Michael's, the mother church in SouthTredegar, had attained a new assistant rector whose zeal was not yetdulled by apathetic unresponsiveness on the part of the to-be-helped. Hence St. Michael's various missions flourished for the time, and once amonth, if not oftener, the bell of St. John's sent its note abroad onthe still morning air of Paradise. 

On this particular Sunday morning Ardea was early at the church, and shewas glad she had decided to wear her cloth gown. It had turned cooler inthe night and the azure March sky was hidden behind a gray cloud masswhich hung low on the slopes of the mountain. There was no fire in thechurch heater; and the few worshipers--the Vancourt Henniker girls, thetwo Misses Harrison, John Young-Dickson, of The Dell, dragged out at thechilly hour by his new wife, and Mrs. Schuyler Farnsworth and herdaughter, all of the country-house colony beyond the creek--sat orknelt, and shivered through the service in decorous discomfort. 

Miss Dabney was not looking quite as well as usual, as Miss BetsyHarrison remarked to her sister, Miss Willie, in a church whisper. Shehad grown thinner during the winter, and though the slate-blue eyes wereas clear and steadfast as before, there was a strained look in them likethat in the eyes of the spent runner. Mountain View Avenue, rurallyalert for something to talk about, decided it was trouble rather thanill health. Miss Eva Farley corresponded with Jessica Farnsworth, andthere had been European hints of an understanding between Vincent andArdea. Coupling this with young Gordon's ostentatious devotion, Nan'sappearance, and Tom's sudden determination to go back to college, therewas the groundwork for a very pretty story which sufficiently accountedfor Miss Dabney's changed looks and for her growing reluctance to beincluded in the country colony's social divagations. She was engaged toone man and in love with another, who was clearly ineligible--this wasthe Mountain View Avenue summing-up of the matter; and some condemnedand some pitied, and all were careful not to step within the barrier ofaloofness with which Miss Dabney had of late surrounded herself. 

On this Sunday morning of weather portents it chanced to be Ardea's turnto entertain the young minister, or rather to give him his breakfastafter the service; and she waited for him in the vestibule after theothers had gone. The outer doors were open, and she could see the graycloud mass feathering on its under side and creeping lower on the slopesof Lebanon in every stormy gust of the chill wind. 

"It was prudent to bring your overcoat this morning, Mr. Morelock, " shesaid, when her guest emerged from the vesting-room with his cassock in aneat bundle under his arm. "If I'd had any idea it would turn cold sofast, I should have had the carriage come for us. "

"Indeed, my dear Miss Dabney, if you could walk to church, I'm sure Ican walk home with you, " was the ready response; nevertheless, therather fragile-looking young man shuddered a little in sympathy with therawness of the wind. He was from well-sheltered New England, and he hadnot yet acquired the native Southron's indifference to weatherdiscomforts; would never acquire them this side of a consumptive'sgrave, it was to be feared. 

"The attendance was pretty good for such a disagreeable morning, don'tyou think?" Ardea ventured, trying to make talk as they breasted thegusts together on the Deer Trace side of the pike. 

The young missioner shook his head rather despondently. "There areEnglish churchmen among the English and Welsh miners at Gordonia, --quitea number of them, " he rejoined. "Not one of them was present. "

It was the clear-sighted inner Ardea that smiled. There was little inthe stately service and luxurious appointments of the country colony'schurch to attract the working-men, and much to repel them. She wonderedthat Mr. Morelock, young as he was, did not understand this. 

"The mission of St. John's is hardly to the working people of Gordonia, is it?" she said, more in exculpation than in criticism. 

"Oh, my dear young lady! the church knows no class distinctions!"protested the zealous one warmly. "Her call is to rich and poor, gentleand simple, young and old alike; and it is imperative. I must make around of visitation among these miners at the very first opportunity. "

Ardea bent low to the buffet of a stronger blast and fought for a momentwith her clinging skirts. When she had breath to say it, she said: "Willyou really do that? Then let me tell you how. Come out here someweek-day in your roughest clothes, and make your round among the menwhile they are at work in the mine. They will listen to you then. "

"Bless me! what an idea!" he gasped. 

"It is not original with me, " was the gentle reply. "You will rememberthat the example was set a good many hundred years ago among thefishermen of Galilee. And, after all, Mr. Morelock, it is the only way. You can not reach down to a living soul on this earth--that is worthsaving. "

It had begun to rain in spiteful little dashes and squalls, and theclergyman was turning up the collar of his overcoat and buttoning itabout his throat. Moreover, the wind had risen to half a gale, andtalking was difficult when it was not wholly impossible. But when theyreached the Deer Trace gates and the shelter of the driveway evergreens, he had a defensive word ready. 

"I can't fully agree with you, you know, Miss Ardea, " he said. "Ofcourse, we must not reach down in the Pharisaical sense. But neithermust we lower the dignity of the sacred calling. "

Her smile was neither disloyal nor cynical; it was merely pitying. Shewas thinking in her heart of hearts how much this zealous young apostlehad yet to learn. 

"Do you call it undignified to be a man among men?" she asked; addingquickly: "But I know you don't. And what other way is open to the truebrother-helper?"

"There is the church and its ministrations, " he began, but she broke in. 

"To get the drowning man ashore you have first to go down into the waterand lay hold of him, Mr. Morelock. That means personal contact, personalassociation. "

The young man was clearly bewildered. His experience thus far had notbeen enriched by many intimacies with clear-eyed young women who calmlydefined the larger humanities for him. 

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand your point of view, " he demurred. 

"Don't you? I'm not sure that I can explain just what I mean. But itseems to me that really to help any one, you must know that one; notsuperficially, as people meet in ordinary ways, but intimately. And youcan't hope to do that if you hold aloof; if you--if you--pose as aminister all the time. " The word was not flattering, but she could layhold of no other. 

"Oh, I hope I don't do that!" he laughed. "But to creep aroundunderground in a sooty coal-mine, a laughing-stock to those who know howto do it--er--professionally--"

"The men have to do it as breadwinners, Mr. Morelock, and the mostribald one of them wouldn't laugh at you. I wouldn't be afraid topromise that you could fill St. John's, forbidding as its atmosphere isto the average working-man, the very next Sunday after such avisitation. "

Now this young zealot was a man of imagination, hidebound only in histraditions. Also, he was not above taking ideas where he found them. 

"Really, Miss Dabney, I'm not sure but you have hold of the matter atthe practical end, " he conceded. "I--I'd like to talk with you furtherabout it, when we have time. Do you suppose I could get permission to gointo the mines during working-hours?"

"Certainly you could--for the mere asking. We can speak to Mr. CalebGordon about it after breakfast, if you wish. My! doesn't that rainsting! I'm glad we are at home. "

"Yes; and it is freezing as it falls. At home in New England we shouldsay it was too cold to rain. "

"It is never too cold or too anything to rain here, " she said; and shelet him take her arm to help her up the slippery stone steps to thestately portico. 

A moment later the hospitable door of the manor house yawned for them, and the warmth of the Major's welcome, the light and glow of thecrackling wood fires, and the solid comfort of surrounding stone wallssoon banished the memory of the small struggle with the elements. 

"Oh, my deah suh! you are not going back to town this mo'ning!"protested the warm-hearted Major Caspar, as the quartet was rising fromthe breakfast-table an hour later. "Why, bless youh soul! I wouldn'tthink of letting you go from undeh my roof in such weatheh as this! Tellhim it's his duty to stay, Ardea, my deah; persuade him that he'll nevehhave a betteh oppo'tunity to wrestle with the wickedest old sinner inParadise Valley. "

Young Mr. Morelock objected, zealously at first, but less strenuouslywhen Ardea drew the sash curtain and showed him the ice crust already aninch thick, coating tree trunk and twig, grass blade and graveleddriveway. 

"I doubt very much if the horses could keep their footing; and it isquite out of the question for you to walk to Gordonia, " she decided. "Wehave the long-distance, and you can explain matters to Doctor Channing. "

The young man called up St. Michael's rectory and explained first, andsmoked companionably with the Major in the library afterward. Furtheralong, there was a one-sided discussion polemical, it being meat anddrink to Major Caspar to ensnare a young theologian to his discomfiturein the unaxiomatic field of religion. Ardea was in and out of thelibrary frequently while the discussion was in progress, but she hadlittle to say; indeed, there was scant room for a third when the Majorwas once well warmed to his favorite relaxation. But Morelock remarkedas he might, in the few breathing-spaces allowed him by his host, thatMiss Dabney seemed restless and anxious about something, and that shespent much of the time at the windows watching the steady growth of theice sheet. 

After luncheon they all gathered in the deep-recessed window of themusic-room which commanded a view of the groved pasture with itsbackground of mountain slope and precipice. The rain was still falling, and the temperature remained at the freezing-point, but the wind hadgone down and the slow, measured swaying of the trees under the weightof the thickening armor of ice was portentous of disaster, if theweather conditions should continue unchanged. 

But as yet the storm was only in the magnificent stage. Far and near, the outdoor world was a world of cold, white crystal, gleaming pure andunsullied under the gray skies. Even the blackened tree trunks had theirshining panoply of silver; and from the eaves of the projecting window afringe of huge icicles was lengthening drop by drop. 

Miss Euphrasia thought of her roses, already in leaf, and refused to beenthusiastic over the supernal beauty of the crystalline stage settings. Major Caspar was anxious about the pasturing stock, and was relievedwhen Japheth Pettigrass came in sight, leading a slipping, slidingcavalcade of terrified horses to shelter in the great stables. The youngclergyman's thoughts were with the ill-housed poor of the South Tredegarparish; and Ardea's--?

Young Mr. Morelock put his private anxieties aside in deference to thegrowing terror in the eyes of his young hostess. He had known her but ashort time, meeting her only as his St. John's-in-Paradise duties gavehim opportunity; but from the first she had stood to him as a type ofwomanly serenity and fortitude. Yet now she was visibly terrified anddistressed, and the clergyman wondered. She had never before given himthe impression that she belonged to the storm-fearing group of women. 

"Can't we have a little music, Miss Ardea?" he asked, after a while, hoping to suggest a comforting diversion. 

"You will have to excuse me, " she said, in a low voice. "I--I think I amnot quite well. "

Cousin Euphrasia overheard the admission and recommended the quiet of upstairs, drawn curtains and possets. But Ardea let the suggestion fall tothe ground, and a little while afterward Morelock surprised her at herforenoon occupation of going from window to window, with the look ofdistress rising to sharp agony when the overladen trees began to groanand crack under the crushing ice burden. 

"What is it, Miss Dabney?" he said, out of the heart of sympathy, whenhe came on her alone in the library. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes, " she rejoined quickly. "The moment the storm subsides even alittle, I must go out. My excuse will be a desire to see, a thirst forfresh air--anything; and you must abet me if there is any opposition. "

"But I thought you were afraid of the storm, " he interposed. 

"I? I should be out in it this minute if I thought grandfather wouldn'tbe tempted to lock me in my room for proposing such a thing. And I_must_ go before dark, whatever happens. "

The young man from New England was a gentleman born. He neither askedquestions nor raised objections. 

"Of course, you may command me utterly, " he said warmly. "I'll help; andI'll go with you, if you will let me. "

"That is what I want, " she said frankly. "Will you propose it? I--Ican't explain, even to my cousin. "

"Certainly, " he agreed; and a little later, when the temperature droppedthe necessary three degrees and the rain stopped, he calmly announcedhis intention of taking Miss Ardea out to see the devastation which, bythis time, was beginning to be apparent on all sides. 

There was a protest, as a matter of course, quite shrill on the part ofMiss Euphrasia, but not absolutely prohibitory on the Major's. Morelocksaw to it that his charge was well wrapped; in her haste and agitationArdea would have overlooked the common precautions. They used the sidedoor for a sally-port, and were soon slipping and sliding almosthelplessly across the lawn. Walking was next to impossible, and thecrashes of falling branches and trees came like the detonations ofquick-firing guns. The minister locked arms with the determined youngwoman at his side and picked the way for her as he could. 

"This is something awful for you, " he said, when they had covered halfthe distance to the nearest pasture wall. "Does the necessity warrantit?"

"It does, " she rejoined; and they pressed on in awe-inspired silence tothe gate which opened on the pasture grove. 

The quarter of a mile intervening between the gate and that side of theinclosure bounded by the lower slope of the mountain was truly a passageperilous. A dozen times in the crossing Ardea fell, and so far frombeing able to save her, Morelock could do no more than fall with her. Once a great limb of a spreading oak split off with a clashing of iceand came sweeping down to give them the narrowest of escapes; and afterthat they kept the open where they might. 

At a rude rock stile over the limestone boundary wall at the mountain'sfoot they paused to take breath. 

"Is there much more of it?" asked the escort, regretting for the firsttime in his life, perhaps, that he had so studiously ignored theathletic side of his seminary training. 

"The distance is nothing, " she panted. "But we must take the path for alittle way up the mountain. No, don't tell me it can't be done; it_must_ be done, "--this in answer to his dubious scanning of the glassyascent. 

Again his good breeding asserted itself. 

"Certainly it can be done, if you so desire. " And he picked up a stoneand patiently hammered the ice from the steps of the stile so she couldcross in safety. 

It was no more than a three-hundred-yard dash up the slope to thedog-keeper's cabin in the little glen, but it was a fight for inches. Every stone, every hand-hold of bush or shrub or tuft of dried grass wasan icy treachery. Ardea knew the mountain and the path, and was lesshelpless than she would otherwise have been; yet she was willing toconfess that she could never have done it alone. With all their care andcaution they were exhausted and breathless when they topped theacclivity and Morelock saw the cabin in the pocket cove, with the greattulip-tree in the dooryard bending and distorted and groaning like aliving thing in agony. 

"Isn't it terrible!" he said; but Ardea's glance had gone beyond thetortured tree to the shuttered windows and smokeless chimney of thecabin. 

"Oh, let us hurry!" she gasped; but at the gate of the tiny dooryard shestopped in sudden embarrassment. "I can't take you into the house, Mr. Morelock. Will you wait for me here--just a moment?"

He said "Certainly, " as he had been saying it from the first. But it wasquite without prejudice to a healthy and growing curiosity. The smalladventure was taking on an air of mystery which thickened momently, demanding insistently a complete rearrangement of his preconceivednotions of Miss Ardea Dabney. 

She left him at once and made her way cautiously to the ice-encrusteddoor-stone. What she saw, when she lifted the wooden latch and entered, was what she had been praying she might not see. 

On the small hearth was a heap of white ashes, dead and cold, and thetomb-like chill of the tightly-closed room was benumbing. Asleep in thefireplace corner, his little knees drawn up to his chin and his facestreaked with the dried tears, was the three-year-old baby who bore TomGordon's name. And on the bed in the recess at the back of the room, herhands clenched and her passionate face a mask of long-continued agony, lay the mother. 

Ardea was white to the lips and trembling when she retreated to thedoor-stone and beckoned to her companion. 

"Can you find the way back to Deer Trace alone?" she faltered. "There istrouble here, as I feared there might be--terrible trouble andsuffering. Say to my cousin that I must have Aunt Eliza, if she has tocrawl here on her hands and knees. Then telephone for Doctor Williams, at Gordonia. He'll come if you tell him the message is from me. Oh, please go, quickly!"

[Illustration: "Oh, please go quickly!"]

He was waiting only for her to finish. 

"Is it quite safe for you here?" he asked. 

"Quite; but I shall die of impatience if you don't hurry!" Then her goodblood made its protest heard. "Oh, please forgive me! I don't forgetthat you are my guest, but--"

"Not a word, Miss Dabney. Shall I come back here with the woman or thedoctor?"

"No; I'll send for you if--if there is no hope. Otherwise you could donothing. "

He lifted his hat and was gone, and she turned and reëntered the houseof trouble, bravely facing that which had to be faced. 

An hour later, when Doctor Williams, with Mammy Juliet's Pete choppingthe way for him up the hazardous path, reached the end of his journey ofmercy, there was a bright fire crackling on the hearth, and Miss Dabneywas sitting before it, holding little Tom, who was still sleeping. AuntEliza, a deft middle-aged negress who had succeeded Mammy Juliet ashousekeeper at Deer Trace, was bending over the bed, and the physicianwent quickly to stand beside her, shaking his head dubiously. A momentafterward he turned short on Ardea. 

"You must go home, my dear--at once--and take the child with you. Peteis outside to help you, and my buggy is just at the foot of the path. Ican't have you here. "

"Can't I be of some use if I stay?" she pleaded. 

"No; you'd only hinder. You are much too sympathetic. Don't delay; theminutes may count for lives, " and the physician began to unbuckle thestraps of the canvas-covered case he had brought with him. 

Ardea wrapped the child hastily and gave him to Pete to carry, followingas quickly as she could down the path made possible by the coachman'schoppings. Happily, the doctor's horse was freshly shod, and thequarter-mile to the manor-house was measured in safety. Ardea leftlittle Tom with Mammy Juliet at her cabin in the old quarters, and wentup to the great house to wait anxiously for news. It was drawing on tothe early dusk of the cloudy evening when she saw from the window of themusic-room the muffled figure of Pete opening the pasture gate for thedoctor to drive through. Instantly she flew to the door and out on thesteps. 

"Go in, child; go in, " was the fatherly command. "I've got to stop totake Morelock in. I promised to carry him to the station. "

"But Nancy?" she questioned anxiously. 

"She will live, " said the doctor briefly. And then he added with afrown: "But the child may not--which would doubtless be the best thingpossible for all concerned. I'm afraid the woman is incorrigible. " Thenthe professional part of him came to its own again: "You'll have to sendsomebody up there to relieve Eliza. Care is all that is needed now, butit mustn't be stinted. "

There were tears standing in the slate-blue eyes of the listener, butDoctor Williams did not see them. If he had, he would not haveunderstood; neither would he have plumbed the depths of misery in thatwhispered saying of Ardea's as she turned and fled to her room: "O Tom!how could you! how could you!"

XXVII

SWEPT AND GARNISHED

Thomas Jefferson Gordon, Bachelor of Science, and one of the sixprize-men in his class, was expected home on the first day of July; andit was remarked as a coincidence by the curious that Deer Tracemanor-house was closed for the summer no more than a week before thereturn of the Gordon black sheep. 

That Tom was a black sheep, a hopeless and incorrigible socialiconoclast, was no longer a matter of doubt in the minds of any. Something may be forgiven a promising young man who has been unhappyenough, or imprudent enough, to begin to make history for himself in theirresponsible 'teens; but also the act of oblivion may be repealed. Whenit became noised about that there were two children instead of one inthe old dog-keeper's cabin in the glen, Mountain View Avenue was justlyindignant, and even the lenient Gordonians scowled and shook their headsat the mention of the young boss's name. All the world loves a lover, asin just measure it despises a libertine; and there were fathers ofdaughters among the miner and foundry folk of the town. 

On the lips of the transplanted urbanites of the hill houses comment wasless elemental, but no less condemnatory. It was no wonder the Dabneyshad closed their house and had gone to Crestcliffe Inn to save Ardea thehumiliation of having to meet Tom before she was safely married toVincent Farley. It was what any self-respecting young woman would wishunder like trying conditions. The country colony approved; likewise, itcommended Miss Dabney's foresight and prudence in causing the Bryersonwoman and her two children to disappear from the cabin in the glen;though Mrs. Vancourt Henniker, in secret session over the tea-cups withthe elder Miss Harrison, voiced her surprise that Ardea could continueto be charitable in that quarter. 

"It is quite beyond me, " was the matron's thin-lipped phrasing of it. "When one remembers that this wretched mountain girl has been Ardea'sunderstudy from the very beginning--faugh! it is simply disgusting! Ishould think Ardea would never want to see or hear of her again. "

To such an atmosphere of potential social ostracism Tom returned afterthe final scholastic triumph in Boston; and for the first few days heescaped asphyxiation chiefly because the affairs of Gordon and Gordonand the Chiawassee Consolidated gave him no time to test its quality. 

But after the first week he began to breathe it unmistakably. Oneevening he called on the Farnsworths; the ladies were not at home tohim. The next night he saddled Saladin and rode over to Fairmont; theMisses Harrison were also unable to see him, and the butler conveyed adeftly-worded intimation pointing to future invisibilities on the partof his mistresses. The evening being still young, Tom tried Rockwoodand the Dell, suspicion settling into conviction when the trimmaidservant at the Stanley villa went near to shutting the door in hisface. At the Dell he fared a little better. The Young-Dicksons weregoing out for an after-dinner call on one of the neighbors, and Tom metthem at the gate as he was dismounting. There were regrets apparentlyhearty; but in recasting the incident later, Tom remembered that it wasthe husband who did the talking, and that Mrs. Young-Dickson stood inthe shadow of the gate tree, frigidly silent and with her face averted. 

"Once more, old boy, and then we'll quit, " he said to Saladin at theremounting, and the final rein-drawing was at the stone-pillared gatesof Rook Hill. Again the ladies were not at home, but Mr. VancourtHenniker came out and smoked a cigar with his customer on the piazza. The talk was pointedly of business, and the banker was urbanelygracious--and mildly inquisitive. Would there be a consolidation of theallied iron industries of Gordonia when the Farleys should return? Mr. Henniker thought it would be undeniably profitable to all concerned, andoffered his services as financiering promoter and intermediary. WouldMr. Gordon come and talk it over with him--at the bank?

Tom found his father smoking a bedtime pipe on the picturesque verandaat Woodlawn when he reached home. Whistling for William Henry Harrisonto come and take his horse, he drew up one of the porch chairs andfilled and lighted his own pipe. For a time there was such silence asstands for communion between men of one blood, and it was the father whofirst broke it. 

"Been out callin', son?" he asked, marking the Tuxedo and the whiteexpanse of shirt front. 

"No, I reckon not, " was the reply, punctuated by a short laugh. "TheAvenue seems to be depopulated. "

"So? I hadn't heard of anybody goin' away, " said Caleb the literal. 

"Nor I, " said Tom curtly; and the conversation paused until theiron-master had deliberately refilled and lighted his corn-cob. 

"It's a-plenty onprofitable, Buddy, don't you reckon?" he ventured, referring to the social diversion. 

There was a picric quality in Tom's tone when he replied: "The callingact?--I have certainly found it so to-night. " Then, more humanely: "Butas a means of relaxation it beats sitting here in the dark and stewingover to-morrow's furnace run--which is what you've been doing. "

Caleb chuckled. "That's one time you missed the whole side o' the barn, Buddy. I was settin' here wonderin' if a man ever did get over bein'surprised at the way his children turn out. "

"Meaning me?" said Tom, knocking the ash from his pipe and feeling inhis pockets for a cigar. 

"Yes, meanin' you, son. You've somehow got away from me again in theselast six months 'r so. "

"I'm older, pappy; and I hope I'm bigger and broader. I was a good bitof a kid a year ago; tough in some spots and fearfully and wonderfullyraw in others. Do you recollect how I climbed up on the fence the firstdash out of the box and read off the law to you about religion and suchthings?"

"I reckon so, " said the iron-master. "And that's one o' the things--Iain't heard you cuss out the hypocrites once since you got back. Haveyou gone back on the Dutchman and his argyment?"

"Bauer, you mean?--no; only on the nullifying part of it. Bauer'sno-religion doctrine is a doctrine of denial, and it's pure theory. Whatwe have to deal with in this world is the practical human fact, and agood half of that is tangled up with some sort of religious belief orsentiment. At least, that's the way I'm finding it. "

"It's the way it _is_, " said Caleb sententiously. And after a pause: "Iallow it helps some, too; greases the wheels some if it don't doanything more. "

"It does much more, " was the quick reply. "When you find it in a womanlike Ardea Dabney, it raises her to the seventh power angelic. It isonly when you find it, or some ghastly imitation of it, in such peopleas the Farleys. .. . " He changed the subject abruptly. "You said theDabneys had gone up on the mountain for the summer, didn't you?"

"Yes. I believe they're allowin' to come back in August, in time for theweddin'. "

The younger man's wince was purely involuntary. He had been tryinglatterly to train up to the degree of mental fitness which would enablehim to think calmly of Ardea as another man's wife. The effort commendeditself as a part of the new broadening process, but it was not entirelysuccessful. 

"You wrote me the Farleys would be back this month, didn't you?" heasked. 

"The fifteenth, " said Caleb; smoking reflectively through another longpause before he added. "And then come the business fireworks. Have youmade up your mind what-all you're goin' to do, Buddy?"

"Oh, yes, " said Tom, as if this were merely a matter in passing. "We'llconsolidate the two plants and the coal-mine, if it's agreeable allaround. "

The iron-master took a fresh hitch in his chair. Truly, this was aretransformed Tom; a creature totally and radically different from thecollege junior who had sweltered through the industrial battle of theprevious summer, breathing out curses and threatenings. 

"Was you allowin' to let Colonel Duxbury climb into all three o' thesaddles?" he inquired, keeping his emotions out of his voice as hecould. 

"That will be for you and Major Dabney to decide, " was the even-tonedresponse. "I would suggest a three-cornered alliance: a third to you, another to Farley, and the remaining third to the Major. The pipefoundry can't run without the furnace and, under present conditions, thefurnace is pretty largely dependent on the pipe foundry for its market;and neither could run without the Major's coal. "

"Yes, that scheme might carry far enough to hit three of us. Butwhereabouts do you figure out the fourth third for yourself, son?"

"Oh, I'm not in it; or I'm not going to be after the Farleys come back. I made up my mind to that six months ago, " said Tom coolly. 

"Great Peter!" ejaculated Caleb, stirred for once out of hisslow-speaking, reticent habit. But he made amends by remaining silentfor five full minutes before he hazarded the query: "Got something elseon the string, Buddy?"

"Yes, two or three things, " was Tom's immediate and frank rejoinder. "Ican have a place as chemist with the steel people at Bethlehem; and Mr. Clarkson is anxious to have me to go to the New Arizona iron country forhim. "

It was the brightest of midsummer nights, and a late moon was swingingclear of the Lebanon sky-line, but the prospect of close-clipped lawnand stately trees suddenly went dim before the eyes of the oldex-artillery-man. 

"You're all I got in this world, son, and I reckon it makes me sort o'narrow. I know in reason it must seem mighty little and pindlin' downhere to you, after what you've seen out in the big road, and I ain'tgoin' to say a word. But if you can sort it round somehow in the mix-upso I can get a few thousand dollars quittin' money out of it--jestenough to keep your mammy and me from gettin' hongry what few yearswe've got to eat, I'd be mighty proud. "

"Oh, " said Tom, still unmoved, as it seemed, "we can do better thanthat, if you want to pull out. But I made sure you'd rather stay in andhold your job. I've a notion you'd find 'retiring' pretty hard workafter so many years spent in the furnace yard. "

"You're right about that, son; I sure would, " agreed Caleb. Then he wentback to the main proposition. "What-all makes you restless, Buddy? Is itbecause Chiawassee and the pipe-makin' ain't big enough for you?"

Tom answered promptly and without apparent reserve. 

"The job's big enough, but I don't want to stay here and yoke up withthe Farleys; they'd ruin me in a year. "

"Get the better of you in the business--is that what you're aimin' tosay?"

"Not exactly. I'm still brash enough to believe I could hold my own onthat score. But--oh, well; you know what we found out last summer abouttheir business methods. I can do business that way, too; as a matter offact, I did do a good bit more of it last year than you knew anythingabout. But I'm out of it now, and I mean to stay out. "

A longer interval of silence followed, and at the end of it anotherquery. 

"Is that all that's the matter, Buddy?"

"No--it isn't, " hesitantly. "I'm seventeen other kinds of a fool, too, pappy. "

"Reckon ye couldn't make out to onload the whole of it on to a pair o'right old shoulders, could ye, son Tom?" was the gentle invitation. 

"I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. I'm foolish about Ardea; beenthat way ever since she used to wear frocks and I used to run barefoot. I don't believe I could stand it to stay here and be her husband'sbusiness partner. "

Caleb was shrouding himself in tobacco smoke and nodding completeintelligence. 

"How did you ever come to let her get away from you, son?" he asked. 

"That's a large question--too big for me to answer, I'm afraid. I alwaysknew we were meant for each other, and I guess I took too much forgranted. Then Vint Farley came along, and I helped his case by pitchinginto him every time she gave me a chance. Naturally, she leaned theother way; and the European business settled it. "

Caleb drew a long breath. "Reckon it's everlastin'ly too late now, doye, Tom?"

The young man's smile was wintry. 

"You said the wedding-day was set, didn't you?"

"Why, yes; _toe_ be sure. Leastwise, your mammy talked like it was. But, lawzee, son! the Gordon stock don't lie down in the harness. Ardeethinks a heap o' you, and if you could jest've made out to keep fromgettin' so everlastin'ly tangled with that gal o' Tike--" he stoppedabruptly, but not quite soon enough, and the word was as the flick of awhip on a wound already made raw by the abrasion of the closed doors. 

"So that miserable story has got around to you at last, has it?" saidTom, in fine scorn. "I did hope they'd spare you and mother. "

"She's spared yet, so far as I know, " said the father, with a backwardnod to indicate the antecedent of the pronoun. Following which, he saidwhat lay uppermost in his mind. "I been allowin' maybe you'd come backthis time with your head sot on lettin' that gal alone, son. "

Thomas Jefferson was on his feet and a hot anger wave was sweeping himback over the years to other times when things used to turn red underthe rage blast. But he got some sort of grip on himself before the wordscame. 

"You've believed all you've heard, have you?--condemned me before Icould say a word in my own defense? That's what they've all done. "

"I don't say that, son. " Then, with a note of fatherly yearning in hisvoice: "I'm waitin' to hear that word right now, Buddy--or as much of itas ye can say honestly. "

"You'll never hear it from me--never in this world or another. Now tellme who told you!"

"Why, it's in mighty near ever'body's mouth, son!" said Caleb, in mildsurprise. "You certain'y didn't take any pains to cover it up. "

"Didn't take any pains? Why, in the name of God, should I?" Tom burstout. After which he tramped heavily to the farther end of the veranda, refilled and lighted his pipe, and smoked furiously for a time, gloomingover at the darkened windows of Deer Trace and letting bitter anger anddisappointment work their will on him. And when he finally turned andtramped back it was only to say an abrupt "Good night, " and to pass intothe house and up to his room. 

He thought he was alone in the moon-lighted dusk of the upper chamberwhen he closed the door and began to pace a rageful sentry-beat back andforth between the windows. But all unknown to him one of the three fellsisters, she of the implacable front and deep-set, burning eyes, hadentered with him to pace evenly as he paced, and to lay a maddeningfinger on his soul. 

Without vowing a vow and confirming it with an oath, he had partlyturned a new life-leaf on the night of heavenly comfort when Ardea hadsent him forth to tramp the pike with her kiss of sisterly love stillcaressing him. Beyond the needs of the moment, the recall of Norman andthe determination to turn his back on the world struggle for the timebeing, he had not gone in that first fervor of the uplifting impulse. But later on there had been other steps: a growing hunger for successwith self-respect kept whole; a dulling of the sharp edge of his hatredfor the Farleys; a meliorating of his fierce contempt for all thehypocrites, conscious and subconscious. 

With the changing point of view had come a corresponding change in thelife. The men of his class had marked it, and there were helping handsheld out, as there always are when one struggles toward the forwardmargin of any Slough of Despond. He had even gone to church at longintervals, having there the good hap to fall under the influence of aman whose faults were neither of ignorance nor of insincerity. 

In these surface-scratchings of the heart soil there had sprung up amixed growth in which the tares of self-righteousness began presently toovertop the good grain of humility. One must not be too exacting. If theworld were not all good, neither was it all bad; at all events, it wasthe part of wisdom to make the magnanimous best of it, and to bethankful that the day-star of reason had at last arisen for one's self. At the close of his college course he would go home prepared to dealfirmly but justly with the Farleys, prepared to show Ardea and the smallworld of Paradise a pattern of business rectitude, of filial devotion, of upright, honorable manhood. As Ardea had said, the example wasneeded; it should be forthcoming. And perhaps, in the dim and distantfuture, Ardea herself would look back to the night when her word and herkiss had fashioned a man after her own heart, and be--not sorry (truelove was still stronger than prideful Phariseeism here), but a littleregretful, it might be, that her love could not have gone where it wassent. 

And now. .. . With Alecto's maddening finger pressed on the soul-hurt, noman is responsible. After the furious storm of upbubbling curses hadspent itself there was a little calm, not of surcease but of vacuity, since even the cursing vocabulary has its limitations. Then a groupingof words long forgotten arrayed itself before him, like the handwritingon the wall of Belshazzer's banqueting hall. 

_When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dryplaces, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will returninto my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth itempty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himselfseven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in anddwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. _

He put his hands before his face to shut out the sight of the words. Farther on, he felt his way across the room to stand at the window wherehe could look across to the gray, shadowy bulk of the manor-house, tothe house and to the window of the upper room which was Ardea's. 

"They've got me down, " he whispered, as if the words might reach herear. "The devils have come back, Ardea, my love; but you can cast themout again, if you will. Ah, girl, girl! Vincent Farley will never needyou as I need you this night!"

XXVIII

THE BURDEN OF HABAKKUK

During the first half of the year 1894, with Norman too busy at the pipefoundry to worry him, and the iron-master president too deeply engrossedin matters mechanical, Mr. Henry Dyckman, still bookkeeper and cashierfor Chiawassee Consolidated, had fewer nightmares; and by the time hehad been a month in undisputed command at the general office he hadgiven over searching for a certain packet of papers which hadmysteriously disappeared from a secret compartment in his desk. 

Later, when the time for the return of the younger Gordon drew near, there was encouraging news from Europe. Dyckman had not failed to keepthe mails warm with reports of the Gordon and Gordon success; withurgings for the return of the exiled dynasty; and late in May he hadnews of the home-coming intention. From that on there were alternatingchills and fever. If Colonel Duxbury should arrive and resume the reinsof management before Tom Gordon should reappear, all might yet be well. If not, --the alternative impaired the bookkeeper's appetite, and therewere hot nights in June when he slept badly. 

When Tom's advent preceded the earliest date named by Mr. Farley by abroad fortnight or more, the bookkeeper missed other of his meals, andone night fear and a sharp premonition of close-pressing disaster laidcold hands on him; and nine o'clock found him skulking in the greattrain shed at the railway station, a ticket to Canada in his pocket, agoodly sum of the company's money tightly buckled in a safety-belt nextto his skin--all things ready for flight save one, the courage requisiteto the final step-taking. 

The following morning the premonition became a certainty. In theGordonia mail there was a note from the younger Gordon, directing him tocome to the office of the pipe foundry, bringing the cash-book andledger for a year whose number was written out in letters of fire in thebookkeeper's brain. He went, again lacking the courage either to refuseor to disappear, and found Gordon waiting for him. There were nopreliminaries. 

"Good morning, Dyckman, " said the tyrant, pushing aside the papers onhis desk. "You have brought the books? Sit down at that table and openthe ledger at the company's expense account for the year. I wish to makea few comparisons, " and he took a thick packet of papers from apigeonhole of the small iron safe behind his chair. 

Dyckman was unbuckling the shawl-strap in which he had carried the twoheavy books, but at the significant command he desisted, went swiftly tothe door opening into the stenographer's room, satisfied himself thatthere were no listeners, and resumed his chair. 

"You have cut out some of the preface, Mr. Gordon; I'll cut out theremainder, " he said, moistening his dry lips. "You have the true recordof the expense account in that package. I'm down and out; what is ityou want?"

The inexorable one at the desk did not keep him in suspense. 

"I want a written confession of just what you did, and what you did itfor, " was the direct reply. "You'll find Miss Ackerman's type-writer inthe other room; I'll wait while you put it in type. "

The bookkeeper's lips were dryer than before, and his tongue was like astick in his mouth when he said:

"You're not giving me a show, Mr. Gordon; the poor show a commonmurderer would have in any court of law. You are asking me to convictmyself. "

Gordon held up the packet of papers. 

"Here is your conviction, Mr. Dyckman--the original leaves taken fromthose books when you had them re-bound. I need your statement of thefacts for quite another purpose. "

"And if I refuse to make it? A cornered rat will fight for his life, Mr. Gordon. "

"If you refuse I shall be reluctantly compelled to hand these papersover to our attorneys--reluctantly, I say, because you can serve mebetter just now out of jail than in it. "

Dyckman made a final attempt to gain fighting space. 

"It's an unfair advantage you're taking; at the worst, I am only anaccessory. My principals will be here in a few days, and--"

"Precisely, " was the cold rejoinder. "It is because your principals arecoming home, and because they are not yet here, that I want yourstatement. Oblige me, if you please; my time is limited this morning. "

There was no help for it, or none apparent to the fear-stricken; andfor the twenty succeeding minutes the type-writer clicked monotonouslyin the small ante-room. Dyckman could hear his persecutor pacing thefloor of the private office, and once he found himself looking about himfor a weapon. But at the end of the writing interval he was handing thefreshly-typed sheet to a man who was yet alive and unhurt. 

Gordon sat down at his desk to read it, and again the roving eyes of thebookkeeper swept the interior of the larger room for the means to anend; sought and found not. 

The eye-search was not fully concluded when Gordon pressed the electricbutton which summoned the young man who kept the local books of theChiawassee plant across the way. While he waited he saw the conclusionof the eye-search and smiled rather grimly. 

"You'll not find it, Dyckman, " he said, divining the desperate purposeof the other; adding, as an afterthought: "and if you should, youwouldn't have the courage to use it. That is the fatal lack in yourmakeup. It is what kept you from taking the train last night with themoney belt which you emptied this morning. You'll never make asuccessful criminal; it takes a good deal more nerve than it does to bean honest man. "

The bookkeeper was sliding lower in his chair. 

"I--I believe you are the devil in human shape, " he muttered; and thenhe made an addendum which was an unconscious slipping of theunder-thought into words: "It's no crime to kill a devil. "

Gordon smiled again. "None in the least, --only you want to make sureyou have a silver bullet in the gun when you try it. "

Hereupon the young man from the office across the pike came in, andGordon handed a pen to Dyckman. 

"I want you to witness Mr. Dyckman's signature to this paper, Dillard, "he said, folding the confession so that it could not be read by thewitness; and when the thing was done, the young man appended hisnotarial attestation and went back to his duties. 

"Well?" said Dyckman, when they were once more alone together. 

"That's all, " said Gordon curtly. "As long as you are discreet, youneedn't lose any sleep over this. If you don't mind hurrying a little, you can make the ten-forty back to town. "

Dyckman restrapped his books and made a show of hastening. But before heclosed the office door behind him he had seen Gordon place thetype-written sheet, neatly folded, on top of the thick packet, snappingan elastic band over the whole and returning it to its pigeonhole in thesmall safe. 

Later in the day, Tom crossed the pike to the oak-shingled office of theChiawassee Consolidated. His father was deep in the new wage scalesubmitted by the miners' union, but he sat up and pushed the papers awaywhen his son entered. 

"Have you seen this morning's _Tribune_?" asked Tom, taking the paperfrom his pocket. 

"No; I don't make out to find much time for it before I get home o'nights, " said Caleb. "Anything doin'?"

"Yes; they are having a hot time in Chicago and Pullman. The strike isspreading all over the country on sympathy lines. "

"Reckon it'll get down to us in any way?" queried the iron-master. 

"You can't tell. I'd be a little easy with Ludlow and his outfit on thatwage scale, if I were you. "

"I don't like to be scared into doin' a thing. "

"No; but we don't want a row on our hands just now. Farley might makecapital out of it. "

Caleb nodded. Then he said: "Didn't I see Dyckman comin' out of yourshanty 'long about eleven o'clock?"

"Yes; he came out to do me a little favor, and it went mighty near tomaking him sweat blood. Shall you need me any more to-day?"

"No, I reckon not. Goin' away?"

"I'm going to town on the five-ten, and I may not be back till late. "

Tom's business in South Tredegar was unimportant. There was a word ortwo to be said personally in the ear of Hanchett, the senior member ofthe firm of attorneys intrusted with the legal concernments of Gordonand Gordon, and afterward a solitary dinner at the Marlboro. But thereal object of the town trip disclosed itself when he took an electriccar for the foot of Lebanon on the line connecting with the inclinedrailway running up the mountain to Crestcliffe Inn. He had not seenArdea since the midwinter night of soul-awakenings; and Alecto's fingerwas still pressing on the wound inflicted by the closed doors ofMountain View Avenue and his father's misdirected sympathy. 

He found Major Dabney smoking on the hotel veranda, and his welcome wasnot scanted here, at least. There was a vacant chair beside the Major'sand the Major's pocket case of long cheroots was instantly forthcoming. Would not the returned Bachelor of Science sit and smoke and tell an oldman what was going on in the young and lusty world beyond themountain-girt horizons?

Tom did all three. His boyish awe for the old autocrat of Paradise hadmellowed into an affection that was almost filial, and there was plentyto talk about: the final dash in the technical school; the outlook inthe broader world; the great strike which was filling all mouths; thebusiness prospects for Chiawassee Consolidated. 

The moment being auspicious, Tom sounded the master of the Deer Tracecoal lands on the reorganization scheme, and found nothing butcomplaisance. Whatever rearrangement commended itself to Tom and hisfather, and to Colonel Duxbury Farley, would be acceptable to the Major. 

"I reckon I can trust you, Tom, and my ve'y good friend, youh fatheh, towatch out for Ardea's little fo'tune, " was the way he put it. "I haven'tso ve'y much longeh to stay in Paradise, " he went on, with a silentlittle chuckle for the grim pun, "and what I've got goes to her, as amatteh of cou'se. " Then he added a word that set Tom to thinking hard. "I had planned to give her a little suhprise on her wedding-day: supposeyou have the lawyehs make out that block of new stock to MistressVincent Farley instead of to me?"

Tom's hard thinking crystallized into a guarded query. 

"Of course, Major Dabney, if you say so. But wouldn't it be moreprudent to make it over in trust for her and her children before shebecomes Mrs. Farley?"

The piercing Dabney eyes were on him, and the fierce white mustachestook the militant angle. 

"Tell me, Tom, have you had _youh_ suspicions in that qua'teh, too? I'mspeaking in confidence to a family friend, suh. "

"It is just as well to be on the safe side, " said Tom evasively. Therewas enough of the uplift left to make him reluctant to strike his enemyin the dark. 

"No, suh, that isn't what I mean. You've had youh suspicions aroused. Tell me, suh, what they are. "

"Suppose you tell me yours, Major, " smiled the younger man. 

Major Dabney became reflectively reminiscent. "I don't know, Tom, andthat's the plain fact. Looking back oveh ouh acquaintance, thah'snothing in that young man for me to put a fingeh on; but, Tom, I tellyou in confidence, suh, I'd give five yeahs of my old life, if the goodLord has that many mo' in His book for me, if the blood of the Dabneysdidn't have to be--uh--mingled with that of these heah damned Yankees. Iwould, for a fact, suh!"

Tom rose and flung away the stub of his third cheroot. 

"Then you'll let me place your third of the new stock in trust for herand her children?" he said. "That will be best, on all accounts. By theway, where shall I find Miss Ardea?"

"She's about the place, somewhahs, " was the reply; and Tom passed on tothe electric-lighted lobby to send his card in search of her. 

Chance saved him the trouble. Some one was playing in the music-roomand he recognized her touch and turned aside to stand under the loopedportières. She was alone, and again, as many times before, it came onhim with the sense of discovery that she was radiantly beautiful--thatfor him she had no peer among women. 

It was the score of a Bach fugue that stood on the music-rack, and shewas oblivious to everything else until her fingers had found and struckthe final chords. Then she looked up and saw him. 

There was no greeting, no welcoming light in the slate-blue eyes; andshe did not seem to see when he came nearer and offered to shake hands. 

"I've been talking to your grandfather for an hour or more, " he began, "and I was just going to send my card after you. Haven't you a word ofwelcome for me, Ardea?"

Her eyes were holding him at arm's length. 

"Do you think you deserve a welcome from any self-respecting woman?" sheasked in low tones. 

His smile became a scowl--the anger scowl of the Gordons. 

"Why shouldn't I?" he demanded. "What have I done to make every woman Imeet look at me as if I were a leper?"

She rose from the piano-stool and confronted him bravely. It was now ornever, if their future attitude each to the other was to be succinctlydefined. 

"You know very well what you have done, " she said evenly. "If you had aspark of manhood left in you, you would know what a dastardly thing youare doing now in coming here to see me. "

"Well, I don't, " he returned doggedly. "And another thing: I'm not tobe put off with hard words. I ask you again what has happened? Who hasbeen lying about me this time?"

Three other guests of the hotel were entering the music-room and thequarrel had to pause. Ardea had a nerve-shaking conviction that it wouldnever do to leave it in the air. He must be made to understand, once forall, that he had sinned beyond forgiveness. She caught up the light wrapshe had been wearing earlier in the evening and turned to one of thewindows opening on the rear veranda. "Come with me, " she whispered; andhe followed obediently. 

But there was no privacy to be had out of doors. There was a goodlyscattering of people in the veranda chairs enjoying the perfect nightand the white moonlight. Ardea stopped suddenly. 

"You were intending to walk down to the valley?" she asked. 

He nodded. 

"I will walk with you to the cliff edge. "

It was a short hundred yards, and there were many abroad in the graveledwalks: lovers in pairs, and groups of young people pensive orchattering. So it was not until they stood on the very battlements ofthe western cliff that they were measurably alone. 

"Has no one told you what happened last March--on the day of the icestorm?" she asked coldly. 

"No. "

"Don't you know it without being told?"

"Of course, I don't; why should I?"

His angry impassiveness shook her resolution. It seemed incredible thatthe most accomplished dissembler could rise to such supreme heights ofseeming. 

"I used to think I knew you, " she said, faltering, "but I don't. Whydon't you despise hypocrisy and double-dealing as you used to?"

"I do; more heartily than ever. "

"Yet, in spite of that, you have--oh, it is perfectly unspeakable!"

"I am taking your word for it, " he rejoined gloomily. "You are denyingme what the most wretched criminal is taught to believe is his right--toknow what he is accused of. "

"Have you forgotten that night last winter when you--when I saw you atthe gate with Nancy Bryerson?"

"I'm not likely to forget it. "

She seized her courage and held it fast, putting maidenly shame to thewall. 

"Tom, it is a terrible thing to say--and your punishment will beterrible. _But you must marry Nancy!_"

"And father another man's child?--not much!" he answered brutally. 

"And father your own children--two of them, " she said, with bitteremphasis. 

"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said, with a deeper scowl. "So there are twoof them, are there? That's why no woman in Mr. Farley's country colonyis at home to me any more, I suppose. " And then, still more bitterly:"Of course, you are all sure of this?--Nan has at last confessed that Iam the guilty man?"

"You know she has not, Tom. Her loyalty is still as strong and true atit is mistaken. But your duty remains. "

He was standing on the brink of the cliff, looking down on ParadiseValley, spread like a silver-etched map far below in the moonlight. Theflare and sough of the furnace at the iron-works came and went withregular intermittency; and just beyond the group of Chiawassee stacks atiny orange spot appeared and disappeared like a will-o'-the-wisp. Hewas staring down at the curious spot when he said:

"If I say that I have no duty toward Nan, you will believe it is alie--as you did once before. Have you ever reflected that it is possibleto trample on love until it dies--even such love as I bear you?"

"It is a shame for you to speak of such things to me, Tom. Consider whatI have endured--what you have made me endure. People said I was standingby you, condoning a sin that no right-minded young woman should condone. I bore it because I thought, I believed, you were sorry. And at thatvery time you were deceiving me--deceiving every one. You have draggedme in the very dust of shame!"

"There is no shame save what we make for ourselves, " he retorted. "Oneday, according to your creed, we shall stand naked before your God, andbefore each other. In that day you will know what you have done to meto-night. No, don't speak, please; let me finish. The last time we weretogether you gave me a strong word, and--and you kissed me. For the sakeof that word and that kiss I went out into the world a different man. For the little fragment of your love that you gave me then, I have liveda different man from that day to this. Now you shall see what I shall bewithout it. "

Before he had finished she had turned from him gasping, choking, strangling in the grip of a mighty passion, new-born and yet not new. With the suddenness of a revealing flash of lightning she understood;knew that she loved him, that she had been loving him from childhood, not because, but in spite of everything, as he had once defined love. Itwas terrible, heartbreaking, soul-destroying. She called on shame forhelp, but shame had fled. She was cold with a horrible fear lest heshould find out and she should be for ever lost in the bottomless pit ofhumiliation. 

It was the sight of the little orange-colored spot glowing and growingbeyond the Chiawassee chimneys that saved her. 

"Look!" she cried. "Isn't that a fire down in the valley just across thepike from the furnace? It _is_ a fire!"

He made a field-glass of his hands and looked long and steadily. 

"You are quite right, " he said coolly. "It's my foundry. Can you getback to the hotel alone? If you can, I'll take the short cut downthrough the woods. Good night, and--good-by. " And before she couldreply, he had lowered himself over the cliff's edge and was crashingthrough the underbrush on the slopes below. 

XXIX

AS BRUTES THAT PERISH

It was the office building of the pipe foundry that burned on the nightof July fifteenth, and the fire was incendiary. Suspicion, put on thescent by the night-watchman's story, pointed to Tike Bryerson as thecriminal. The old moonshiner, in the bickering stage of intoxication, had been seen hanging about the new plant during the day, and had madevague threats in the hearing of various ears in Gordonia. 

Wherefore the small world of Paradise and its environs looked to see awarrant sworn out for the mountaineer's arrest; and when nothing wasdone, gossip reawakened to say that Tom Gordon did not dare toprosecute; that Bryerson's crime was a bit of wild justice, sorecognized by the man whose duty it was to invoke the law. 

It was remarked, also, that neither of the Gordons had anything to say, and that an air of mystery enveloped the little that they did. The smallwooden office building was a total loss, but the night shift at theChiawassee had saved most of the contents; everything of value exceptthe small iron safe which had stood behind the manager's desk in theprivate office. The safe, as the onlookers observed, was taken from thedebris and conveyed, unopened, across the road to the Chiawasseelaboratory and yard office. Whether or not its keepings were destroyedby the fire, was known only to the younger Gordon, who, as the foremanof the Chiawassee night shift informed a _Tribune_ reporter, had brokenit open himself, deep in the small hours of the night following thefire, and behind the locked door of the furnace laboratory. 

At another moment South Tredegar newspaperdom might have made somethingof the little mystery. But there were more exciting topics to the fore. The great strike, with Chicago and Pullman as its storm-centers, wasgripping the land in its frenzied fist, and the press despatches weregreedy of space. Hence, young Gordon was suffered to open his safe inmysterious secrecy; to rebuild his burned office; and to let theincendiary, sufficiently identified by the watchman, it was believed, goscot-free. 

With the greater land-wide interest to divert it, even Paradise failedto note the curious change that had come over the younger of theGordons, dating from the night of burnings. But the few who came incontact with him in the business day saw and felt it. Miss Ackerman, thepipe-works stenographer, quit when her week was up. It was nothing thatthe young manager had said or done; but, as she confided to her sister, more fortunately situated in town, it was like being caged with a livingthreat. Even Norman, the trusted lieutenant, was cut out of hisemployer's confidence; and for hours on end in the business day the card"Not in" would be displayed on the glass-paneled door of the privateroom in the rebuilt office. 

Not to make a mystery of it for ourselves, Tom had passed anothermilestone in the descent to the valley of lost souls. Or rather, let ussay, he had taken a longer step backward toward the primitive. Daggered_amour-propre_ is rarely a benign wound. Oftener than not it gangrenes, and there is loss of sound tissue and the setting-up of strange andmalevolent growth. With the passing of the first healthful shock ofhonest resentment, Tom became a man of one idea. Somewhere in the landof the living dwelt a man who had robbed him, intentionally orotherwise, indirectly, but none the less effectually, of the ennoblinglove of the one woman; to find that man and to deal with him as Joabdealt with Amasa became the one thing worth living for. 

The first step was taken in secrecy. One day a stranger, purporting tobe a walking delegate for the United Miners, but repudiated as such bycheck-weigher Ludlow, took up his residence in Gordonia and began tointerest himself, quite unminer-like, in the various mechanicalappliances of the Chiawassee plant, and particularly in the differentsources of its water supply. 

Divested of his cloakings, this sham walking delegate was a Pinkertonman, detailed grudgingly from the Chicago storm-center on Tom'srequisition. His task was to scrutinize Nancy Bryerson's past, and toidentify, if possible, one or more of the three men who, in January ofthe year 1890, had inspected and repaired the pipe-line running from thecoke-yard tank up to the barrel-spring on high Lebanon. 

To the detective the exclusion card on Tom's door did not apply, and theconferences between the hired and the hirer were frequent and prolonged. If we shall overhear one of them--the final one, held on the day of theFarleys' return to Paradise and Warwick Lodge--it will suffice. 

"It looks easy enough, as you say, Mr. Gordon, " the human ferret isexplaining; "but in point of fact there's nothing to work on--less thannothing. Three years ago you had no regular repair gang, and when a jobof that kind was to be done, any Tom, Dick or Harry picked up a helperor two and did it. But I think you can bet on one thing: none of thethree men who made that inspection is at present in your employ. "

"In other words, you'd like to get back to your job at Pullman, " snapsTom. 

"Oh, I ain't in any hurry! That job looks as if it would keep for awhile longer. But I don't like to take a man's good money for nothing;and that's about what I'm doing here. "

Tom swings around to his desk and writes a check. 

"I suppose you have no further report to make on the woman?"

"Nothing of any importance. I told you where she is living--in a littlecabin up on the mountain in a settlement called Pine Knob. "

"Yes; but I found that out for myself. "

"So you did. Well, she's living straight, as far as anybody knows; andif you can believe what you hear, the only follower she ever had was ayoung mountaineer named Kincaid. I looked him up; he's been gone fromthese parts for something over three years. He is ranching in IndianTerritory, and only came back last week. You can check him off yourlist. "

"He was never on, and I have no list, " says the manhunter grittingly. "But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Beckham, " passing the signed check tothe other, "I shall begin where you leave off, and end by finding myman. "

"I hope you do, I'm sure, " says the Pinkerton, moved by the liberalfigure of the check. "And if there's anything more the Agency can do--"

In the afternoon of the same day, when the self-dismissed detective wasspeeding northward toward Chicago and the car-burners, Tom saddled thebay and rode long and hard over a bad mountain cart track to the hamletof Pine Knob. It was a measure of his abandonment that he was breakinghis promise to Ardea; and another of his reckless singleness of purposethat he rode brazenly through the little settlement to Nan's door, dismounted and entered as if he had right. 

The cabin was untenanted, but he found Nan sitting on the slab step of arude porch at the back, nursing her child. She greeted him withoutrising, and her eyes were downcast. 

"I've come for justice, Nan, " he said, without preface, seating himselfon the end of the step and flicking the dust from his leggings with hisriding-crop. "You know what they're saying about us--about you and me. Iwant to know who to thank for it: what is the man's name?"

She did not reply at once, and when she lifted the dark eyes to his theywere full of suffering, like those of an animal under the lash. 

"I nev' said hit was you, " she averred, after a time. 

"No; but you might as well. Everybody believes it, and you haven'tdenied it. Who is the man?"

"I cayn't tell, " she said simply. 

"You mean you won't tell. "

"No, I cayn't; I'm livin' on his money, Tom-Jeff. "

"No, you are not. What makes you say that?"

"She told me I was. "

"Who? Miss Dabney?"

Her nod was affirmative, and he went on: "Tell me just what she said;word for word, if you can remember. "

The answer came brokenly. 

"I was ashamed--you don't believe hit, but hit's so. I allowed it was_her_ money. When I made out like I'd run off, she said, 'No; it's hismoney 'at's bein' spent for you, and you have a right to it. '"

Tom was silent for a time; then he said the other necessary word. 

"She believes I am the man who wronged you, Nan. It was my money. "

The woman half rose and then sat down again, rocking the child in herarms. 

"You're lyin' to me, Tom-Jeff Gordon. Hit's on'y a lie to make me tell!"she panted. 

"No, it's the truth. I was sorry for you and helped you because--well, because of the old times. But everybody has misunderstood, even MissDabney. "

Silence again; the silence of the high mountain plateau and thewhispering pines. Then she asked softly:

"Was you aimin' to marry her, Tom-Jeff?"

His voice was somber. "I've never had the beginning of a chance; andbesides, she is promised to another man. "

The woman was breathing hard again. "I heerd about that, too--jest theother day. I don't believe hit!"

"It is true, just the same. But I didn't come out here to talk aboutMiss Dabney. I want to know a name--the name of a man. "

She shook her head again and relapsed into unresponsiveness. 

"I cayn't tell; he'd shore kill me. He's always allowed he'd do hit if Ilet on. "

"Tell me his name, and I'll kill him before he ever gets a chance atyou, " was the savage rejoinder. 

"D'ye reckon you'd do that, Tom-Jeff--for me?"

The light of the old allurement was glowing in the dark eyes when shesaid it, but there was no answering thrill of passion in his blood. Forone moment, indeed, the bestial demon whispered that here was vengeanceof a sort, freely proffered; but the fiercer devil thrust this oneaside, and Tom found himself looking consciously and deliberately intothe abyss of crime. Once he might have said such a thing in the mereexuberance of anger, meaning nothing more deadly than the retaliatorybuffet of passion. But now--

It was as if the curtain of the civilizing, the humanizing, ages hadbeen withdrawn a hand's-breadth to give him a clear outlook onprimordial chaos. Once across the mystic threshold, untrammeled by thehamperings of tradition, unterrified by the threat of the mythicalfuture, the human atom becomes its own law, the arbiter of its ownmomentary destiny. What it wills to do, it may do--if iron-shod chance, blind and stumbling blindly, does not happen to trample on and effaceit. Who first took it on him to say, _Thou shalt not kill_? What wereany or all of the prohibitions but the frantic shrillings of some of theatoms to the others?

In the clear outlook Thomas Gordon saw himself as one whose foot wasalready across the threshold. True, he had thus far broken with theworld of time-honored traditions only in part. But why should he scrupleto be wholly free? If the man whose deed of brutality or passion wasdisturbing the chanceful equilibrium for two other human dust-grainsshould be identified, why should he not be effaced?

The child at Nan's breast stirred in its sleep and threw up its tinyhands in the convulsive movement which is the human embryo's firstunconscious protest against the helplessness of which it is borninheritor. Tom stood up, beating the air softly with the hunting-crop. 

"The man has spoiled your life, Nan; and, incidentally, he has muddiedthe spring for me--robbed me of the love and respect of the one woman inthe world, " he said, quite without heat. "If I find him, I think I shallblot him out--like that. " A bumblebee was bobbing and swaying on a headof red clover, and the sudden swish of the hunting-crop left it a littledisorganized mass of black and yellow down and broken wing-filaments. 

The glow in the dark eyes of the woman had died down again, and hervoice was hard and lifeless when she said:

"But not for me, Tom-Jeff; you ain't wantin' to kill him like my brotherwould, if I had one. "

"No; not at all for you, Nan, " he said half-absently. And then hetramped away to the gate, and put a leg over Saladin, and rode down thestraggling street of the little settlement, again in the face and eyesof all who cared to see. 

The bay had measured less than a mile of the homeward way when therecame a clatter of hoof-beats in the rear. Tom awoke out of the absentfit, spoke to Saladin and rode the faster. Nevertheless, the pursuinghorseman overtook him, and a drawling voice said:

"Hit's right smart wicked to shove the bay thataway down-hill, son. "

Tom pulled his horse down to a walk. He was in no mood forcompanionship, but he knew Pettigrass would refuse to be shaken off. 

"Where have you been?" he asked sourly. 

"Me? I been over to McLemore's Valley, lookin' at some brood-mares thatold man Mac is tryin' to sell the Major. "

"Did you come through Pine Knob?"

"Shore, I did. I was a-settin' on Brother Bill Layne's porch whilst youwas talkin' to Nan Bryerson. Seems sort o' pitiful you cayn't let thatpore gal alone, Tom-Jeff. "

"That's enough, " said Tom hotly. "I've heard all I'm going to about thatthing, from friends or enemies. "

"I ain't no way shore about that, " said the horse-trader easily. "I was'lottin' to say a few things, m'self. "

Tom pulled the bay up short in the cart track. 

"There's the road, " he said, pointing. "You can have the front half orthe back half--whichever you like. "

Japheth's answer was a good-natured laugh and a tacit refusal to takeeither. 

"You cayn't rile me thataway, boy, " he said. "I've knowed you a heap toolong. Git in the fu'ther rut and take your medicine like a man. "

Since there appeared to be no help for it, Tom set his horse in motionagain, and Japheth gave him a mile of silence in which to cool down. 

"Now you listen at me, son, " the horse-trader began again, when hejudged the cooling process was sufficiently advanced. "I ain't goin' totell no tales out o' school this here one time. But you got to let Nanalone, d'ye hear?"

"Oh, shut up!" was the irritable rejoinder. "I'll go where I please, anddo what I please. You seem to forget that I'm not a boy any longer!"

"Ya-as, I do; that's the toler'ble straight fact, " drawled the other. "But I ain't so much to blame; times you ack like a boy yit, Tom-Jeff. "

Tom was silent again, turning a thing over in his mind. It was a time tobend all means to the one end, the trivial as well as the potent. 

"Tell me something, Japhe, " he said, changing front in the twinkling ofan eye. "Is Nan coming back to the dog-keeper's cabin when the familyleaves the hotel?"

"'Tain't goin' to make any difference to you if she does, " saidPettigrass, wondering where he was to be hit next. 

"It may, if you'll do me a favor. You'll be where you can see and hear. I want to know who visits her--besides Miss Ardea. "

Brother Japheth's smile was more severe than the sharpest reproach. 

"Still a-harpin' on that old string, are ye? Say, Tom-Jeff, I beenerbout the best friend you've had, barrin' your daddy, for a right smartspell o' years. Don't you keep on tryin' to th'ow dust in my eyes. "

"Call it what you please; I don't care what you think or say. But whenyou find a man hanging around Nan--"

"They's one right now, " said the horse-trader casually. 

Tom reined up as if he would ride back to Pine Knob forthwith. 

"Who is it?" he demanded. 

"Young fellow named Kincaid--jest back f'om out West, somewheres. Brother Bill Layne let on to me like maybe he'd overlook what cayn't behe'ped, and marry Nan anyhow. And that's another reason you got to keepaway. "

"Let up on that, " said Tom, stiffening again. "If you had been where youcould have used your ears as you did your eyes back yonder at Pine Knob, you'd know more than you seem to know now. "

There was silence between them from this on until the horses werefooting it cautiously down the bridle-path connecting the cart trackwith the Paradise pike. Then Pettigrass said:

"Allowin' ther' might be another man, Tom-Jeff, jest for the sake ofargyment, what-all was you aimin' to do if you found him?"

It was drawing on to dusk, and the electric lights of Mountain ViewAvenue and the colonial houses were twinkling starlike in the blue-grayhaze of the valley. They had reach the junction of the steep bridle-pathwith the wood road which edged the Dabney horse pasture and led directlyto the Deer Trace paddocks, and when Japheth pulled his horse aside intothe short cut, Tom drew rein to answer. 

"It's nobody's business but mine, Japhe; but I'd just as soon tell you:it runs in my head that he needs killing mighty badly, and I've thoughtabout it till I've come to the conclusion that I'm the appointedinstrument. You turn off here? Well, so long. "

Brother Japheth made the gesture of leave-taking with his riding-switch, and sent his mount at an easy amble down the wood road, apostrophizinggreat nature, as his habit was. "Lawzee! _how_ we pore sinners do temptthe good Lord at every crook and elbow in the big road, _toe_ be shore!Now ther's Tom-Jeff, braggin' how he'll be the one to kill the pappy o'Nan's chillern: he's a-ridin' a mighty shore-footed hawss, but hit dolook like he'd be skeered the Lord might take him at his word and makethat hawss stumble. Hit do, for a fact!"

XXX

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

On the night of the fire, Ardea had remained on the cliff's edge untilthe blaze died down and disappeared, which was some little time, shedecided, before Tom could possibly have reached the foot of themountain. 

When there was nothing more to be seen she went back to the hotel andcalled up the Young-Dicksons, whose cottage commanded a short-range viewof the Gordon plant. It was Mrs. Young-Dickson who answered thetelephone. Yes; the fire was one of the foundry buildings--the office, she believed. Mr. Young-Dickson had gone over, and she would have himcall up when he should return, if Miss Dabney wished. 

Ardea said it did not matter, and having exhausted this small vein ofdistraction she returned to the music-room and the Bach fugue, as one, who has had a fall, rises and tries to go on as before, ignoring theshock and the bruisings. But the shock had been too severe. Tom Gordonhad proved himself a wretch, beyond the power of speech to portray, and--she loved him! Not all the majestic harmonies of the inspired_Kapellmeister_ could drown that terrible discord. 

The next day it was worse. There was a goodly number of South Tredegarpeople summering at the Inn, and hence no lack of companionship. Butthe social distractions were powerless in the field where Bach and thepiano had failed, and after luncheon Ardea shut herself in her room, desperately determined to try what solitude would do. 

That failed, too, more pathetically than the other expedients. It was tono purpose that she went bravely into the torture chamber of opprobriumand did penance for the sudden lapse into the elemental. It was thepassion of the base-born, she cried bitterly. He was unworthy, unworthy!Why had he come? Why had she not refused to see him--to speak to him?

Such agonizing questions flung themselves madly on the spear points offact and were slain. He had come; she had spoken. Never would she forgetthe look in his eyes when he had said, "Good night, and--good-by;" norcould she pass over the half-threat in the words that had gone beforethe leave-taking. To what deeper depth despicable could he plunge, having already sounded the deepest of them all--that of unfaith, ofinfidelity alike to the woman he had wronged and to the woman heprofessed to love?

At dinner-time she sent word to her grandfather and her cousin that shewas not feeling well, which was a mild paraphrasing of the truth, andhad a piece of toast and a cup of tea sent to her room. The bare thoughtof going down to the great dining-room and sitting through the hour-longdinner was insupportable. She made sure every eye would see the shame inher face. 

With the toast and tea the servant brought the evening paper, sent up bya doting Major Caspar, thoughtful always for her comfort. A marked itemin the social gossip transfixed her as if it had been an arrow. TheFarleys had sailed from Southampton, and the house renovators werealready busy at Warwick Lodge. 

After that the toast proved too dry to be eaten and the tea took on thetaste of bitter herbs. Vincent Farley was returning, coming to claim thefulfilment of her promise. She had never loved him; she knew it as shehad not known it before; and that was dreadful enough. But now therewere a thousand added pangs to go with the conviction. For in theinterval love had been found--found and lost in the same moment--and thesolid earth was still reeling at the shock. 

Ardea of the strong heart and the calm inner vision had always had afeeling bordering on contempt for women of the hysterical type; yet nowshe felt herself trembling and slipping on the brink of the pit she hadderided. 

The third day brought surcease of a certain sort. In the Gallic bloodthere is ever a trace of fatalism; the shrug is its expression. It wasgenerations back to the D'Aubignés, yet now and then some remoteancestor would reach up out of the shadowy past to lay a compellingfinger on the latest daughter of his race. Her word was passed, beyondhonorable recall. Somewhere and in some way she would find the courageto tell Vincent that she did not love him as the wife should love thehusband; and if he should still exact the price, she would pay it. Afterall, it would be a refuge, of a kind. 

Now it is human nature to assume finalities and to base conduct on theassumption. Conversely, it is not in human nature to tighten one knotwithout loosening another. Having firmly resolved to be unflinchinglyjust to a Vincent Farley, one could afford to be humanely interested inthe struggles shoreward or seaward of a poor swimmer in the welter ofthe tideway. She did not put it thus baldly, even in her secret thought. But the thing did itself. 

The opportunities for marking the struggles of the poor swimmer werelimited; but where is the woman who can not find the way when desiredrives? Ardea had something more than a speaking acquaintance with Mr. Frederic Norman who, as acting-manager of the foundry plant in Tom'sabsence, had generously thrown one of the buildings open for a series ofSunday services for the workmen, promoted by Miss Dabney and theReverend Francis Morelock. Since the warm nights had come, Norman hadtaken a room at the Inn, climbing the mountain from the Paradise side intime for dinner, and going down in the cool of the morning after anearly breakfast. 

Being first and last a man of business, he knew, or seemed to know, nothing of the valley gossip, or of the social sentence passed on hischief by the Mountain View Avenue court. When Ardea had assured herselfof this, she utilized Norman freely as a source of information. 

"You've known the boss a long time, haven't you, Miss Dabney?" asked themanager, one evening when Ardea had made room for him in a quiet cornerof the veranda between the Major's chair and her own. 

"Mr. Gordon? Oh, yes; a very long time, indeed. We were childrentogether, you know. "

"Well, I'd like to ask you one thing, " said Frederic, the unfettered. "Did you ever get to know him well enough to guess what he'd do next? Ithought I'd been pretty close to him, but once in a while he runs me upa tree so far that I get dizzy. "

"As for example?" prompted Miss Ardea, leaving the personal question inthe air. 

"I mean his way of breaking out in a new spot every now and then. Lastwinter was one of the times, when he made up his mind between twominutes to chuck the pipe-making and go back to college. And now he'sgot another streak. "

Miss Dabney made the necessary show of interest. 

"What is it this time--too much business, or not enough?"

Norman rose and went to the edge of the veranda to flick his cigar ashinto the flower border. When he came back he took a chair on that sideof Miss Dabney farthest from the Major, who was dozing peacefully in agreat flat-armed rocker. 

"I declare I don't know, Miss Dabney; he's got me guessing harder thanever, " he said, lowering his voice. "Since the night when the officeburned he's been miles beyond me. While the carpenters were knockingtogether the shack we're in now, he put in the time wandering around theplant and looking as if he had lost something and forgotten what it was. Now that we've got into the new office, he shuts himself up for hours onend; won't see anybody--won't talk--scamps his meals half the time, andhas actually got old Captain Caleb scared stiff. "

"How singular!" said Ardea; but in her heart there was a great pity. "Do you suppose it was his loss in the fire?" she asked. 

The manager shook his head. 

"No; that was next to nothing, and we're doing a good business. It wassomething else; something that happened about the same time. If I can'tfind out what it is, I'll have to quit. He's freezing me out. "

Ardea was inconsistent enough to oppose the alternative. 

"No, " she objected. "You mustn't do that, Mr. Norman. It is a friend'spart to stand by at such times, don't you think?"

"Oh, I'm willing, " was the generous reply. "Only I'm a little lonesome;that's all. "

At another time Norman told her of the mysterious walking delegate, whowas admitted to the private office when an anxious and zealous businessmanager was excluded. Later still, he made a half-confidence. Caleb, indespair at the latest transformation in his son, had finally unfoldedhis doubts and fears, business-wise, to the manager. The Farleys werereturning; a legal notice of a called meeting of the ChiawasseeConsolidated had been published; and it was evident that Colonel Duxburymeant to take hold with his hands. And Tom seemed to have forgotten thatthere was a battle to be fought. 

Norman's recounting of this to Miss Dabney was the merest unburdening ofan overloaded soul, and he was careful to garble it so that theprospective daughter-in-law of Colonel Duxbury might not be hurt. ButArdea read between the lines. Could it be possible that Tom's lifelongenmity for the Farleys, father and son, had even a little justificationin fact? She put the thought away, resolutely setting herself the taskof disbelieving. Yet, in the conversation which followed, Mr. FredericNorman was very thoroughly cross-questioned without his suspecting it. Ardea meant to cultivate the open mind, and she did not dream that itwas the newly-discovered love which was prompting her to master theintricacies of the business affair. 

Two days later the Farleys came home, and since Vincent went promptlyinto residence at Crestcliffe, the evenings with Norman wereinterrupted. But they had served their purpose; and when Vincent beganto press for the naming of an early day in September for the wedding, Ardea found it quite feasible to be calmly indefinite. You see, she hadstill to tell him that it had become purely a matter of promise-keepingwith her--a task easy only for the heartless. 

It was in the third week in August, a full month, earlier than theiroriginal plans contemplated, that the Dabneys returned to Paradise andDeer Trace. Miss Euphrasia was led to believe that the Major had tiredof the hotel and the mountain; and the Major thought the suggestion camefirst from Miss Euphrasia. 

But the real reason for the sudden return lay in a brief note signed"Norman, " and conveyed privately to Ardea's hands by a grimy-faced boyfrom the foundry. 

"Mr. Tom was waylaid by two footpads at the Woodlawn gates Saturdaynight and half killed, " it read. "He is delirious and asks continuallyfor you. Could you come?"

XXXI

THE NET OF THE FOWLER

Which of the Cynic Fathers was it who defined virtue as an attitude ofthe mind toward externals? One may not always recall a pat quotation onthe spur of the moment, but it sounds like Demonax or another of thelater school, when the philosophy of cynicism had sunk to the level of asneer at poor human nature. 

To say that Mr. Duxbury Farley, returning to find ChiawasseeConsolidated in some sense at the mercy of the new pipe plant, regardedhimself as a benefactor whose confidence had been grossly abused, isonly to take him at his word. What, pray tell us, was Caleb Gordon inthe crude beginning of things?--a village blacksmith or little more, dabbling childishly in the back-wash of the great wave of industry andliving poverty-stricken between four log walls. To whom did he owe thebrick mansion on the Woodlawn knoll, the comforts and luxuries ofcivilized life, the higher education of his son?

In Mr. Farley's Index Anathema, ingratitude ranked with crime. He hadtrusted these Gordons, and in return they had despoiled him; crippled agreat and growing industry by segregating the profitable half of it;cast doubt on the good name of its founder by reversing his businessmethods. Chiawassee had been making iron by the hundreds of tons: wherewere the profits? The query answered itself. They were in the creditaccount of Gordon and Gordon, every dollar of which justly belonged tothe parent company. Was not the pipe-making invention perfected by aChiawassee stock-holder, who was also a Chiawassee employee, onChiawassee time, and with Chiawassee materials? Then why, in the name ofjustice, was it not to be considered a legitimate Chiawassee asset?

Mr. Duxbury Farley asked these questions pathetically and insistently;at the Cupola Club, in the Manufacturers' Association, in season and outof season, wherever there was a willing ear to hear or the smallestcurrent of public sentiment to be diverted into the channel so patientlydug for it. Was his virtuous indignation merely the mental attitude ofall the Duxbury Farleys toward things external? That bubble is too hugefor this pen to prick; besides, its bursting might devastate a world. 

But if we may not probe too deeply into primal causes, we may still beregardful of the effects. Mr. Farley's bid for public sympathy was notwithout results. True, there were those who hinted that the veteranpromoter was only paving the way for a _coup de grâce_ which shouldobliterate the Gordons, root and branch; but when the days and weekspassed, and Mr. Farley had done nothing more revolutionary than toreëlect himself president of Chiawassee Consolidated, and to resume, with Dyckman as his lieutenant, the direction of its affairs, theseprophets of evil were discredited. 

It was observed also that Caleb remained general manager at Gordonia, and still received the patronizing friendship of former times; and toTom the full width of the pike was given--a distance which he keptscrupulously. But as for the younger Gordon, he knew it was the lullbefore the storm, and he was watching the horizon for the signs of itscoming--when he was not searching for clues or brooding behind theclosed door of his private office with the devil of homicide for acloset companion. 

During this reproachful period Vincent Farley gave himself unreservedly, as it would seem, to the sentimental requirements, spending much time onthe mountain top and linking his days to Ardea's in a way to give her asinking of the heart at the thought that this was an earnest of all timeto come. 

Mountain View Avenue had understood that the wedding was to be inSeptember; but as late as the final week in August the cards were notout, and Miss Euphrasia, the source and fountainhead of the Avenue'sinformation, could only say that she supposed the young people weremaking up for the time lost by separation and absence, and were willingto prolong the delights sentimental of an acknowledged engagement. 

But at the risk of cutting sentiment to the very bone, it must beadmitted that, after the first ardent attempt to commit Ardea to acertain and early day, the delay was of Vincent's own making; and themotive was basely commercial. Through Major Dabney, who was not proofagainst Colonel Duxbury's blandishments at short range, however much hemight distrust them at a distance, Tom's plan of reorganization, withthe suggestion of the trusteeship for Ardea's third, had become knownto the Farleys. Thereupon ensued a conference of two held in Vincent'sroom in the hotel, and sentence of extinction was passed on Tom andCaleb. 

"The ungrateful cub!" was Colonel Duxbury's indignant comment. "To usehis influence over Major Dabney to sequestrate, absolutely sequestrate, a full third of our property!"

"Forewarned is forearmed, " said the son coolly. "It's up to us to breakthe slate. "

"We'll do it, never fear. Just give me a little more time in which towin public sentiment over to our side, and don't press Ardea to name theexact day until I give the word, " was the promoter's parting injunctionto his son; and Vincent trimmed his sails accordingly, as we have seen. 

Planting the good seed, which was a little later to yield an abundantharvest of public approbation sanctioning anything he might see fit todo to the Gordons, was a congenial task to Mr. Farley; but in the midstit was rather rudely interrupted by a belated unburdening on the part ofhis first lieutenant in the South Tredegar offices. 

Dyckman held his peace as long as he dared; in point of fact he did notspeak until he saw his superiors rushing blindly into the pit digged fortheir feet by the astute young tyrant of the pipe foundry. If they couldhave fallen without carrying him with them, it is conceivable that thebookkeeper might have remained dumb. But their immunity was doubly his, and the end of it was a bad quarter of an hour for him, two of them, tobe precise: the first, in which he told the president and the treasurerthe story of the missing cash-book and ledger pages and the extortedconfession, and the other, during which he sat under a scathing fire ofabuse poured on him by the younger of his two listeners. After it wasover, he escaped to the welcome refuge of his own office while fatherand son took counsel together against this new and unsuspected peril. 

"Anybody but an idiot like Dyckman would have found out long ago ifthose papers were burned in Gordon's safe, " snapped Vincent, when thedanger had been duly weighed and measured. 

The president shook his head mournfully. 

"Anybody but Dyckman would have burned them himself, you'd think. It wascriminally careless in him not to do so. "

"They are the key to the lock, " summed up the younger man. "We've got tohave them. "

"Assuredly--if they are in existence. "

"You needn't try to squeeze comfort out of that. I tell you, they wentthrough the fire all right, and Tom has them. "

"I am afraid you are right, Vincent; afraid, also, that Dyckman so farforgot himself as to set fire to Gordon's office in the hope ofretrieving his own neglect. But how are we to regain them?" Mr. Farley'sweapons were two, only: first persuasion, and when that failed, corruption. 

Vincent's cold blue eyes were darkening. The little virtues interposebut a slight barrier to a sharp attack of the large vices. 

"The fight has fallen into halves, " he said briefly. "You go on withyour part as if nothing had happened, and I'll do mine. Has the oldiron-melter been taken in on it, do you think?"

"No; I don't believe Caleb knows. "

"That's better. Are you going up the mountain to-night?"

"Yes, I had thought of it. Eva wants me to take her. "

"All right; you go, and get Major Dabney to yourself for a quiethalf-hour. Tell him we are all ready to close the deal, and we're onlywaiting on the Gordons. I'll be up to dinner, and if anybody asks for melater, let it be understood that I have gone to my room to writeletters. "

This bomb-hurling of Dyckman's occurred on the Wednesday. That night, between the hours of nine and eleven, the new steel safe in Tom Gordon'sprivate office was broken open and ransacked, though nothing was taken. On Thursday afternoon, while Martha Gordon was over at Deer Tracetraining the new growth on Ardea's roses, Tom's room at Woodlawn wasthoroughly and systematically pillaged: drawers were pulled out andemptied on the floor, the closets were stripped of their contents, andeven the bed mattresses were ripped open and destroyed. 

Mrs. Martha was terrified, as so bold a daylight housebreaking gave hera right to be; and Caleb was for sending to the county workhouse for thebloodhounds. But Tom was apparently unmoved. 

"It won't happen again, " he said; and it did not. But on the Saturdayevening, just before the late dinner-hour at Woodlawn, JaphethPettigrass, who had been trying to halter a shy filly running loose inthe field across the pike, saw a stirring little drama enacted at theWoodlawn gates; saw it, and played some small part in it. 

It centered on Tom, who was late getting home. He never rode with hisfather now if he could avoid it, and Japheth saw him swinging along upthe pike, with his head down and his hands in the pockets of his shortcoat. The Woodlawn entrance was a walled semicircle giving back from theroadway, with the carriage gates hinged to great stone pillars in thecenter, and a light iron grille at the side for foot-passengers. Tom'shand was on the latch of the little gate when two men darted from theshadow of the nearest pillar and flung themselves on him. 

Japheth saw them first and gave a great yell of warning. Tom turned atthe cry, and so was not taken entirely unawares. But the two had beatenhim down and were busily searching him when Japheth dashed across thepike, shouting as he ran. The footpads persisted until the horse-tradercame near enough to see that they were black men, or rather white menwith blackened faces and hands. Then they sprang up and vanished in thegathering dusk. 

Tom was conscious when Pettigrass got him on his feet and hastily bounda handkerchief over the ugly wound in his head. He was still consciouswhen Japheth walked him slowly up the path to the house, and was sanelyconcerned lest his mother should be frightened. 

But after they got him to bed he sank into an inert sleep out of whichhe awoke the next morning wildly delirious. Ardea's name was oftenest onhis lips in his ravings, and while his strength remained, his callingfor her was monotonously insistent. He seemed to think she was at thegreat house across the lawns, and it took the united efforts of Japhethand Norman to hold him when he tried to get to the window to shoutacross for her. 

Norman stood it until late Monday afternoon. Then, when Caleb hadrelieved him at Tom's bedside, he drove down to Gordonia and wrote thenote to Miss Dabney, sending it up the mountain by one of the Helgersonboys with strict injunctions to give it to Miss Ardea herself. 

The Dabneys came down from the mountain Tuesday morning, and Ardea wasso far from disregarding her summons that she stopped the carriage atthe Woodlawn gates and went directly to comfort Mrs. Martha and to offerher services in the sick-room. Tom was in one of his stubbornestparoxysms when she entered, but at the touch of her hand he becamequiet, and a little later fell into a deep sleep, the first since theSaturday night of coma and stertorous breathings. 

That same afternoon Crestcliffe Inn lost another guest, and thesmoking-room at Warwick Lodge was lighted far into the night. Two mentalked in low tones behind the carefully-shaded windows, one of them, the younger, lounging in the depths of an easy-chair, and the otherpacing the floor in deepest abstraction. 

"I only know what Ardea tells me, " said the lounger, answering the finalquestion put by the floor pacer. "He's out of his head--and out of theway, temporarily, at least. Now is your time to strike. "

Mr. Duxbury Farley nodded his head slowly. 

"It was providential for us, Vincent, this assault just at the criticalmoment. I have struck. I had an interview with Caleb this evening andmade him an offer for the pipe plant. He is to give us his answerto-morrow morning. "

Silence fell for a little time, and then the younger man in the wickerchair smote his palms together. 

"Curse him!" he gritted vengefully, transferring his thought from CalebGordon to Caleb Gordon's son. "I hope he'll die!"

The elder man paused in his walk. "Why, Vincent, my son! What has comeover you? It is merely a matter of business, and we mustn't bevindictive. "

"Business be damned!" snarled the younger man. "Can't you see? She haspromised to marry me--and she loves _him_. Are you going to bed? Well, I'm not. I've got something else to do first. "

A few minutes later he let himself noiselessly out at the side door ofthe Lodge, and turned down the avenue in the direction of Deer Trace. But after crossing the bridge over the creek, he took a diagonal coursethrough the stubble-fields and bore to the right. And when he finallyreached and climbed the wall into the pike, it was at a point directlyopposite the forking of the rough wood road which led off to the PineKnob settlement. 

As he leaped over into the highway, a man carrying a squirrel gunstepped from behind a tree. 

"I was allowin' you'd done forgot, " said the man, yawning sleepily. 

"I never forget, " was the short rejoinder. Then: "Come with me, and youshall hear with your own ears, since you won't take my word for it. Then, if you still want to sleep on your wrongs, it's your own affair. "

XXXII

WHOSO DIGGETH A PIT

If Thomas Gordon, opening his eyes to consciousness on the mid-weekmorning, felt the surprise which might naturally grow out of the sightof Ardea sitting in a low rocker at his bedside, he did not evince it, possibly because there were other and more perplexing things for thetired brain to grapple with first. 

For the moment he did not stir or try to speak. There was a long dreamsomewhere in the past in which he had been lost in the darkness, stumbling and groping and calling for her to come and lead him out tolife and light. It must have been a dream, he argued, and perhaps thiswas only a continuation of it. Yet, no; she was there in visiblepresence, bending over a tiny embroidery frame; and they were alonetogether. 

"Ardea!" he said tremulously. 

She looked up, and her eyes were like cooling well-springs to quench thefever fires in his. 

"You are better, " she said, rising. "I'll go and call your mother. "

"Wait a minute, " he pleaded; then his hand found the bandage on hishead. "What happened to me?"

"Don't you remember? Two men tried to rob you last Saturday evening asyou were coming home. One of them struck you. "

"Saturday? And this is--"

"This is Wednesday. "

The cool preciseness of her replies cut him to the heart. He did notneed to ask why she had come. It was mere neighborliness, and not forhim, but for his mother. He remembered the Saturday evening quiteclearly now: Japheth's shout; the two men springing on him; the instantjust preceding the crash of the blow when he had recognized one of hisassailants and guessed the identity of the other. 

"It was no more than right that you should come, " he said bitterly. "Itwas the least you could do, since your--"

She was moving toward the door, and his ungrateful outburst had theeffect of stopping her. But she did not go back to him. 

"I owe your mother anything she likes to ask, " she affirmed, in the samecolorless tone. 

"And you owe me nothing at all, you would say. I might controvert that. But no matter; we have passed the Saturday and have come to theWednesday. Where is Norman? Hasn't he been here?"

"He has been with you almost constantly from the first. He was here lessthan an hour ago. "

"Where is he now?"

She hesitated. "There is urgency of some kind in your business affairs. Your father spent the night in South Tredegar; and a little while ago hetelephoned for Mr. Norman--from the iron-works, I think. " She had movedaway again, and her hand was on the door-knob. 

He raised himself on one elbow. 

"You are in a desperate hurry, aren't you?" he gritted; though theteeth-grinding was from the pain it cost him to move. "Would you mindhanding me that desk telephone before you go?"

She came back and tried it, but the wired cord was not long enough toreach to the bed. 

"If you wish to speak to some one, perhaps I could do it for you, " shesuggested, quite in the trained-nurse tone. 

His smile was a mere grimace of torture. 

"If you could stretch your good-will to--to my mother--that far, " hesaid. "Please call my office--number five-twenty-six G--and ask for Mr. Norman. "

She complied, but with only a strange young-woman stenographer at theother end of the wire, a word of explanation was necessary. "This isMiss Dabney, at Woodlawn. Mr. Gordon is better, and he wishes tosay--what did you want to say?" she asked, turning to him. 

"Just ask what's going on; if it's Norman you've got, he'll know, " saidTom, sinking back on the pillows. 

What the stenographer had to say took some little time, and Ardea'scolor came and went in hot flashes and her eyes grew large andthoughtful as she listened. When she put the ear-piece down and spoke tothe sick man, her tone was kinder. 

"There is an important business meeting going on over at the furnaceoffice, and Mr. Norman is there with your father, " she said. "Thestenographer wants me to ask you about some papers Mr. Norman thinks youmay have, and--"

She stopped in deference to the yellow pallor that was creeping like acurious mask over the face of the man in the bed. Through all the strainof the last twenty hours she had held herself well in hand, doing forhim only what she might have done for a sick and suffering stranger. Butthere were limits beyond which love refused to be driven. 

"Tom!" she gasped, rising quickly to go to him. 

"Wait, " he muttered; "let me pull myself together. Thepapers--are--in--"

He seemed about to relapse into unconsciousness, and she hastily pouredout a spoonful of the stimulating medicine left by Doctor Williams andgave it to him. It strangled him, and she slipped her hand under thepillow and raised his head. It was the nearness of her that revived him. 

"I--I'm weaker than a girl, " he whispered. "Vince--I mean the thug, hitme a lot harder than he needed to. What was I saying?--oh, yes; thepapers. Will you--will you go over there in the corner by the door andlook behind the mopboard? You will find a piece of it sawed so it willcome out. In the wall behind it there ought to be a package. "

She found it readily, --a thick packet securely tied with heavy twine anda little charred at the corners. 

"That's it, " he said weakly. "Now one more last favor; please send Aunt'Phrony up as you go down. Tell her I want my clothes. "

Miss Dabney became the trained nurse again in the turning of a leaf. 

"You are not going to get up?" she said. 

"Yes, I must; I'm due this minute at that meeting down yonder. "

"Indeed, you shall do no such insane thing!" she cried. "What are youthinking of!"

"Listen!" he commanded. "My father has worked hard all his life, andhe's right old now, Ardea. If I should fail him--but I'm not going to. Please send Aunt 'Phrony. "

"I'm going to call your mother, " she said firmly. 

"If you do, you'll regret it the longest day you live. "

"Then let me take the papers down to Mr. Norman for you. "

He considered the alternative for a moment--only a moment. What anexquisite revenge it would be to make her the messenger! But he found hedid not hate her so bitterly as he had been trying to since thatsoul-torturing evening on the cliff's edge. 

"No, I can't quite do that, " he objected; and again he besought her tosend the old negro housekeeper. 

She consented finally, and as she was leaving him, she said:

"I hope your mother is still asleep. She was here with you all night, and Mr. Norman and I made her go to bed at daybreak. If you must go, getout of the house as quietly as you can, and I'll have Pete and the buggywaiting for you at the gate. "

"God bless you!" said Tom fervently; and then he set his teeth hard anddid that which came next. 

The Dabney buggy was waiting for him when, after what seemed like apilgrimage of endless miles, he had crept down to the gate. But it wasMiss Dabney, and not Mammy Juliet's Pete, who was holding the reins. 

"I couldn't find Pete, and Japheth has gone to town, " she explained. "Can you get in by yourself?"

He was holding on by the cut wheel, and the death-look was creepingover his face again. 

"I can't let you, " he panted; and she thought he was thinking of thedisgrace for her. 

"I am my own mistress, " she said coldly. "If I choose to drive you whenyou are too sick to hold the reins, it is my own affair. "

He shook his head impatiently. 

"I wasn't thinking of that; but you must first know just what you'redoing. My father stands to lose all he has got to--to the Farley's. That's what the meeting is for. Do you understand?"

She bit her lip and a far-away look came into her eyes. Then she turnedon him with a little frown of determination gathering between herstraight eyebrows--a frown that reminded him of the Major in hismilitant moods. 

"I must take your word for it, " she said, and the words seemed to cutthe air like edged things. "Tell me the truth: is your cause entirelyjust? Your motive is not revenge?"

"As God is my witness, " he said solemnly. "It is my father's cause, andnone of mine; more than that, it is your grandfather's cause--andyours. "

She pushed the buggy hood back with a quick arm sweep and gave him herfree hand. "Step carefully, " she cautioned; and a minute later they werespeeding swiftly down the pike in a white dust cloud of their ownmaking. 

 * * * * *

There was a sharp crisis to the fore in the old log-house office at thefurnace. Caleb Gordon, haggard and tremulous, sat at one end of thetrestle-board which served as a table, with Norman at his elbow; andflanking him on either side were the two Farleys, Dyckman, Trewhitt, acting general counsel for the company in the Farley interest, andHanchett, representing the Gordons. 

Having arranged the preliminaries to his entire satisfaction, ColonelDuxbury had struck true and hard. The pipe foundry might be taken intothe parent company at a certain nominal figure payable in a new issue ofChiawassee Limited stock, or three several things were due to happensimultaneously: the furnace would be shut down indefinitely "forrepairs, " thus cutting off the iron supply and making a ruinousforfeiture of pipe contracts inevitable; suit would be brought torecover damages for the alleged mismanagement of Chiawassee Consolidatedduring the absence of the majority stock-holders; and the validity ofthe pipe-pit patents would be contested in the courts. This was theultimatum. 

The one-sided battle had been fought to a finish. Hanchett, hewing awayin the dark, had made every double and turn that keen legal acumen and asharp wit could suggest to gain time. But Mr. Farley was inexorable. Thebusiness must be concluded at the present sitting; otherwise the papersin the two suits, which were already prepared, would be filed beforenoon. Hanchett took his principal into the laboratory for a privateword. 

"It's for you to decide, Mr. Gordon, " he said. "If you want to followthem into the court, we'll do the best we can. But as a friend I can'tadvise you to take that course. "

"If we could only make out to find out what Tom's holdin' over 'em!"groaned Caleb helplessly. 

"Yes; but we can't, " said the lawyer. "And whatever it may be, they areevidently not afraid of it. "

"We'll never see a dollar's dividend out o' the stock, Cap'n Hanchett. Imight as well give 'em the foundry free and clear. "

"That's the chance you take, of course. But on the other hand, they canforce you to the wall in a month and make you lose everything you have. I've been over the books with Norman: if you can't fill your pipecontracts, the forfeitures will ruin you. And you can't fill them unlessyou can have Chiawassee iron, and at the present price. "

The old iron-master led the way back to the room of doom and took hisplace at the end of the trestle-board table. 

"Give me the papers, " he said gloomily; and the Farleys' attorney passedthem across, with his fountain-pen. 

There was a purring of wheels in the air and the staccato clatter of ahorse's hoofs on the hard metaling of the pike. Vincent Farley rosequietly in his place and tiptoed to the door. He was in the act ofsnapping the catch of the spring-latch, when the door flew inward and hefell back with a smothered exclamation. Thereupon they all looked up, Caleb, the tremulous, with the pen still suspended over the signaturesupon which the ink was still wet. 

Tom was standing in the doorway, deathly sick and clinging to the jambfor support. In putting on his hat he had slipped the bandages, and thewound was bleeding afresh. Dyckman yelped like a stricken dog, overturning his chair as he leaped up and backed away into a corner. Only Mr. Duxbury Farley and his attorney were wholly unmoved. The lawyerhad taken his fountain-pen from Caleb's shaking fingers and wascarefully recapping it; and Mr. Farley was pocketing the agreement, bythe terms of which the firm of Gordon and Gordon had ceased to exist. 

Tom lurched into the room and threw himself feebly on the promoter, andVincent made as if he would come between. But there was no need forintervention. Duxbury Farley had only to step aside, and Tom fellheavily, clutching the air as he went down. 

The dusty office which had once been his mother's sitting-room wascleared of all save his father when Tom recovered consciousness and satup, with Caleb's arm to help. 

"There, now, Buddy; you ortn't to tried to get up and come down here, "said the father soothingly. But Tom's blood was on fire. 

"Tell me!" he raved: "have they got the foundry away from you?"

Caleb nodded gravely. "But don't you mind none about that, son. What I'msweatin' about now is the fix you're in. My God! ain't Fred ever goin'to get back with Doc Williams!"

Tom struggled to his feet, tottering. 

"I don't need any doctor, pappy; you couldn't kill me with a bullet--nottill I've cut the heart out of these devils that have robbed you. Giveme the pistol from that drawer, and drive me down to the station beforetheir train comes. I'll do it, and by God, I'll do it now!"

But when old Longfellow, jigging vertically between the buggy shafts, picked his way out of the furnace yard, he was permitted to turn of hisown accord in the homeward direction; and an hour later the sick man wasback in bed, mingling horrible curses with his insistent calls forArdea. And this time Miss Dabney did not come. 

XXXIII

THE WINE-PRESS OF WRATH

There was more to that crazy outburst of Tom's about the cutting out ofhearts, and the like, than would appear on the surface of things, to youwho dwell in a land shadowed with wings, where law abides and a man sueshis neighbor for defamation of character, if he is called a liar, Imean. 

In the land unshadowed, where Polaris makes a somewhat sharper anglewith the horizon, there is law, also, but much of it is unwritten. Andone of the unwritten statutes is that which maintains the inherent rightof a man to avenge his own quarrel with his own hand. 

So, when the younger Gordon was up and about again, and was able to keephis seat soldierly on the back of the big bay, folk who knew the Gordonblood and temper looked for trouble, not of the plaintiff-and-defendantsort; and when it did not come, there were a few to lament thedegeneracy of the times, and to say that old Caleb, for example, wouldnever have so slept on his father's wrongs. 

But Tom was not degenerate, even in the sense of those who thought heshould have called out and shot the younger of the Farleys. It was inhim to kill or be killed, quite in the traditional way: that grim giftis in the blood as the wine is in the grape--to stay unless you shallwater it to extinction with many base inbreedings. Nor was the spurlacking. When the sweeping extent of the business _coup de grâce_ wasmeasured, Woodlawn was left, and there were a few thousands in bank;these and the three hundred and fifty shares of the reorganization stockwhich the Farleys might render worthless at will. 

Tom's heart burned within him, and the race thirst--for vengeance thatcould be touched and seen and handled--parched his lips and swelled theveins in his forehead. Vincent Farley had it all: the business, the goodrepute, the love of the one woman. At such crises the wild beast in aman, if any there be, rattles the bars of its cage, and--well, you willsee that the gnashing of teeth and that fierce talk of heart-cutting atthe quickening moment were not inartistic. 

Soberer second thought, less frenzied, was no less vengeful andvindictive. Tom had lived four formative years in a climate where thepassions are colder--and more comprehensive. Also, he was of his owngeneration--which slays its enemy peacefully and without messing inbloody-angle details. 

Riding up the pike one sun-shot afternoon in the golden September, Tomsaw Ardea entering the open door of the Morwenstow church-copy, drewrein, flung himself out of the saddle and followed her. She saw him andstopped in the vestibule, quaking a little as she felt she must alwaysquake until the impassable chasm of wedlock with another should besafely opened between them. 

"Just a moment, " he said abruptly. "There was a time when I said Iwould spare Vincent Farley and his kin for your sake. Do you rememberit?"

She bowed her head without speaking. Her lips were dry. 

"That was a year ago, " he went on roughly. "Things have changed sincethen; I have changed. When my father is buried, I shall do my best tofill the mourners' carriages with those who have killed him. "

"How is your father to-day?" she asked, not daring to trust speechotherwise. 

"He is the same as he was yesterday and the day before; the same as hewill always be from this on--a broken man. "

"You will strike back?" She said it with infinite sadness in her voiceand an upcasting of eyes that were swimming. "I don't question yourright--but I pity you. The blow may be just--I don't know, but Godknows--yet it will fall hardest on you in the end, Tom. "

His smile was almost boyish in its frank anger. But there was a man'ssneer in his words. 

"Excuse me; I forgot for the moment that we are in a church. But I amtaking consequences, these days. "

She looked out from the cool, dark refuge of the vestibule when hemounted and rode on, and her heart was full. It was madness, vindictivemadness and fell anger. But it was a generous wrath, large and manlike. It was not to be a blow in the dark or in the back, as some men struck;and he would not strike without first giving her warning. Ardea had beencross-questioning Japheth about the assault at the Woodlawn gates--toher own hurt. Japheth had evaded as he could, but she had guessed whathe was keeping back--the identity of the two footpads blackened to looklike negroes. It was a weary world, and life had lost much that had madeit worth living. 

After the incident of the church vestibule, Tom spent a week or moreroaming the forests of Lebanon in rough shooting clothes, with thecanvas hat pulled well over his eyes and a fowling-piece under his arm. 

People said harsher things then. With old Caleb failing visibly from dayto day, and his mother keeping her room for the greater part of thetime, it was a shame that a great strong young giant like Tom should goloitering about on the mountain, deliberately shirking his duty. Thiswas the elder Miss Harrison's wording of the censure; and it was kinderthan Mrs. Henniker's, since it was the banker's wife who first asked, with uplifted brows and the accent accusative, if the unspeakableBryerson woman were safely beyond tramping distance from Woodlawn. 

They were both mistaken. For all Tom thought of her, Nancy Bryerson wasas safe in her retreat at Pine Knob as were the squirrels he wassupposed to be hunting; and they came and frisked unharmed on thebranches of the tree under which he sat and munched his bit of bread andmeat when the sun was at the meridian. 

And he was not killing time. He was deep in an inventive trance, withvengeance for the prize to be won, and for the means to the end, iron-works and pipe plants and forgings--especially the forging of oneparticular thunderbolt which should shatter the Farley fortunes beyondrepair. When this bolt was finally hammered into shape he came out ofthe wood and out of the inventive trance, had an hour's interview withMajor Dabney, and took a train for New York. 

I am not sure, but I think it was at Bristol, Tennessee, that thetelegram from Norman, begging him to come back to South Tredegar atspeed, overtook him. This is a detail, important only as a marker oftime. For three days a gentleman with shrewd eyes and a hard-bitted jaw, registering at the Marlboro as "A. Dracott, New York, " had been shut upwith Mr. Duxbury Farley in the most private of the company's offices inthe Coosa Building, and on the fourth day Norman had made shift to findout this gentleman's business. Whereupon the wire to Tom, already on hisway to New York, and the prayer for returning haste. 

Tom caught a slow train back, and was met at a station ten miles out oftown by his energetic ex-lieutenant. 

"Of course, I didn't dare do anything more than give him a hint, " wasthe conclusion of Norman's exciting report. "I didn't know but he mightgive us away to Colonel Duxbury. So, without telling him much ofanything, I got him to agree to meet you at his rooms in the Marlboroto-night after dinner. Then I was scared crazy for fear my wire to youwould miss. "

"You are a white man, Fred, and a friend to tie to, " said Tom; which wasmore than he had ever said to Norman by way of praise in the days ofmaster and man. Then, as the train was slowing into the South Tredegarstation: "If this thing wins out, you'll come in for something biggerthan you had with Gordon and Gordon; you can bet on that. "

It was ordained that Gordon should anticipate his appointment bymeeting his man at the dinner-table in the Marlboro café; and it wasaccident or design, as you like to believe, that Dyckman should besitting two tables away, choking over his food and listening only by theroad of the eye, since he was unhappily out of ear range. When the twohad lighted their cigars and passed out to the elevator, the bookkeeperrose hastily and made for the nearest telephone. This, at least, was notaccidental. 

The conference in Suite 32 lasted until nearly midnight, with Dyckmanpainfully shadowing the corridor and sweating like a furnace laborer, though the night was more than autumn cool. The door was thick, thetransom was closed, and the keyhole commanded nothing but a square ofblank wall opposite in the electric-lighted sitting-room of the suite. Hence the bookkeeper could only guess what we may know. 

"You have let in a flood of light on Mr. Farley's proposition, Mr. Gordon, " said the representative of American Aqueduct, when the groundhad been thoroughly gone over. "I don't mind telling you now that hemade his first overtures to us on his arrival from Europe, giving us tounderstand that he owned or controlled the pipe-making patentsabsolutely. "

"At that time he controlled nothing, as I have explained, " said Tom, "not even his majority stock in Chiawassee Consolidated. Of course, heresumed control as soon as he reached home, and his next move was tohave me quietly sandbagged while he froze my father out. But father didnot transfer the patents, for the simple reason that he couldn't. Theyare my personal property, made over to me before the firm of Gordon andGordon came into existence. "

The pipe-trust promoter nodded. 

"You are the man we'll have to do business with, Mr. Gordon, " he saidpromptly. "Are you quite sure of your legal status in the case?"

"I have good advice. Hanchett, Goodloe and Tryson, Richmond Building, are my attorneys. They will put you in the way of finding out anythingyou'd like to know. "

There was a pause while the New Yorker was making a memorandum of theaddress. Then he went straight to the point. 

"As I have said, I'm here to do business. We don't need the plant. Willyou sell us your patents?"

"Yes; on one condition. "

"And that is--?"

"That you first put us out of business. You'll have to smash ChiawasseeLimited painstakingly and permanently before you can buy my holdings. "

The shrewd-eyed gentleman who had unified practically all of the pipefoundries in the United States smiled a gentle negative. 

"That would be rather out of our line. If Mr Farley owned the patents, and was disposed to fight us--as, indeed, he is not--we might try toconvince him. But we are not out for vengeance--another man's vengeance, at that. "

"Very well, then; you won't get what you've come after. The patents gowith the plant. You can't have one without the other, " said Tom, eyeinghis opponent through half-closed lids. 

"But we can buy the plant to-morrow, at a very reasonable figure. Farley is anxious enough to come in out of the wet. "

"Excuse me, Mr. Dracott, but you can't buy the plant at any price. "

"Eh? Why can't we?"

"Because the majority of the stock will vote to fight you to astandstill. "

"But, my dear sir! Mr. Farley controls sixty-five per cent. Of thestock!"

"That is where you were lied to one more time, " said Tom with greatcoolness. "The capital stock of Chiawassee Limited is divided into onethousand shares, all distributed. My father holds three hundred andfifty shares; Mr. Farley and his son together own four hundred andfifty; and the remaining two hundred are held in trust for Miss ArdeaDabney, to become her property in fee simple when she marries. Pendingher marriage, which is currently supposed to be near at hand, the votingpower of these two hundred shares resides in Miss Dabney's grandfather, _and my father holds his proxy_. "

This was the thunderbolt Tom had been forging during those quiet daysspent on the mountain side; and there was another pause while one mightcount ten. After which the man from New York spoke his mind freely. 

"Your row with these people must be pretty bitter, Mr. Gordon. Are youwilling to see your father and these Dabneys go by the board for thesake of breaking the president and his son?"

"I know what I am doing, " was the quiet reply. "Neither my father norMiss Dabney will lose anything that is worth keeping. "

"Have you figured that out, too? The field is too small for you downhere, Mr. Gordon--much too small. You should come to New York. "

Tom rose and took his hat. 

"You will fight us?" he asked. 

The short-circuiter of corporations laughed. 

"We'll put you out of business, if you insist on it. Anything to oblige. Better light a fresh cigar before you go. "

Tom helped himself from the box on the table. 

"You have it to do, Mr. Dracott. On the day you have hammered ChiawasseeLimited down to a dead proposition, you can have my pipe patents at thefigure named. If you will meet me at the office of Hanchett, Goodloe andTryson to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, we will put it in writing. Goodnight. "

XXXIV

THE SMOKE OF THE FURNACE

Hoping always for the best, after the manner prescribed for optimisticgentlemen who successfully exploit their fellows, Mr. Duxbury Farley didnot deem it necessary to confide fully in his son when therepresentative of American Aqueduct broke off negotiations abruptly andwent back to New York. 

It is a sad state of affairs, reached by respectably villainous fathersthe world over, when the son demonstrates the mathematical law ofprogression by becoming a villain without regard for therespectabilities. Mr. Farley saw the growing outlaw in his son, was nota little disturbed thereby, and was beginning to crouch when it menaced. 

Hence, when the comfortable arrangement with the pipe trust threatenedto miscarry, all he did was to urge Vincent to hasten the day when MissDabney's stock could be utilized as a Farley asset. Pressed forparticular reasons, he turned it off lightly. A young man in the feverof ante-nuptial expectancy was a mere pawn in the business game: let itbe over and done with, so that the nominal treasurer of ChiawasseeLimited could once more become the treasurer in fact. 

Whereupon Vincent, who rode badly at best, bought a new saddle-horseand took his place at Miss Dabney's whip-hand in the early morningrides, the place formerly filled by Tom Gordon, --which was not the partof wisdom, one would say. Contrasts are pitiless things; and the warywoman-hunter will break new paths rather than traverse those alreadybroken by his rival. 

Tom, meanwhile, had apparently relapsed into his former condition ofdisinterest, and was once more spending his days on the mountain, seemingly bent on effacing himself socially, as he had been effacedbusiness-wise by the Farley overturn. 

A week or more after the relapse, as he was crossing the road leadingover the mountain's shoulder, he came on the morning riders walkingtheir horses toward Paradise, and saw trouble in Miss Dabney's eyes, andon Farley's impassive face a mask of sullen anger. 

When they were out of sight and hearing, Tom sat on a flat stone by theroadside with his gun between his knees, thoughtfully speculative. Werethe high gods invoked in the midnight conference at the Marlborobeginning to point the finger of fate at these two? He was malevolentenough to hope so, and in the comfort of the hope, walked many milesthat day through the forests of crimson and gold showering with fallingleaves. 

Whatever their influence in the field of sentiment, undeniably in thatof fact the high gods were imposing Sisyphean labors on Mr. DuxburyFarley. 

With the negotiations for the sale to the trust so abruptly terminated, the promoter-president set instant and anxious inquiry afoot todetermine the cause. It was soon revealed; and when Mr. Farley foundthat the pipe-pit patents had not been transferred with the Gordonplant, and that Major Dabney had given Caleb Gordon a power of attorneyover Ardea's stock in the company, there were hard words said in thetown offices of Messrs. Trewhitt and Slocumb, Chiawassee attorneys, anda torrent of persuasive ones poured into the Major's ear--the latterpointing to the crying necessity for the revocation of the power ofattorney, summarily and at once. 

The Major proved singularly obstinate and non-committal. "Mistah CalebGordon is my friend, suh, and I was mighty proud to do him this smallfaveh. What his object is makes no manneh of diffe'ence to me, suh; nomanneh of diffe'ence, whateveh, " was all an anxious promoter could getout of the old autocrat of Deer Trace. But Mr. Farley did not desist;neither did he fail to keep the telegraph wires to New York heated toincandescence with his appeals for a renewal of the negotiations forsurrender. 

When the wired appeals brought forth nothing but evasive replies, Mr. Farley began to look for trouble, and it came: first in a mysteriousclosing of the market against Chiawassee pipe, and next in an alarmingadvance of freight rates from Gordonia on the Great Southwestern. 

Colonel Duxbury doubled his field force and gave his travelers a freehand on the price list. Persuasion and diplomacy having failed, a frenzylike that of one who finds himself slipping into the sharp-stakedpitfall prepared for others seized on him. It was the madness of thosewho have seen the clock hands stop and begin to turn steadily backwardon the dial of success. 

Ten days later the freight rates went up another notch, and there beganto be a painful dearth of cars in which to ship the few orders thesalesmen were still able to place. Mr. Farley shut his eyes to theportents, put himself recklessly into Mr. Vancourt Henniker's hands as aborrower, and posted a notice of a slashing cut in wages at the works. 

As a matter of course, the cut bred immediate and tumultuous troublewith the miners, and in the midst of it the president made a flying tripto New York; to the metropolis and to the offices of American Aqueductto make a final appeal in person. 

But the door was shut. Mr. Dracott was not to be seen, though hisassistant was very affable. No; American Aqueduct was not trying toassimilate the smaller plants, or to crush out all competition, as thepublic seemed to believe. With fifty million dollars invested it couldeasily control a market for its own product, which was all theshare-holders demanded. Was Mr. Farley in the city for some little time?and would he not dine with the assistant at the Waldorf-Astoria?

Mr. Farley took a fast train, south-bound, instead, and on reachingSouth Tredegar, wired his New York broker to test the market with asmall block of Chiawassee Limited. There were no takers at the upsetprice; and the highest bid was less than half of the asking. ColonelDuxbury was writing letters at the Cupola when the broker's telegram washanded him, and he broke a rule which had held good for the better partof a cautious, self-contained lifetime: he went to the buffet and took astiff drink of brandy--alone. The following morning the miners and allthe white men employed in the furnace and foundries and coke yards atGordonia went on strike. 

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad, " has a wideapplication in the commercial world. Duxbury Farley had resources! acomfortable fortune as country fortunes go, amassed by far-seeingshrewdness, a calm contempt for the well-being of his businessassociates, and most of all by a crowning gift in the ability torecognize the psychological moment at which to let go. 

But under pressure of the combined disasters he lost his head, quarreledwith his colder-blooded son, and in spite of Vincent's angry protests, began the suicidal process of turning his available assets intoammunition for the fighting of a battle which could have but onepossible outcome. 

Strike-breakers were imported at fabulous expense. Armed guards underpay swarmed at the valley foot, and around the company's propertyelsewhere. By hook or crook the foundries were kept going, turning outwater-pipe for which there was no market, and which, owing to thedisturbances which were promptly made an excuse by the railway company, could not be moved out of the Chiawassee yard. 

Later, when the striking workmen began to grow hungry, riot, arson andbloodshed were nightly occurrences. A charging of coal, mined under thegreatest difficulties, was conveyed to the coke yards, only to bedestroyed--and half of the ovens with it--by dynamite cunninglyblackened and dropped into the chargings. For want of fuel, the furnacewent out of blast, but with the small store of coke remaining in thefoundry yards, the pipe pits were kept at work. By this time thepromoter-president was little better than a madman, fighting like aberserker, and breeding a certain awed respect in the comment of thosewho had hitherto held him only as a shrewd schemer. 

And Thomas Jefferson: how did this return to primordial chaos, broughtabout in no uncertain sense by his own premeditated act, affect him?Only a man quite lost to all promptings of the grace that saves andsoftens could look unmoved on the burnings and riotings, the cruelwastings and the bloodlettings, one would say. 

When he was not galloping Saladin afar in the country roads to thelandward side of Paradise, Tom Gordon was idling purposefully in theLebanon forests, with the fowling-piece under his arm and JaphethPettigrass's dog trotting soberly at heel, as care-free, to allappearances, as a school-boy home for a holiday. 

The dog, a mongrel, liver-spotted cur with hound's ears, chose to be ofthis companionship, and he was always waiting at the orchard gate whenTom fared forth. For the unsympathetic analyst of dog motives there willbe sufficient reason in expectation, since Tom never failed to share hisnoon-time snack of bread and meat with Cæsar. Yet Deer Trace set a goodtable, and there were bones with meat on them to be had withoutfollowing a gunsman who never shot anything, miles on end on themountain side. 

Then there were children, --a brood of dusty-haired, barelegged shynessesat a mountaineer's cabin in a cove far beyond the rock of the shadowingcedars, where Tom sometimes stopped to beg a drink of water from thecold spring under the dooryard oaks. They were not afraid of thestrong-limbed, duck-clad stranger, whose manner was the manner of thetown folk, but whose speech was the gentle drawl of the mountainmotherland. Once he had eaten with them in the single room of thetumble-down cabin; and again he had made a grape-vine swing for theboys, and had ridden the littlest girl on his shoulder up to thesteep-pitched corn patch where her father was plowing. We may bear thisin mind, since it has been said that there is hope still for the man ofwhom children and dogs have no fear. 

In these forest-roaming weeks, business, or the carking thought of it, seemed furthest from him; it is within belief that he heard the news ofthe rapidly succeeding tragedies at Gordonia only through thedinner-table monologues of his father, since his wanderings never by anychance took him within eye-or ear-shot of them. 

Caleb's ailment based itself chiefly on broken habit and the lack ofsomething to do, and in a manner the trouble at Gordonia was a tonic. What a man beloved of his kind, and loving it, could do toward dampingthe fierce fires of passion and hatred and lawlessness alight at thelower end of Paradise, he was doing daily, going where the armed guardsand the sheriff's deputies dared not go, and striving manfully to do hisduty as he saw it. 

Tom was always a silent listener at the dinner-table recountings of theday's happenings; attentive, but only filially interested: willing toencourage his father to talk, but never commenting. 

Why he was so indifferent, so little stirred by the tale of thetragedies, was the most perplexing of the puzzles he presented, and wasalways presenting, to Caleb, the simple-hearted. Thomas Jefferson, thesmall boy who had threatened to die if he should not be permitted to bein and of the struggle with the railway invaders, was completely andhopelessly lost in this quiet-eyed, reticent young athlete who ateheartily and slept soundly and went afield with his gun and the borroweddog while Rome was burning. So said Caleb in his musings; which provesnothing more than that a father's sense of perspective may not be quiteperfect. 

But Tom's indifference was only apparent. In reality he was eagerlyabsorbing his father's daily report of the progress of the game ofextinction--and triumphing hard-heartedly. 

It was on an evening a fortnight after the furnace had gone out of blastfor lack of fuel that Caleb filled his after-dinner pipe and followedhis son out on the veranda. The Indian summer was still at its best, andsince the first early frosts there had been a return of dry weather andmild temperatures, with warm, soft nights when the blue haze seemed tohold all objects in suspension. 

Tom had pushed out a chair for his father and was lighting his own pipewhen he suddenly became aware that the still air was once more thrummingand murmuring to the familiar sob and sigh of the great furnaceblowing-engines. He started up quickly. 

"What's that?" he demanded. "Surely they haven't blown in again?"

Caleb nodded assent. 

"I reckon so. Colonel Duxbury allowed to me this mornin' that he wasabout out o' the woods--in spite of you, he said; as if you'd been theone that was doin' him up. "

"But he can't be!" exclaimed Tom, so earnestly and definitely that themask fell away and the father was no longer deceived. 

"I'm only tellin' you what he allowed to me, son. I reckoned he wasabout all in, quite a spell ago; but you can't tell nothing by what yousee--when it's Colonel Duxbury. He got two car-loads o' new men to-day, the Lord on'y knows where from; and he's shippin' Pocahontas coke, andgettin' it here, too. "

Tom sat glooming over it for a time, shrouding himself in tobacco smoke. Then he said:

"You feazed me a little at first; but I think I know now what hashappened. "

Caleb took time to let the remark sink in. It carried inferences. 

"Buddy, I been suspectin' for a good while back that you know more aboutthis sudden smash-up than you've let on. Do you?"

"I know all about it, " was the quiet rejoinder. 

"You do? What on top o' God's green earth--"

Tom held up his hand for silence. A man had let himself in at theroadway gate and was walking rapidly up the path to the house. It wasNorman; and after a few hurried words in private with Tom, he went as hehad come, declining Caleb's invitation to stay and smoke a pipe on theveranda. 

When the gate latch clicked at Norman's outgoing, Tom had risen and wasknocking the ash from his pipe and buttoning his coat. 

"I was admitting that I knew, " he said. "I can tell you more now than Icould a moment ago, because the time for which I have been waiting hascome. You remarked that you thought the Farleys were at the end of theirrope. They were not until to-day, but to-day they are. Every piece ofproperty they have, including Warwick Lodge, is mortgaged to the hilt, and this afternoon Colonel Duxbury put his Chiawassee stock intoHenniker's hands as security for a final loan--so Norman tells me. Perhaps it would interest you a trifle to know something about thefigure at which Henniker accepted it. "

"It would, for a fact, Buddy. "

"Well, he took it for less than the annual dividend that it earned theyear we ran the plant; and between us two, he's scared to death, atthat. "

"Heavens and earth! Why, Buddy, son! we're plum' ruined--and so's oldMajor Dabney!"

Tom had finished buttoning his coat and was settling his soft hat on hishead. 

"Don't you worry, pappy, " he said, with a touch of the old boyishassurance. "Our part, since Colonel Duxbury saw fit to freeze us out, isto say nothing and saw wood. If the Major comes to you, you can tell himthat my word to him holds good: he can have par for Ardea's stock anytime he wants it, and he could have it just the same if Chiawassee werewiped off of the map--as it's going to be. "

"But Tom; tell me--"

"Not yet, pappy; be patient just a little while longer and you shallknow all there is to tell. I'm leaving you with a clear conscience tosay to any one who asks that you don't know. "

Caleb had struggled up out of his chair, and now he laid a hand on hisson's shoulder. 

"I ain't askin', Buddy, " he said, with a tremulous quaver in his voice;"I ain't askin' a livin' thing. I'm just a-hopin'--hopin' I'll wake upbime-by and find it's on'y a bad dream. " Then, with sudden and agonizingemphasis: "My God, son! they been butcherin' one 'nother down yonder forfour long weeks!"

"I can't help that!" was the savage response. "It's a battle to thedeath, and the smoke of it has got into my blood. If I believed in God, as I used to once, I'd be down on my knees to Him this minute, askingHim to let me live long enough to see these two hypocriticalthieves, --thugs, --sandbaggers, --hit the bottom!"

He turned away, walked to the north end of the veranda, where the flareof the rekindled furnace was redly visible over the knolls, andpresently came back. 

"I said you should know after a little: you may as well know now. Iplanned this thing; I set out to break them; and, as it happened, Iwasn't a moment too soon. In another week you and Major Dabney wouldhave had a chance to sell out for little or nothing, or lose it all. Farley had it fixed to be swallowed by the trust, and this is how it wasto be done. Farley stipulated that the stock transaction should figureas a forced sale at next to nothing, in which all the stock-holdersshould participate, and that the remainder of the purchase price, whichwould have been a fair figure for all the stock, should be paid to himand his son individually as a bonus!"

The old iron-master groaned. In spite of the hard teaching of all theyears, he would have clung to some poor shadow of belief in DuxburyFarley if he could have done so. 

"That's all, " Tom went on stridently: "all but the turning of the trickthat put them in the hole they were digging for you and the Major. VintFarley had no notion of letting Ardea bring her money into the family ofher own free will: he planned to rob her first and marry her afterward. Now, by God, I'm going down to tell them both what they're up against!Don't sit up for me. "

He had taken a dozen strides down the graveled path when he saw some onecoming hurriedly across the lawns from Deer Trace, and heard avoice--the voice of the woman he loved--calling to him softly in thestillness:

"Tom! O Tom!" it said, "please wait--just one minute!"

But there are lusts mightier, momentarily, than love, and the lust ofvengeance is one. He made as if he did not see or hear; and lest sheshould overtake him, left the path to lose himself among the trees andto vault the low boundary wall into the pike at a point safely out ofsight from the gate. 

XXXV

A SOUL IN SHACKLES

The blue autumn night haze had almost the consistency of a cloud whenGordon leaped the wall and set his face toward the iron-works. Or ratherit was like the depths of a translucent sea in which the distantelectric lights of Mountain View Avenue shone as blurs of phosphorescentlife on one hand, and the great dark bulk of Lebanon loomed as themassive foundations of a shadowy island on the other. 

Farther on, the recurring flare from the tall vent of the blast-furnacelighted the haze depths weirdly, turning the mysterious sea bottom intofathomless abysses of dull-red incandescence for the few seconds of itsduration--a slow lightning flash submerged and half extinguished. 

Gordon was passing the country colony's church when one of thetorch-like flares reddened on the night, and the glow picked out thegilt cross at the top of the sham Norman tower. He flung up a handinvoluntarily, as if to put the emblem, and that for which it stood, outof his life. At the same instant a whiff of the acrid smoke from thedistant furnace fires tingled in his nostrils, and he quickened hispace. The hour for which all other hours had been waiting had struck. Love had called, and religion had made its silent protest; but thesmell in his nostrils was the smoky breath of Mammon, the breath whichhas maddened a world: he strode on doggedly, thinking only of histriumph and how he should presently compass it. 

The two great poplar-trees, sentineling what had once been the gate ofthe old Gordon homestead, had been spared through all the industrialchanges. When he would have opened the wicket to pass on to thelog-house offices, an armed man stepped from behind one of the treeswith an oath in his mouth and his gun-butt drawn up to strike. Beforethe blow could fall, the furnace flare blazed aloft like a mighty torch, and the man grounded his weapon. 

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gordon; I--I took ye for somebody else, " hestammered; and Tom scanned his face sharply by the light of the burninggases. 

"Whom?--for instance, " he queried. 

"Why-e-yeh--I reckon it don't make any diff'rence--my tellin' you; you'dought to have it in for him, too. I was layin' for that houn'-dog 'atwalks on his hind legs and calls hisself Vint Farley. "

"Who are you?" Tom demanded. 

"Kincaid's my name, and I'm s'posed to be one o' the strike guards;leastwise, that's what I hired out for a little spell ago. I couldn'tthink of nare' a better way o' gettin' at the damned--"

Gordon interrupted bruskly. "Cut out the curses and tell me what you oweVint Farley. If your debt is bigger than mine, you shall have the firstchance. "

The gas-flash came again. There was black wrath in the man's eyes. 

"You can tote it up for yourself, Tom-Jeff Gordon. Late yeste'dayevening when me and Nan Bryerson drove to town for your Uncle Silas tomarry us, she told me what I'd been mistrustin' for a month back--thatVint Farley was the daddy o' her chillern. He's done might' nighever'thing short o' killin' her to make her swear 'em on to you; and Iallowed I'd jest put off goin' back West till I'd fixed his lyin' faceso 'at no yuther woman'd ever look at it. "

Gordon staggered and leaned against the fence palings, the red rage ofmurder boiling in his veins. Here, at last, was the key to all themysteries; the source of all the cruel gossip; the foundation of thewall of separation that had been built up between his love and Ardea. When he could trust himself to speak he asked a question. 

"Who knows this, besides yourself?"

"Your Uncle Silas, for one: he allowed he wouldn't marry us less'n shetold him. I might' nigh b'lieve he had his suspicions, too. He let onlike it was Farley that told him on you, years ago, when you was a boy. "

"He did? Then Farley was one of the three men who saw us up yonder atthe barrel-spring?"

"Yes; and I was another one of 'em. I was right hot at you that mornin';I shore was. "

"Well, who else knows about it?"

"Brother Bill Layne, and Aunt M'randy, and Japhe Pettigrass. They-allwent in town to stan' up with me and Nan. "

Then Tom remembered the figure coming swiftly across the lawns and thecall of the voice he loved. Had Japheth told her, and was she hasteningto make such reparation as she could? No matter, it was too late now. The fierce hatred of the wounded savage was astir in his heart and itwould not be denied or silenced. 

"Give me that gun, and you shall have your first chance, " he conceded. "I make but one condition: if you kill him, I'll kill you. "

Kincaid laughed and gave up his weapon. 

"I was only allowin' to sp'ile his face some, and a rock'll do for that. You can have what's left o' him atter I get thoo--and it'll be enough tokill, I reckon. "

At the moment of weapon-passing there came sounds audible above the soband sigh of the blowing-engines--a clatter of horses' hoofs and thegrinding of carriage wheels on the pike. Gordon signed quickly toKincaid and drew back carefully behind the bole of the opposite poplar. 

It was the Warwick Lodge surrey, and it stopped at the gate. Two men gotout and went up the path, and an instant later, Kincaid followedstealthily. 

Gordon waited for the next gas-flare, and by the light of it he threwthe breech-block of the repeating rifle to make sure the cartridge wasin place. Then he, too, passed through the wicket and went to stand inthe shadow of the slab-floored porch, redolent of memories. He hadforgotten the lesser vengeance in the thirst for the greater, --that hehad come to fling their misfortunes into the faces of the father and theson, and to tell them that the work was his. He heard only the voice ofthe savage in his heart, and that was whispering "Kill! kill!"

 * * * * *

It was close on midnight when the door giving on the porch opened andtwo men stood on the threshold. The younger of the two was speaking. 

"It's quieter than usual to-night. That was a good move--getting Ludlowand the two Helgersons jailed. I was in hopes we could snaffle old Calebwith the others. He pretends to be peacemaking, but as long as he isloose, these fools will hang to the idea that they're fighting hisbattle against us. "

"It is already fought, " said the older man dejectedly. "My luck hasgone. When Henniker puts us to the wall, we shall be beggars. "

The young man's rejoinder was an exclamation of contempt. 

"You've lost your nerve. What you need most is to go to bed and sleep. Wait for me till I've made a round of the guards, and we'll go home. Better ring up the surrey right now. "

He left the porch on the side nearest the furnace, and Gordon saw anactive figure glide from the shelter of a flask-shed and go in pursuit. He followed at a distance. It was needful only that he should know whereto find Farley when Kincaid should have squared his account. 

The leisurely chase led the round of the great gates first, and thencethrough the deserted and ruined coke yard to the foot of the huge slagdump, cold now from the long shut-down. 

Tom looked to see Farley turn back from the toe of the dump. There wereno gates on that side of the yard, and consequently no guards. 

But the short cut to the office was up the slope of the dump and alongthe railway track over which the drawings of molten slag were run outto be spilled down the face of the declivity. There had been noslag-drawing since the new "blow-in" earlier in the day; but while hewas watching to keep Farley in sight in the intervals between thegas-flares, Gordon was conscious of the note of preparation behind him:the slackening of the blast, the rattle and clank of the dinkeylocomotive pushing the dumping ladle into place under the furnace lip. 

Farley had taken two or three scrambling steps up the rough-seameddeclivity when the workmen tapped the furnace. There was a sputteringroar and the air was filled with coruscating sparks. 

Then the stream of molten matter began to pour into the great ladle, ahuge eight-foot pot swung on tilting trunnions and mounted on a skeletonflat-car; and for Gordon, standing at the corner of the ore shed withhis back to the slag drawers, the red glow picked out the man scramblingup the miniature mountain of cooled scoria, --this man and another manrunning swiftly to overtake him. 

He looked on coldly until he saw Kincaid head off the retreat and facehis adversary. Instantly there was a spurt of fire from a pistol inFarley's right hand, a brief flash with the report swallowed up in theroar from the furnace lip. Then the two men closed and rolled togetherto the bottom of the slope, and Gordon turned his back. 

When he looked again the trampling note of the big blast-engines hadquickened to its normal beat, the blow-hole was plugged with its stopperof damp clay, and a red twilight born of the reflection from thesurface of the great pot of seething slag had succeeded to the blindingglare. Where there had been two men locked in struggle there was nowonly one, and he was lying quietly with one leg doubled under him. Gordon set his teeth on an angry oath of disappointment. Had Kincaidbroken his compact?

The first long-drawn exhaust of the dinkey engine moving the slag kettleout to its spilling place ripped the silence. Gordon heard--and he didnot hear: he was watching the prone figure at the dump's toe. When itshould rise, he meant to fire from where he stood under the eaves of theore-shed. The murder-thought contemplated nothing picturesque ordramatic. It was merely the dry thirst for the blood of a mortal enemy, as it is wont to be off the stage or out of the pages of the romancers. 

The puffing locomotive had pushed the slag-pot car half-way to thetrack-end before Farley sat up as one dazed and seemed to be trying toget on his feet. Twice and once again he essayed it, falling back eachtime upon the bent and doubled leg. Then he looked up and saw theslag-car coming; saw and cried out as men scream in the death agony. Theend rails of the dumping track were fairly above him. 

Gordon heard the yell of terror and witnessed the frenzied efforts ofthe doomed man to rise and get out of the path of the impending torrent. Whereupon the murder devil whispered in his ear again. Farley's foot wascaught in one of the many scars or seams in the lava bed. It was onlynecessary to wait, to withhold the merciful bullet, to go away and leavethe wretched man to his fate. 

That fate was certain, lacking a miracle to avert it. There were noworkmen in that part of the yard; and the two men in charge of the slagkettle were on the opposite side of the engine where the dumpingmechanism was connected. Farley was screaming again, but now thesafety-valve of the locomotive was blowing off steam with a din to drownall. 

Gordon tossed the gun aside and turned away. It was better so. Possiblyat the climaxing instant he might have lacked the firmness to aim andpress the trigger. This was simpler, easier, more in keeping withVincent Farley's deserts; more satisfying to the thirst for vengeance. 

Was it? Like a bolt from the heavens, into the very midst of thecold-blooded, murderous triumph, came a long-neglected form of words, writing itself in flaming letters in his brain: _Thou shall do nomurder. _ And after it another: _But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you. _

He put his hands before his eyes, stumbled blindly and fell down, groveling in the yellow sand of the ore floor, as that one of old whomthe possessing devils tore and rended. Hell and the furies!--was this tobe the end of it? Did the old, time-worn fables planted in the lush andmellow soil of childhood wait only for the moment of superhuman trial toassert themselves truth of the very truth? God in Heaven! must he beflogged back into the ranks he had deserted when every drop of blood inhis veins was crying out for shame?

Something gripped him and stood him on his feet, and before he realizedwhat he was doing he was running, gasping, tripping and fallingheadlong, only to spring up and run again, with all thoughts trampledout and beaten down by one: would he still be in time?

There was something wrong with the dumping machinery of the slag-car, and two men were working with it on the side away from the spillingslope. Gordon had not breath wherewith to shout; moreover thesafety-valve was still screeching to gulf all human cries. Farley waslying face down and motionless, with the twisted foot still held fast ina wedge-shaped crack in the cooled slag. Tom bent and lifted him;yelled, swore, tugged, strained, kicked fiercely at the imprisonedshoe-heel. Still the vise-grip held, and the great kettle on the heightabove was creaking and slowly careening under the winching of the enginecrew. If the molten torrent should plunge down the slope now, therewould be two human cinders instead of one. 

Suddenly the frenzy, so alien to the Gordon blood, spent itself, leavinghim cool and determined. Quite methodically he found his pocket-knife, and he remembered afterward that he had been collected enough to chooseand open the sharper of the two blades. There was a quick, sure slash atthe shoe-lacing and the crippled foot was freed. With another yell, thistime of glad triumph, he snatched up his burden and backed away with itin the tilting half-second when the deluge of slag, firing the very airwith shriveling heat, was pouring down the slope. 

Then he fell in a heap, with Farley under him, and fainted as a womanmight--when the thing was done. 

XXXVI

FREE AMONG THE DEAD

The skirmish-line rivulets of melted slag had crept to within a few feetof the two at the toe of the dump when the men of the engine crew ranwith water to drench them. 

Tom recovered consciousness under the dashing of the water, and was oneof the bearers who carried Vincent Farley on a hastily improvisedstretcher to the surrey waiting at the office gate. 

Afterward, he went for Doctor Williams, deriding himself Homerically forplaying the second act in the drama of the Good Samaritan, but playingit, none the less. And not to quit before he was quite through, he drovewith the physician to Warwick Lodge, and sat in the buggy till the otherGood Samaritan had performed his office. 

"Nothing very serious, is it, Doctor?" he asked, when the old physiciantook the reins to drive his horse-holder home. 

"H'm; he'll be rather badly scarred, and there is a chance that he willlose the sight of one eye, " was the reply. Then: "It's none of myquarrel, Tom, but you hammered him pretty cruelly--with a stone, too, Ishould say. "

"Did I?" grinned Tom. He was willing to bear the blame until Kincaidshould have ample time to disappear. 

"Yes; and with all due allowance for your provocation, it was a good bitbeneath you, my boy. "

The younger man laughed grimly. "Wait till you know the full size of theprovocation, Doctor. I'm not half as bad as I might be. Another manwould have left him to burn--here and hereafter. "

The doctor said no more. It was not his province to make or meddle inthe quarrel between the Gordons and the Farleys. And Tom also wassilent, having many things to render him reflective. 

When he was put down at Woodlawn it was after one o'clock. Yet he satfor an hour or more on the veranda, smoking many pipes and trying as hecould to prefigure the future in the light of the night's happenings. 

What an insufferable animal Farley was, to be sure!--with the love of awoman like Ardea Dabney failing to keep him on the hither side of commondecency! Would Ardea break with him, now that she knew the truth? Tomshook his head. Not she; she would stand by him all the more stoutly, ifnot for love, then for pride's sake. That was the fine thing in herloyalty. 

That thought led to another. When they were married, there would have tobe a beginning in a new field. Chiawassee was gone, and the Farleyfortune with it; and the new field would be a bald necessity. Tomdecided that not even Ardea's pride and fortitude could face the looksaskance of the Mountain View Avenue folk. 

He measured the country colonists justly. They might have forgiven themoral lapse, though that was not the side they had turned toward him. Yet he fancied that when the business failure should be super-added, theFarley sins would become too multitudinous for the broadest mantle ofcharity to cover. 

"Which brings on more talk, " he mused, pulling thoughtfully at the pipe. "They can't start in the new diggings without money. Anyway, Vincent'sno moneymaker; and if the look on a man's face counts for anything, oldColonel Duxbury has made his last flight from the promoting perch. OLord!"--rising with a cavernous yawn and a mighty stretching of his armsoverhead, --"I reckon it's up to me to go on doing all the things I don'twant to do; that I didn't in the least mean to do. Somebody ought towrite a book and call it _Saints Inveterate_. It would have simplifiedthings a whole lot if I could have left him to be cremated after all. "

 * * * * *

Mr. Vancourt Henniker was not greatly surprised when Tom Gordon askedfor a private interview on the morning following the final closing downof all the industries at Gordonia. 

Without being in Gordon's confidence, or in that of American Aqueduct, the banker had been shrewdly putting two and two together and applyingthe result as a healing plaster to the stock he had taken as securityfor the final loan to Colonel Duxbury. 

"I thought, perhaps, you might wish to buy this stock, Mr. Gordon, " hesaid, when Tom had stated his business. "Of course, it can be arranged, with Mr. Farley's consent to our anticipating the maturity of his notes. But"--with a genial smile and a glance over his eye-glasses--"I'm notsure that we care to part with it. Perhaps some of us would like to holdit and bid it in. "

Tom's smile matched the genial expansiveness of the president's. 

"I reckon you don't want it, Mr. Henniker. You'll understand that itisn't worth the paper it is printed on when I tell you that I have soldmy pipe-pit patents to American Aqueduct. "

"Heavens and earth! Then the plant doesn't carry the patents? You'vekept this mighty quiet, among you!"

"Haven't we!" said Tom fatuously. "I know just how you feel--like a manwho has been looking over the edge of the bottomless pit without knowingit. You'll let me have the stock for the face of the loan, won't you?"

But the president was already pressing the button of the electric bellthat summoned the cashier. There was no time like the present when thefate of a considerable bank asset hung on the notion of a smiling youngman whose mind might change in the winking of an eye. 

With the Farley stock in his pocket Tom took a room at the Marlboro andspent the remainder of that day, and all the days of the fortnightfollowing, wrestling mightily with the lawyers in winding up the tangledskein of Chiawassee affairs. Propped in his bed at Warwick Lodge, thebed he had not left since the night of violence, Duxbury Farley signedeverything that was offered to him, and the obstacles to a settlementwere vanquished, one by one. 

When it was all over, Tom began to draw checks on the small fortunerealized from the sale of the patents. One was to Major Dabney, redeeming his two hundred shares of Chiawassee Limited at par. Anotherwas to the order of Ardea Dabney, covering the Farley shares at avaluation based on the prosperous period before the crash of '93. Withthis check in his pocket he went home--for the first time in two weeks. 

It was well beyond the Woodlawn dinner-hour before he could muster upthe courage to cross the lawns to Deer Trace. No word had passed betweenhim and Ardea since the September afternoon when he had overtaken her atthe church door, --counting as nothing the effort she had made to speakto him on the night of vengeance. 

How would she receive him? Not too coldly, he hoped. It was known thatVincent's assailant in the furnace yard was a stranger; a man who hadtaken service as a guard: also that Mr. Gordon--they gave him hiscourtesy title now--had saved Vincent from a terrible death. Tom thoughtthe rescue should count for something with Ardea. 

It did. She was sitting at the piano in the otherwise desertedmusic-room when he entered; and she broke a chord in the middle to givehim both of her hands, and to say, with eyes shining, as if the rescuewere a thing of yesterday:

"O Tom! I _knew_ you had it in you! It was fine!"

"Hold on, " he said, a bit unsteadily. "There must be no moremisunderstandings. What happened that night three weeks ago, had tohappen; and five minutes before it happened I was wondering if I couldaim straight enough in the light from the slag-pot to hit him. And Ifully meant to do it. "

She shuddered. 

"I--I was afraid, " she faltered. "I knew, you know--Japheth had toldme, in--in justice to you. That was why I ran across the lawn and calledto you. "

The sweet beauty of her laid hold on him and he felt his grip going. Another word and he would be trespassing again. To keep from saying ithe crossed to the recessed window and sat down in the sleepy-hollowchair which was the Major's peculiar possession in the music-room. 

After a little he said: "Play something, won't you?--something that willmake me a little less sorry that I didn't kill him. "

"The idea!" she said. But when he settled himself in the big easy-chairas a listener, lying back with his eyes closed and his hands locked overone knee, she turned to the piano and humored him. When the final chordof the _Wanderlied_ had sung itself asleep, he sat up and noddedapprovingly. 

"I wonder if you appreciate your gift as you should?--to be able to makea man over in the moral part of him with the tips of your fingers? Thedevil is exorcised, for the moment, and I can tell you all about it now, if you care to know. "

"Of course I care, " she assented. 

"Well, to begin with, I'm no better than I have been; a little lessdespicable than you've been thinking me, perhaps, but more wicked. I'vehated these two men ever since I was old enough to know how; and to getsquare with them, I haven't scrupled to sink to their level. The smashat Gordonia is my smash, I'm responsible for everything that hashappened. "

"I know it, " she said. "Mr. Norman has told me. "

"Looking it all over, I don't see that there is much to choose betweenme and the men I've been hunting down. They went after the things theyneeded, without much compunction for other people; and so did I. On thenight of the--on the night when you called to me and I wouldn't answer, I was going down to rub it in; to tell them they were in the hole andthat I had put them there. I met a man at the gate who told me whatJapheth told you. It made a devil of me, Ardea. I took the man's gun andfollowed Vincent around the yard. I meant to kill him. "

She nodded complete intelligence. 

"The provocation was very great, " she said evenly. "Why didn't you doit, Tom?"

"Now you've cornered me: I don't know why I didn't. I had only to walkaway and let him alone when the time came. The slag-spilling would havesettled him. But I couldn't do it. "

"Of course you couldn't, " she agreed convincingly. "God wouldn't letyou. "

"He lets other men commit murder; one a day, or such a matter. "

"Not one of those who have named His name, Tom--as you have. "

He shook his head slowly. "I wish that appealed to me, as it ought. Butit doesn't. Where is the proof?"

She rose from the piano seat and went to stand before him. 

"Can you ask that, soberly and in earnest, after the wonderfulexperience you have had?"

"I have asked it, " he insisted stubbornly. "You mustn't take anythingfor granted. Just at that moment I couldn't kill a man; but that is allthe difference. I've done what I meant to do, or most of it. "

She was holding him steadily with her eyes. "Are you glad, or sorry, Tom?"

He frowned up at her. 

"I don't know. Now that it's all over, the taste of it is like sawdustin the mouth; I'll admit that much. I'm free; 'free among the dead, likethe slain that lie in the grave, ' as David put it when he had soundedall the depths. Is that being sorry?"

"No--I don't know, " she confessed. 

He was smiling now. 

"You think I ought to go back to first principles: get down on my kneesand agonize over it? Sometimes I wish I could be a boy long enough to dojust that thing, Ardea. But I can't. The mill won't grind with the waterthat has passed. "

"But the stream isn't dry, " she asserted, taking up his figure. "Whatwill you do now? That is the question: the only one that is ever worthasking. "

He was frowning thoughtfully again, and the words came as an unconsciousvoicing of vague under-depths. 

"They took to the woods, the waste places, the deserts--those men of oldwho didn't understand. Some of them went blind and crazy and died there;and some of them had their eyes opened and came back to make the world alittle better for their having lived in it. I'm minded to try it. "

She caught her breath in a little gasp which she was careful not to lethim see. 

"You are going away?" she asked. 

"Yes; out to the 'beyond' in northern Arizona. There is a new ironfield out there to be prospected, and Mr. Clarkson wants me to go andreport on it. And that brings us back to business. May I talkbusiness--cold money business--to you for a minute or two?"

"If you like, " she permitted. "Only I think the other kind of talk ismore profitable. "

"Wait till you hear what I have to say in dollars and cents. That oughtto interest you. "

"Why should it--particularly?"

"Because you are going to marry a poor man, and--"

She turned away from him quickly and stood facing the window. But hewent on with what he had to say. 

"That's all right; I can say it to your back, just as well. You know, Isuppose, that your--that the Farleys have lost out completely?"

"Yes, "--to the window-pane. 

"Well, a curious thing has come to pass--quite a miraculous thing, infact. Chiawassee will pay the better part of its debts and--and redeemits stock; or some of it, at least. " He rose and stood beside her. "Isn't it a thousand pities that Colonel Duxbury couldn't have held onto his shares just a little longer?"

"Yes; he is an old man and a broken one, now. " There was a sob in hervoice, or he thought there was. But it was only the great heart ofcompassion that missed no object of pity. 

"True; but the next best thing is to have the young woman who marriesinto the family bring it back with her, don't you think? Here is a checkfor what Mr. Farley's stock would have sold for before the troublesbegan. It's made payable to you because--well, for obvious reasons; as Ihave said, he lost out. "

She turned on him, and the blue eyes read him to his innermost depths. 

"You are still the headlong, impulsive boy, aren't you?" she said, notaltogether approvingly. "You are paying this out of your own money. "

"Well, what if I am?"

"If you are, it is either a just restitution, or it is not. In eithercase, I can not be your go-between. "

"Now look here, " he argued; "you've got to be sensible about this. There'll be four of you, and at least two incompetents; and you've gotto have money to live on. I made Colonel Duxbury lose it, and--"

She stopped him with the imperious little gesture he knew so well. 

"Not another word, if you please. I can't do your errand in this, and Iwouldn't if I could. "

"You think I ought to be generous and give it to him, anyway, do you?"

"I don't presume to say, " was the cool rejoinder. "When you have comefully to your right mind, you will know what to do, and how to go aboutit. "

He crumpled the check, thrusting it into his pocket, and made two turnsabout the room before he said:

"I'll see them both hanged first!"

"Very well; that is your own affair. "

He fell to walking again, and for a full minute the silence was brokenonly by the murmur of men's voices in the library adjoining. The Majorhad company, it seemed. 

"This is 'good-by, ' Ardea; I'm going to-morrow. Can't we part friends?"he said, when the silence had begun to rankle unbearably. 

"You've hurt me, " she declared, turning again to the window. 

"You've hurt me, more than once, " he retorted, raising his voice morethan he meant to; and she faced about quickly, holding up a warningfinger. 

"Mr. Henniker and Mr. Young-Dickson are in the library with grandpa. They will hear you. "

"I don't care. I came here to-night with a heart full of what few goodthings there are left in me, and you--you are so wrapped up in thatbeggar that I didn't kill--"

"Hush!" she commanded imperatively. "Grandfather has not heard: he knowsnothing, and he must nev--"

The murmur of voices in the adjoining room had suddenly become a storm, with the smooth tones of Mr. Henniker trying vainly to allay it. In thethick of it the door of communication flew open and a white-haired, fierce-mustached figure of wrath appeared on the threshold. For a momentTom's boyish awe of the old autocrat of Deer Trace came uppermost and hewas tempted to run away. But the wrath was not directed at him. Indeed, the Major seemed not to see him. 

"What's all this I'm hearing now for the ve'y first time about theseheah low-down, schemin' scoundrels that want to mix thei-uh white-niggehblood with ouhs?" he roared at Ardea, quite beside himself with passion. "Wasn't it enough that they should use my name and rob my good friendCaleb? No, by heavens! That snivelin' young houn'-dog must pay his cou'tto you while he was keepin' his--"

The Major's face had been growing redder, and he choked in sheerpoverty of speech. Moreover, Tom had come between; had taken Ardea inhis arms protectingly and was fronting the firebrand Dabney like a man. 

"That's enough, Major, " he said definitely. "You mustn't say thingsyou'll be sorry for after you cool down a bit. Miss Ardea is like theking: she can do no wrong. "

There was a gasping pause, the sound of a big man breathing hard, followed by the slamming of the door, and they were alone togetheragain, Ardea crying softly, with her face hidden on the shoulder ofshielding. 

"Oh, isn't it terrible?" she sobbed; and Tom held her the closer. 

"Never mind, " he comforted. "He was crazy-mad, as he had a good right tobe. You know he will be heart-broken when he comes to himself. You arehis one ewe lamb, Ardea. "

"I know, " she faltered; "but O Tom! it was so unnecessary; so wretchedlyunnecessary! It's--it's more than two whole months since--since VincentFarley broke the engagement, and--"

He held her at arm's length to look at her, but she hid her face in herhands. 

"Broke the engagement!" he exclaimed, almost roughly. "Why did he dothat?"

She stood before him with her hands clasped and the clear-welled eyesmeeting his bravely. 

"Because I told him I could not marry him without first telling him thatI loved you, Tom; that I had been loving you always and in spite ofeverything, " she said. 

And what more she said I do not know. 

XXXVII

WHOSE YESTERDAYS LOOK BACKWARD

"Tom, isn't this the same foot-log you made me walk that day when youwere trying to convince me that you were the meanest boy that everbreathed?" asked Ardea, gathering her skirts preparatory to the streamcrossing. 

"It is. But you didn't walk it, as you may remember: you fell off. Waita second and give me those azaleas. I'll go first and take your hand. "

Tom Gordon, lately home from a full half-year spent in the unfetteredsolitudes of the Carriso iron fields, to be married first, and afterwardto start up--with Caleb for superintendent--the idle Chiawassee plant asa test and experimental shop for American Aqueduct, was indemnifyinghimself for the long exile. 

On this Saturday evening in the lovers' month of June he had walkedArdea around and about through the fragrant summer wood of the uppercreek valley, retracing, in part, the footsteps of the boy whose fishinghad been spoiled and the little girl who was to be bullied intosubmission; and so rambling they had come at length to the oldmoss-grown foot-log which had been a newly-felled tree in the formertime. Tom went first across the rustic bridge, holding the hand ofecstatic thrillings, and pausing in mid-passage that he might haveexcuse for holding it the longer. Ah me! we were all young once; andsome of us are still young, --God grant, --in heart if not in years. 

It was during the mid-passage pause, and while she was looking down onthe swirling waters sometime of terrifying, that Miss Dabney said:

"How deep is it, Tom? Would I really have drowned if you and Hector hadnot pulled me out?"

He laughed. 

"It's a thankless thing to spoil an idyl, isn't it? But that is the waywith all the little playtime heroics we leave behind in childhood. Youcould have waded out. "

She made the adorable little grimace which was one of the survivals ofthe yesterdays, and suffered him to lead her across. 

"And I have always believed that I owed my life to you--and Hector!" shesaid reproachfully. 

"You owe me much more than that, " he affirmed broadly, when they had satdown to rest--they had often to do this, lest the way should proveshorter than the happy afternoon--on the end of the bridge log. 

"Money?"--flippantly. 

"No; love. If it hadn't been for me, you might never have known whatlove is. "

His saying it was only an upbubbling of love's audacity, but she choseto take it seriously. She was gazing afar into the depths of thefresh-green forest darkening softly to the sunset, with her handsclasped around the tangle of late-blooming white azaleas in her lap. 

"It is a high gift, " she said soberly; "the highest of all for a woman. Once I thought I should live and die without knowing it, as many womendo. I wish I might give you something as great. "

"I am already overpaid, " he asserted. "For a man there is nothing sogreat, no influence so nearly omnipotent, as the love of a good woman. It is the lever that moves the world--what little it does move--up thehill to the high planes. "

"A lever?" she mused; "yes, perhaps. But levers are only links in thechain binding cause to effect. "

His smile was lovingly tolerant. 

"Is that what your religion has brought you to, Ardea--a full-grownbelief in a Providence that takes cognizance of our littleant-wanderings up and down the human runways?"

"Yes, I think so, " she said; but she said it without hesitancy or ashadow of doubt. 

"I'm glad; glad you have attained, " he rejoined quite unaffectedly. 

"It was hardly attainment, in my case, " she qualified; and, after amomentary pause, she added: "any more than it was in yours. "

"You think I, too, have attained?" he smiled. "I am not so sure of that. Sometimes I think I am like my father, who is like Mahomet's coffin;hanging somewhere between Heaven and earth, unable to climb to one or tofall to the other. But I'm not as brash as I was a year or so ago; atleast, I'm not so cock-sure that I know it all. That evening in themusic-room at Deer Trace changed me--changed my point of view. Youhaven't heard me rail once at the world, or at the hypocrites in it, since I came home, have you?"

"No. "

"Well, I don't feel like railing. I reckon the old world is good enoughto live in--to work in; and certainly there are men in it who arebetter than I'm ever likely to be. I met one of them last winter out inthe Carriso cow country; a 'Protestant' priest, he called himself, ofyour persuasion. He was the most hopeless bigot I've ever known, and bylong odds the nearest masculine approach to true, gritty saintliness. There was nothing he wouldn't do, no hardship he wouldn't cheerfullyundergo, to brother a man who was down, and the wickedest devil in allthat God-forsaken country swore by him. Yet he would argue with me bythe hour, splitting hairs over Apostolic Succession, or something ofthat sort. "

She smiled in her turn. "Did he regard you as a heretic?" she asked. 

"Oh, sure! though he admitted that I might escape at the last by virtueof my 'invincible ignorance. ' Then I would laugh at him, telling him hewas a lot better than his bigotry. But he got the best of me in otherways. I owned the one buckboard in the northern half of Apache County, and my broncos were harness-broken and fast. So, when there was ashoot-up at the Arroyo dance-hall, or any other job of swift brotheringto be done, I had to drive Father Philip. "

She was musing again. "You used to write me that you were on the edge ofthings out there: it was a mistake, Tom; you were in the very heart ofthem. "

He shook his head. 

"No; the heart of them was back yonder in the music-room. There werechaos and thick darkness to go before that day of days; and it was yourwoman's love that changed the world for me. "

"No, " she denied; "that was only an incident. When chaos and darknessfled away, it was God who said, 'Let there be light. ' The dawn had comefor you before our day of days, Tom. "

He stretched himself luxuriously on the sward at her feet. 

"You may put it that way if you please. But I shall go on revering youas my torch-bearer, " he asserted. 

"Tell me, " she said quickly; "was it for my sake that you spared VincentFarley when all you had to do was to turn your back and go away?"

He took time to consider, and his answer put love under the foot oftruth. 

"No, it wasn't. If you make me confess the bald fact, I was not thinkingof you at all, just at that one moment. "

"I know it, " she rejoined. "And I am big enough to be glad. Neither wasit for my sake that you instructed your lawyers to return good for evilby redeeming the Farleys' stock just before they left for Colorado, orthat you made restitution to the families of the men at Gordonia fortheir losses during the strike. "

But again he was shaking his head dubiously. 

"I'm not so sure about that. It's in any man to play high when the goodopinion of the one woman is the stake. I'm a _poseur_, like all theothers. "

She smiled down on him and the slate-blue eyes were reading him to thelatest-indited heart-line. 

"You are posing now, " she asseverated. "Don't I know?--don't I alwaysand always know?" And, after a reflective moment: "It is a great comfortto be able to love the poses, and a still greater to be permitted todiscern the true man under them. "

"I am glad to believe that you don't see quite to the bottom of thatwell, Ardea, girl, " he said with sudden gravity. "I get only occasionalglimpses, myself, and they make me seasick. I don't believe any manalive could endure it to look long into the inner abysses of himself. "

"'The heart knoweth his own bitterness, '" she quoted, speaking softly;and then--O rarest of women!--she did not enlarge on it. Instead--

Silence while she was gathering the sweet-smelling tangle in her lapinto some more portable arrangement. And afterward, when they weredrifting slowly homeward in the lengthening shadows, a small asking. 

"Mr. Morelock is coming out to-morrow to hold service in St. John's, andI shall go to play for him. Will you go with me, Tom?"

He smiled out of the gold and sapphire depths of a lover's reverie. 

"One week from the day after the day after to-morrow--and it will be thelongest week-and-two-days of my life, dearest--your grandfather willtake you to church, and I shall bring you away. Won't that be enough?"

She took him quite seriously. 

"I shall never be a Felicita Young-Dickson, and drag you, " she promised. "But, O Tom! I wish--"

"I know, " he said gently. "You are thinking of the days to come; whenthe paths may diverge--yours and mine--ever so little; when there may bechildren to choose between their mother's faith and their father'sindifference. But I am not indifferent. So far from it, I am onlyanxious now to prove what I was once so bent on disproving. "

"You yourself are the strongest proof, " she interposed. "You will seeit, some day. "

"Shall I? I hope so; and that is an honest hope. And really and truly, Ithink I have come up a bit--out of the wilderness, you know. I amwilling to admit that this is the best of all possible worlds; and Iwant to do my part in making it a little better because I have lived init. Also, I'd like to believe in something bigger and better thanprotoplasm. "

Her smile was of the kind which stands half-way in the path to tears, but she spoke bravely to the doubt in his reply. 

"You do believe, Tom, dear; you have never seen the moment when you didnot. It was the doubt that was unreal. When the supreme test came, itwas God's hand that restrained you; you know it now--you knew it at thetime. And afterward it was His grace that enabled you to do what wasjust and right. Haven't you admitted all this to yourself?"

They had crossed the white pike to the manor-house gates and wereturning aside from the driveway into the winding lawn path when he said:

"To myself, and to one other. " Then, very softly: "I sat at my mother'sknee last night, Ardea, and told her all there was to tell. "

Ardea's eyes were shining. "What did she say, Tom, dear--or is it morethan I should ask?"

"There is nothing you may not ask. She said--it wasn't altogether true, I'm afraid--but she put her arms around my neck and cried and said: _Forthis my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. _"

She slipped her arm in his, and there was a little sob of pure joy atthe catching of her breath. The moon was just rising above the Lebanoncliff-line, and the beauty of the glorious night-dawn possessed herutterly. Ah, it was a good world and a generous, bringing rich gifts tothe steadfast! Instinctively she felt that Tom's little confession didnot require an answer; that he was battling his way to the heights whichmust be taken alone. 

So they came in the sacred hush of the young night to a great tulip-treeon the lawn, and where a curiously water-worn limestone boulder servedas a rustic seat wide enough for two whose hearts are one they sat downtogether, still in the companionship that needs no speech. It was Tomwho first broke the silence. 

"I have been trying ever since that night last winter to feel my wayout, " he said slowly. "But what is to come of it? I can't go back to theboyhood yesterdays; in a way I have hopelessly outgrown them. Let usadmit that religion has become real again; but Ardea, girl, it isn'tUncle Silas's religion, or--or my mother's, or even yours. And I don'tknow any other. "

She laid a hand on one of his. 

"It is all right, dear; there is only the one religion in allChristendom--perhaps in all the world, or in God's part of it. Thedifference is in people. "

"But this thing that has been slowly happening to me--this thing I amtrying to call convincement: shall I wake up some day and find it gone, with all the old doubts in the saddle again?" he asked it almostwistfully. 

"Who can tell?" she said gently. "But it will make no difference; theimmutable fact will be there just the same, whether you are asleep orwaking. We can't always stand on the Mount of Certainty, any of us; andto some, perhaps, it is never given. But when one saves his enemy's lifeand forgives and forgets--O Tom, dear! don't you understand?"

But now his eyes are love-blinded, and the white-gowned figure besidehim fills all horizons. 

"I can't see past you, Ardea. Nevertheless, I'm going to believe that Ifeel the good old pike solid underfoot . .. And they say that the HouseBeautiful is somewhere at the mountain end of it. If you will hold myhand, I believe I can make out to walk in it; blindfolded, if I haveto--and without thinking too much of the yesterdays. "

"Ah, the yesterdays!" she said tenderly. "They are precious, too; forout of them, out of their hindrances no less than their helpings, comesto-day. Kiss me, twice, Tom; and then I must go in and read to MajorGrandpa. "

THE END