A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S by Bret Harte CONTENTS. A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY THE HEIR OF THE McHULISHES AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES A PROTEGEE OF JACK HAMLIN'S. I. The steamer Silveropolis was sharply and steadily cleaving the broad, placid shallows of the Sacramento River. A large wave like an eagre, diverging from its bow, was extending to either bank, swamping the tulesand threatening to submerge the lower levees. The great boat itself--avast but delicate structure of airy stories, hanging galleries, fragilecolonnades, gilded cornices, and resplendent frescoes--was throbbingthroughout its whole perilous length with the pulse of high pressure andthe strong monotonous beat of a powerful piston. Floods of foam pouringfrom the high paddle-boxes on either side and reuniting in the wake ofthe boat left behind a track of dazzling whiteness, over which trailedtwo dense black banners flung from its lofty smokestacks. Mr. Jack Hamlin had quietly emerged from his stateroom on deck and waslooking over the guards. His hands were resting lightly on his hips overthe delicate curves of his white waistcoat, and he was whistling softly, possibly some air to which he had made certain card-playing passengersdance the night before. He was in comfortable case, and his soft browneyes under their long lashes were veiled with gentle tolerance of allthings. He glanced lazily along the empty hurricane deck forward; heglanced lazily down to the saloon deck below him. Far out against theguards below him leaned a young girl. Mr. Hamlin knitted his browsslightly. He remembered her at once. She had come on board that morning with oneNed Stratton, a brother gambler, but neither a favorite nor intimate ofJack's. From certain indications in the pair, Jack had inferred that shewas some foolish or reckless creature whom "Ed" had "got on a string, "and was spiriting away from her friends and family. With the abstractmorality of this situation Jack was not in the least concerned. Forhimself he did not indulge in that sort of game; the inexperience andvacillations of innocence were apt to be bothersome, and besides, acertain modest doubt of his own competency to make an original selectionhad always made him prefer to confine his gallantries to the wives ofmen of greater judgment than himself who had. But it suddenly occurredto him that he had seen Stratton quickly slip off the boat at the lastlanding stage. Ah! that was it; he had cast away and deserted her. It was an old story. Jack smiled. But he was not greatly amused withStratton. She was very pale, and seemed to be clinging to the network railing, as if to support herself, although she was gazing fixedly at the yellowglancing current below, which seemed to be sucked down and swallowedin the paddle-box as the boat swept on. It certainly was a fascinatingsight--this sloping rapid, hurrying on to bury itself under the crushingwheels. For a brief moment Jack saw how they would seize anythingfloating on that ghastly incline, whirl it round in one awful revolutionof the beating paddles, and then bury it, broken and shattered out ofall recognition, deep in the muddy undercurrent of the stream behindthem. She moved away presently with an odd, stiff step, chafing her glovedhands together as if they had become stiffened too in her rigid graspof the railing. Jack leisurely watched her as she moved along the narrowstrip of deck. She was not at all to his taste, --a rather plump girlwith a rustic manner and a great deal of brown hair under her strawhat. She might have looked better had she not been so haggard. When shereached the door of the saloon she paused, and then, turning suddenly, began to walk quickly back again. As she neared the spot where she hadbeen standing her pace slackened, and when she reached the railing sheseemed to relapse against it in her former helpless fashion. Jack becamelazily interested. Suddenly she lifted her head and cast a quick glancearound and above her. In that momentary lifting of her face Jack saw herexpression. Whatever it was, his own changed instantly; the next momentthere was a crash on the lower deck. It was Jack who had swung himselfover the rail and dropped ten feet, to her side. But not before she hadplaced one foot in the meshes of the netting and had gripped the railingfor a spring. The noise of Jack's fall might have seemed to her bewildered fancy as apart of her frantic act, for she fell forward vacantly on the railing. But by this time Jack had grasped her arm as if to help himself to hisfeet. "I might have killed myself by that foolin', mightn't I?" he saidcheerfully. The sound of a voice so near her seemed to recall to her dazed sense theuncompleted action his fall had arrested. She made a convulsive boundtowards the railing, but Jack held her fast. "Don't, " he said in a low voice, "don't, it won't pay. It's the sickestgame that ever was played by man or woman. Come here!" He drew her towards an empty stateroom whose door was swinging on itshinges a few feet from them. She was trembling violently; he half led, half pushed her into the room, closed the door and stood with his backagainst it as she dropped into a chair. She looked at him vacantly; theagitation she was undergoing inwardly had left her no sense of outwardperception. "You know Stratton would be awfully riled, " continued Jack easily. "He'sjust stepped out to see a friend and got left by the fool boat. He'll bealong by the next steamer, and you're bound to meet him in Sacramento. " Her staring eyes seemed suddenly to grasp his meaning. But to hissurprise she burst out with a certain hysterical desperation, "No! no!Never! NEVER again! Let me pass! I must go, " and struggled to regainthe door. Jack, albeit singularly relieved to know that she sharedhis private sentiments regarding Stratton, nevertheless resisted her. Whereat she suddenly turned white, reeled back, and sank in a dead faintin the chair. The gambler turned, drew the key from the inside of the door, passedout, locking it behind him, and walked leisurely into the main saloon. "Mrs. Johnson, " he said gravely, addressing the stewardess, a tallmulatto, with his usual winsome supremacy over dependents and children, "you'll oblige me if you'll corral a few smelling salts, vinaigrettes, hairpins, and violet powder, and unload them in deck stateroom No. 257. There's a lady"-- "A lady, Marse Hamlin?" interrupted the mulatto, with an archlysignificant flash of her white teeth. "A lady, " continued Jack with unabashed gravity, "in a sort ofconniption fit. A relative of mine; in fact a niece, my only sister'schild. Hadn't seen each other for ten years, and it was too much forher. " The woman glanced at him with a mingling of incredulous belief, butdelighted obedience, hurriedly gathered a few articles from her cabin, and followed him to No. 257. The young girl was still unconscious. Thestewardess applied a few restoratives with the skill of long experience, and the young girl opened her eyes. They turned vacantly from thestewardess to Jack with a look of half recognition and half frightenedinquiry. "Yes, " said Jack, addressing the eyes, although ostentatiouslyspeaking to Mrs. Johnson, "she'd only just come by steamer to 'Friscoand wasn't expecting to see me, and we dropped right into each otherhere on the boat. And I haven't seen her since she was so high. SisterMary ought to have warned me by letter; but she was always a slouch atletter writing. There, that'll do, Mrs. Johnson. She's coming round; Ireckon I can manage the rest. But you go now and tell the purser I wantone of those inside staterooms for my niece, --MY NIECE, you hear, --sothat you can be near her and look after her. " As the stewardess turned obediently away the young girl attempted torise, but Jack checked her. "No, " he said, almost brusquely; "you andI have some talking to do before she gets back, and we've no time forfoolin'. You heard what I told her just now! Well, it's got to be as Isaid, you sabe. As long as you're on this boat you're my niece, and mysister Mary's child. As I haven't got any sister Mary, you don't run anyrisk of falling foul of her, and you ain't taking any one's place. Thatsettles that. Now, do you or do you not want to see that man again? Sayyes, and if he's anywhere above ground I'll yank him over to you as soonas we touch shore. " He had no idea of interfering with his colleague'samours, but he had determined to make Stratton pay for the bother theirslovenly sequence had caused him. Yet he was relieved and astonishedby her frantic gesture of indignation and abhorrence. "No?" he repeatedgrimly. "Well, that settles that. Now, look here; quick, before shecomes--do you want to go back home to your friends?" But here occurred what he had dreaded most and probably thought he hadescaped. She had stared at him, at the stewardess, at the walls, withabstracted, vacant, and bewildered, but always undimmed and unmoistenedeyes. A sudden convulsion shook her whole frame, her blank expressionbroke like a shattered mirror, she threw her hands over her eyes andfell forward with her face to the back of her chair in an outburst oftears. Alas for Jack! with the breaking up of those sealed fountains came herspeech also, at first disconnected and incoherent, and then despairingand passionate. No! she had no longer friends or home! She had lost anddisgraced them! She had disgraced HERSELF! There was no home for herbut the grave. Why had Jack snatched her from it? Then, bit by bit, she yielded up her story, --a story decidedly commonplace to Jack, uninteresting, and even irritating to his fastidiousness. She was aschoolgirl (not even a convent girl, but the inmate of a Presbyterianfemale academy at Napa. Jack shuddered as he remembered to have onceseen certain of the pupils walking with a teacher), and she lived withher married sister. She had seen Stratton while going to and fro onthe San Francisco boat; she had exchanged notes with him, had met himsecretly, and finally consented to elope with him to Sacramento, onlyto discover when the boat had left the wharf the real nature of hisintentions. Jack listened with infinite weariness and inward chafing. Hehad read all this before in cheap novelettes, in the police reports, inthe Sunday papers; he had heard a street preacher declaim againstit, and warn young women of the serpent-like wiles of tempters of theStratton variety. But even now Jack failed to recognize Stratton as aserpent, or indeed anything but a blundering cheat and clown, who hadleft his dirty 'prentice work on his (Jack's) hands. But the girl washelpless and, it seemed, homeless, all through a certain desperationof feeling which, in spite of her tears, he could not but respect. Thatmomentary shadow of death had exalted her. He stroked his mustache, pulled down his white waistcoat and her cry, without saying anything. He did not know that this most objectionable phase of her misery was hersalvation and his own. But the stewardess would return in a moment. "You'd better tell me whatto call you, " he said quietly. "I ought to know my niece's first name. " The girl caught her breath, and, between two sobs, said, "Sophonisba. " Jack winced. It seemed only to need this last sentimental touch tocomplete the idiotic situation. "I'll call you Sophy, " he said hurriedlyand with an effort. "And now look here! You are going in that cabin with Mrs. Johnson whereshe can look after you, but I can't. So I'll have to take your word, forI'm not going to give you away before Mrs. Johnson, that you won't trythat foolishness--you know what I mean--before I see you again. Can Itrust you?" With her head still bowed over the chair back, she murmured slowlysomewhere from under her disheveled hair:-- "Yes. " "Honest Injin?" adjured Jack gravely. "Yes. " The shuffling step of the stewardess was heard slowly approaching. "Yes, " continued Jack abruptly, lightly lifting his voice as Mrs. Johnson opened the door, --"yes, if you'd only had some of thosespearmint drops of your aunt Rachel's that she always gave you whenthese fits came on you'd have been all right inside of five minutes. Aunty was no slouch of a doctor, was she? Dear me, it only seemsyesterday since I saw her. You were just playing round her knee likea kitten on the back porch. How time does fly! But here's Mrs. Johnsoncoming to take you in. Now rouse up, Sophy, and just hook yourself on toMrs. Johnson on that side, and we'll toddle along. " The young girl put back her heavy hair, and with her face still avertedsubmitted to be helped to her feet by the kindly stewardess. Perhapssomething homely sympathetic and nurse-like in the touch of the mulattogave her assurance and confidence, for her head lapsed quite naturallyagainst the woman's shoulder, and her face was partly hidden as shemoved slowly along the deck. Jack accompanied them to the saloon and theinner stateroom door. A few passengers gathered curiously near, as muchattracted by the unusual presence of Jack Hamlin in such a processionas by the girl herself. "You'll look after her specially, Mrs. Johnson, "said Jack, in unusually deliberate terms. "She's been a good deal pettedat home, and my sister perhaps has rather spoilt her. She's pretty muchof a child still, and you'll have to humor her. Sophy, " he continued, with ostentatious playfulness, directing his voice into the dim recessesof the stateroom, "you'll just think Mrs. Johnson's your old nurse, won't you? Think it's old Katy, hey?" To his great consternation the girl approached tremblingly from theinner shadow. The faintest and saddest of smiles for a moment playedaround the corners of her drawn mouth and tear-dimmed eyes as she heldout her hand and said:-- "God bless you for being so kind. " Jack shuddered and glanced quickly round. But luckily no one heard thiscrushing sentimentalism, and the next moment the door closed upon herand Mrs. Johnson. It was past midnight, and the moon was riding high over the narrowingyellow river, when Jack again stepped out on deck. He had just left thecaptain's cabin, and a small social game with the officers, whichhad served to some extent to vaguely relieve his irritation andtheir pockets. He had presumably quite forgotten the incident of theafternoon, as he looked about him, and complacently took in the quietbeauty of the night. The low banks on either side offered no break to the uninterrupted levelof the landscape, through which the river seemed to wind only as a racetrack for the rushing boat. Every fibre of her vast but fragile bulkquivered under the goad of her powerful engines. There was no othermovement but hers, no other sound but this monstrous beat and panting;the whole tranquil landscape seemed to breathe and pulsate with her;dwellers in the tules, miles away, heard and felt her as she passed, andit seemed to Jack, leaning over the railing, as if the whole river sweptlike a sluice through her paddle-boxes. Jack had quite unconsciously lounged before that part of the railingwhere the young girl had leaned a few hours ago. As he looked down uponthe streaming yellow mill-race below him, he noticed--what neither henor the girl had probably noticed before--that a space of the top bar ofthe railing was hinged, and could be lifted by withdrawing a smallbolt, thus giving easy access to the guards. He was still looking at it, whistling softly, when footsteps approached. "Jack, " said a lazy voice, "how's sister Mary?" "It's a long time since you've seen her only child, Jack, ain't it?"said a second voice; "and yet it sort o' seems to me somehow that I'veseen her before. " Jack recognized the voice of two of his late companions at thecard-table. His whistling ceased; so also dropped every trace of colorand expression from his handsome face. But he did not turn, and remainedquietly gazing at the water. "Aunt Rachel, too, must be getting on in years, Jack, " continued thefirst speaker, halting behind Jack. "And Mrs. Johnson does not look so much like Sophy's old nurse asshe used to, " remarked the second, following his example. Still Jackremained unmoved. "You don't seem to be interested, Jack, " continued the first speaker. "What are you looking at?" Without turning his head the gambler replied, "Looking at the boat;she's booming along, just chawing up and spitting out the river, ain'tshe? Look at that sweep of water going under her paddle-wheels, " hecontinued, unbolting the rail and lifting it to allow the two men topeer curiously over the guards as he pointed to the murderous inclinebeneath them; "a man wouldn't stand much show who got dropped into it. How these paddles would just snatch him bald-headed, pick him up andslosh him round and round, and then sling him out down there in such ashape that his own father wouldn't know him. " "Yes, " said the first speaker, with an ostentatious little laugh, "butall that ain't telling us how sister Mary is. " "No, " said the gambler slipping into the opening with a white and rigidface in which nothing seemed living but the eyes, "no, but it's tellingyou how two d----d fools who didn't know when to shut their mouths mightget them shut once and forever. It's telling you what might happen totwo men who tried to 'play' a man who didn't care to be 'played, '--a manwho didn't care much what he did, when he did it, or how he did it, butwould do what he'd set out to do--even if in doing it he went to hellwith the men he sent there. " He had stepped out on the guards, beside the two men, closing the railbehind him. He had placed his hands on their shoulders; they had bothgripped his arms; yet, viewed from the deck above, they seemed at thatmoment an amicable, even fraternal group, albeit the faces of the threewere dead white in the moonlight. "I don't think I'm so very much interested in sister Mary, " said thefirst speaker quietly, after a pause. "And I don't seem to think so much of aunt Rachel as I did, " said hiscompanion. "I thought you wouldn't, " said Jack, coolly reopening the rail andstepping back again. "It all depends upon the way you look at thosethings. Good-night. " "Good-night. " The three men paused, shook each other's hands silently, and separated, Jack sauntering slowly back to his stateroom. II. The educational establishment of Mrs. Mix and Madame Bance, situatedin the best quarter of Sacramento and patronized by the highest stateofficials and members of the clergy, was a pretty if not an imposingedifice. Although surrounded by a high white picket fence and enteredthrough a heavily boarded gate, its balconies festooned with jasmineand roses, and its spotlessly draped windows as often graced with fresh, flower-like faces, were still plainly and provokingly visible above theostentatious spikes of the pickets. Nevertheless, Mr. Jack Hamlin, whohad six months before placed his niece, Miss Sophonisba Brown, underits protecting care, felt a degree of uneasiness, even bordering ontimidity, which was new to that usually self-confident man. Rememberinghow his first appearance had fluttered this dovecote and awakened asevere suspicion in the minds of the two principals, he had discardedhis usual fashionable attire and elegantly fitting garments for a rough, homespun suit, supposed to represent a homely agriculturist, but whichhad the effect of transforming him into an adorable Strephon, infinitelymore dangerous in his rustic shepherd-like simplicity. He had alsoshaved off his silken mustache for the same prudential reasons, but hadonly succeeded in uncovering the delicate lines of his handsomemouth, and so absurdly reducing his apparent years that his avuncularpretensions seemed more preposterous than ever; and when he had rungthe bell and was admitted by a severe Irish waiting-maid, his momentaryhesitation and half humorous diffidence had such an unexpected effectupon her, that it seemed doubtful if he would be allowed to pass beyondthe vestibule. "Shure, miss, " she said in a whisper to an under teacher, "there's wan at the dhure who calls himself, 'Mister' Hamlin, but av itis not a young lady maskeradin' in her brother's clothes Oim very muchmistaken; and av it's a boy, one of the pupil's brothers, shure ye mightput a dhress on him when you take the others out for a walk, and he'dpass for the beauty of the whole school. " Meantime, the unconscious subject of this criticism was pacing somewhatuneasily up and down the formal reception room into which he had beenfinally ushered. Its farther end was filled by an enormous parlor organ, a number of music books, and a cheerfully variegated globe. A largepresentation Bible, an equally massive illustrated volume on the HolyLand, a few landscapes in cold, bluish milk and water colors, and rigidheads in crayons--the work of pupils--were presumably ornamental. Animposing mahogany sofa and what seemed to be a disproportionate excessof chairs somewhat coldly furnished the room. Jack had reluctantlymade up his mind that, if Sophy was accompanied by any one, he would beobliged to kiss her to keep up his assumed relationship. As she enteredthe room with Miss Mix, Jack advanced and soberly saluted her on thecheek. But so positive and apparent was the gallantry of his presence, and perhaps so suggestive of some pastoral flirtation, that Miss Mix, toJack's surprise, winced perceptibly and became stony. But he was stillmore surprised that the young lady herself shrank half uneasily from hislips, and uttered a slight exclamation. It was a new experience to Mr. Hamlin. But this somewhat mollified Miss Mix, and she slightly relaxed herausterity. She was glad to be able to give the best accounts of MissBrown, not only as regarded her studies, but as to her conduct anddeportment. Really, with the present freedom of manners and laxity ofhome discipline in California, it was gratifying to meet a young ladywho seemed to value the importance of a proper decorum and behavior, especially towards the opposite sex. Mr. Hamlin, although her guardian, was perhaps too young to understand and appreciate this. To thisinexperience she must also attribute the indiscretion of his callingduring school hours and without preliminary warning. She trusted, however, that this informality could be overlooked after consultationwith Madame Bance, but in the mean time, perhaps for half an hour, shemust withdraw Miss Brown and return with her to the class. Mr. Hamlincould wait in this public room, reserved especially for visitors, untilthey returned. Or, if he cared to accompany one of the teachers in aformal inspection of the school, she added, doubtfully, with a glanceat Jack's distracting attractions, she would submit this also to MadameBance. "Thank you, thank you, " returned Jack hurriedly, as a depressing visionof the fifty or sixty scholars rose before his eyes, "but I'd rathernot. I mean, you know, I'd just as lief stay here ALONE. I wouldn't havecalled anyway, don't you see, only I had a day off, --and--and--I wantedto talk with my niece on family matters. " He did not say that he hadreceived a somewhat distressful letter from her asking him to come; anew instinct made him cautious. Considerably relieved by Jack's unexpected abstention, which seemed tospare her pupils the distraction of his graces, Miss Mix smiled moreamicably and retired with her charge. In the single glance he hadexchanged with Sophy he saw that, although resigned and apparentlyself-controlled, she still appeared thoughtful and melancholy. She hadimproved in appearance and seemed more refined and less rustic in herschool dress, but he was conscious of the same distinct separation ofher personality (which was uninteresting to him) from the sentiment thathad impelled him to visit her. She was possibly still hankering afterthat fellow Stratton, in spite of her protestations to the contrary;perhaps she wanted to go back to her sister, although she had declaredshe would die first, and had always refused to disclose her real nameor give any clue by which he could have traced her relations. She wouldcry, of course; he almost hoped that she would not return alone; he halfregretted he had come. She still held him only by a single qualityof her nature, --the desperation she had shown on the boat; that wassomething he understood and respected. He walked discontentedly to the window and looked out; he walkeddiscontentedly to the end of the room and stopped before the organ. It was a fine instrument; he could see that with an admiring andexperienced eye. He was alone in the room; in fact, quite alone in thatpart of the house which was separated from the class-rooms. He woulddisturb no one by trying it. And if he did, what then? He smiled alittle recklessly, slowly pulled off his gloves, and sat down before it. He played cautiously at first, with the soft pedal down. The instrumenthad never known a strong masculine hand before, having been fumbled andfriveled over by softly incompetent, feminine fingers. But presently itbegan to thrill under the passionate hand of its lover, and carried awayby his one innocent weakness, Jack was launched upon a sea of musicalreminiscences. Scraps of church music, Puritan psalms of his boyhood;dying strains from sad, forgotten operas, fragments of oratorios andsymphonies, but chiefly phases from old masses heard at the missionsof San Pedro and Santa Isabel, swelled up from his loving and masterfulfingers. He had finished an Agnus Dei; the formal room was pulsatingwith divine aspiration; the rascal's hands were resting listlessly onthe keys, his brown lashes lifted, in an effort of memory, tenderlytowards the ceiling. Suddenly, a subdued murmur of applause and a slight rustle behind himrecalled him to himself again. He wheeled his chair quickly round. Thetwo principals of the school and half a dozen teachers were standinggravely behind him, and at the open door a dozen curled and frizzledyouthful heads peered in eagerly, but half restrained by their teachers. The relaxed features and apologetic attitude of Madame Bance and MissMix showed that Mr. Hamlin had unconsciously achieved a triumph. He might not have been as pleased to know that his extraordinaryperformance had solved a difficulty, effaced his other graces, andenabled them to place him on the moral pedestal of a mere musician, towhom these eccentricities were allowable and privileged. He shared theadmiration extended by the young ladies to their music teacher, whichwas always understood to be a sexless enthusiasm and a contagiousjuvenile disorder. It was also a fine advertisement for the organ. Madame Bance smiled blandly, improved the occasion by thanking Mr. Hamlin for having given the scholars a gratuitous lesson on thecapabilities of the instrument, and was glad to be able to give MissBrown a half-holiday to spend with her accomplished relative. Miss Brownwas even now upstairs, putting on her hat and mantle. Jack was relieved. Sophy would not attempt to cry on the street. Nevertheless, when they reached it and the gate closed behind them, heagain became uneasy. The girl's clouded face and melancholy manner werenot promising. It also occurred to him that he might meet some one whoknew him and thus compromise her. This was to be avoided at all hazards. He began with forced gayety:-- "Well, now, where shall we go?" She slightly raised her tear-dimmed eyes. "Where you please--I don'tcare. " "There isn't any show going on here, is there?" He had a vague idea of acircus or menagerie--himself behind her in the shadow of the box. "I don't know of any. " "Or any restaurant--or cake shop?" "There's a place where the girls go to get candy on Main Street. Some ofthem are there now. " Jack shuddered; this was not to be thought of. "But where do you walk?" "Up and down Main Street. " "Where everybody can see you?" said Jack, scandalized. The girl nodded. They walked on in silence for a few moments. Then a bright idea struckMr. Hamlin. He suddenly remembered that in one of his many fitsof impulsive generosity and largesse he had given to an old negroretainer--whose wife had nursed him through a dangerous illness--a houseand lot on the river bank. He had been told that they had opened a smalllaundry or wash-house. It occurred to him that a stroll there and acall upon "Uncle Hannibal and Aunt Chloe" combined the propriety andrespectability due to the young person he was with, and the requisitesecrecy and absence of publicity due to himself. He at once suggestedit. "You see she was a mighty good woman and you ought to know her, for shewas my old nurse"-- The girl glanced at him with a sudden impatience. "Honest Injin, " said Jack solemnly; "she did nurse me through my lastcough. I ain't playing old family gags on you now. " "Oh, dear, " burst out the girl impulsively, "I do wish you wouldn't everplay them again. I wish you wouldn't pretend to be my uncle; I wish youwouldn't make me pass for your niece. It isn't right. It's all wrong. Oh, don't you know it's all wrong, and can't come right any way? It'sjust killing me. I can't stand it. I'd rather you'd say what I am andhow I came to you and how you pitied me. " They had luckily entered a narrow side street, and the sobs which shookthe young girl's frame were unnoticed. For a few moments Jack felt ahorrible conviction stealing over him, that in his present attitudetowards her he was not unlike that hound Stratton, and that, howeverinnocent his own intent, there was a sickening resemblance to thesituation on the boat in the base advantage he had taken of herfriendlessness. He had never told her that he was a gambler likeStratton, and that his peculiarly infelix reputation among women made itimpossible for him to assist her, except by a stealth or the deceptionhe had practiced, without compromising her. He who had for years facedthe sneers and half-frightened opposition of the world dared not tellthe truth to this girl, from whom he expected nothing and who did notinterest him. He felt he was almost slinking at her side. At last hesaid desperately:-- "But I snatched them bald-headed at the organ, Sophy, didn't I?" "Oh yes, " said the girl, "you played beautifully and grandly. It was sogood of you, too. For I think, somehow, Madame Bance had been a littlesuspicious of you, but that settled it. Everybody thought it was fine, and some thought it was your profession. Perhaps, " she added timidly, "it is?" "I play a good deal, I reckon, " said Jack, with a grim humor which didnot, however, amuse him. "I wish I could, and make money by it, " said the girl eagerly. Jackwinced, but she did not notice it as she went on hurriedly: "That's whatI wanted to talk to you about. I want to leave the school and make myown living. Anywhere where people won't know me and where I can be aloneand work. I shall die here among these girls--with all their talk oftheir friends and their--sisters, --and their questions about you. " "Tell 'em to dry up, " said Jack indignantly. "Take 'em to the cake shopand load 'em up with candy and ice cream. That'll stop their mouths. You've got money, you got my last remittance, didn't you?" he repeatedquickly. "If you didn't, here's"--his hand was already in his pocketwhen she stopped him with a despairing gesture. "Yes, yes, I got it all. I haven't touched it. I don't want it. For Ican't live on you. Don't you understand, --I want to work. Listen, --I candraw and paint. Madame Bance says I do it well; my drawing-master saysI might in time take portraits and get paid for it. And even now I canretouch photographs and make colored miniatures from them. And, " shestopped and glanced at Jack half-timidly, "I've--done some already. " A glow of surprised relief suffused the gambler. Not so much at thisastonishing revelation as at the change it seemed to effect in her. Herpale blue eyes, made paler by tears, cleared and brightened undertheir swollen lids like wiped steel; the lines of her depressed mouthstraightened and became firm. Her voice had lost its hopeless monotone. "There's a shop in the next street, --a photographer's, --where theyhave one of mine in their windows, " she went on, reassured by Jack'sunaffected interest. "It's only round the corner, if you care to see. " Jack assented; a few paces farther brought them to the corner of anarrow street, where they presently turned into a broader thoroughfareand stopped before the window of a photographer. Sophy pointed to anoval frame, containing a portrait painted on porcelain. Mr. Hamlin wasstartled. Inexperienced as he was, a certain artistic inclinationtold him it was good, although it is to be feared he would have beenastonished even if it had been worse. The mere fact that this headstrongcountry girl, who had run away with a cur like Stratton, should be ableto do anything else took him by surprise. "I got ten dollars for that, " she said hesitatingly, "and I could havegot more for a larger one, but I had to do that in my room, duringrecreation hours. If I had more time and a place where I couldwork"--she stopped timidly and looked tentatively at Jack. But he wasalready indulging in a characteristically reckless idea of coming backafter he had left Sophy, buying the miniature at an extravagant price, and ordering half a dozen more at extraordinary figures. Here, however, two passers-by, stopping ostensibly to look in the window, but reallyattracted by the picturesque spectacle of the handsome young rustic andhis schoolgirl companion, gave Jack such a fright that he hurriedSophy away again into the side street. "There's nothing mean about thatpicture business, " he said cheerfully; "it looks like a square kind ofgame, " and relapsed into thoughtful silence. At which, Sophy, the ice of restraint broken, again burst intopassionate appeal. If she could only go away somewhere--where she saw noone but the people who would buy her work, who knew nothing of her pastnor cared to know who were her relations! She would work hard; she knewshe could support herself in time. She would keep the name he had givenher, --it was not distinctive enough to challenge any inquiry, --butnothing more. She need not assume to be his niece; he would always beher kind friend, to whom she owed everything, even her miserable life. She trusted still to his honor never to seek to know her real name, norever to speak to her of that man if he ever met him. It would do no goodto her or to them; it might drive her, for she was not yet quite sure ofherself, to do that which she had promised him never to do again. There was no threat, impatience, or acting in her voice, but herecognized the same dull desperation he had once heard in it, and hereyes, which a moment before were quick and mobile, had become fixed andset. He had no idea of trying to penetrate the foolish secret of hername and relations; he had never had the slightest curiosity, but itstruck him now that Stratton might at any time force it upon him. Theonly way that he could prevent it was to let it be known that, forunexpressed reasons, he would shoot Stratton "on sight. " This wouldnaturally restrict any verbal communication between them. Jack's ideasof morality were vague, but his convictions on points of honor weresingularly direct and positive. III. Meantime Hamlin and Sophy were passing the outskirts of the town; theopen lots and cleared spaces were giving way to grassy stretches, willowcopses, and groups of cottonwood and sycamore; and beyond the level ofyellowing tules appeared the fringed and raised banks of the river. Half tropical looking cottages with deep verandas--the homes of earlySouthern pioneers--took the place of incomplete blocks of modernhouses, monotonously alike. In these sylvan surroundings Mr. Hamlin'spicturesque rusticity looked less incongruous and more Arcadian; theyoung girl had lost some of her restraint with her confidences, andlounging together side by side, without the least consciousness of anysentiment in their words or actions, they nevertheless contrived toimpress the spectator with the idea that they were a charming pair ofpastoral lovers. So strong was this impression that, as they approachedAunt Chloe's laundry, a pretty rose-covered cottage with an enormouswhitewashed barn-like extension in the rear, the black proprietressherself, standing at the door, called her husband to come and look atthem, and flashed her white teeth in such unqualified commendationand patronage that Mr. Hamlin, withdrawing himself from Sophy's side, instantly charged down upon them. "If you don't slide the lid back over that grinning box of dominoes ofyours and take it inside, I'll just carry Hannibal off with me, " he saidin a quick whisper, with a half-wicked, half-mischievous glitter in hisbrown eyes. "That young lady's--A LADY--do you understand? No riffrafffriend of mine, but a regular NUN--a saint--do you hear? So you juststand back and let her take a good look round, and rest herself, untilshe wants you. " "Two black idiots, Miss Brown, " he continued cheerfullyin a higher voice of explanation, as Sophy approached, "who thinkbecause one of 'em used to shave me and the other saved my life they'vegot a right to stand at their humble cottage door and frighten horses!" So great was Mr. Hamlin's ascendency over his former servants that eventhis ingenious pleasantry was received with every sign of affectionand appreciation of the humorist, and of the profound respect for hiscompanion. Aunt Chloe showed them effusively into her parlor, a smallbut scrupulously neat and sweet-smelling apartment, inordinatelyfurnished with a huge mahogany centre-table and chairs, and the mostfragile and meretricious china and glass ornaments on the mantel. Butthe three jasmine-edged lattice windows opened upon a homely garden ofold-fashioned herbs and flowers, and their fragrance filled the room. The cleanest and starchiest of curtains, the most dazzling and whitestof tidies and chair-covers, bespoke the adjacent laundry; indeed, thewhole cottage seemed to exhale the odors of lavender soap and freshlyironed linen. Yet the cottage was large for the couple and theirassistants. "Dar was two front rooms on de next flo' dat dey neverused, " explained Aunt Chloe; "friends allowed dat dey could let 'em towhite folks, but dey had always been done kep' for Marse Hamlin, ef heever wanted to be wid his old niggers again. " Jack looked up quicklywith a brightened face, made a sign to Hannibal, and the two left theroom together. When he came through the passage a few moments later, there was a soundof laughter in the parlor. He recognized the full, round lazy chuckle ofAunt Chloe, but there was a higher girlish ripple that he did not know. He had never heard Sophy laugh before. Nor, when he entered, had heever seen her so animated. She was helping Chloe set the table, to thatlady's intense delight at "Missy's" girlish housewifery. She was pickingthe berries fresh from the garden, buttering the Sally Lunn, making thetea, and arranging the details of the repast with apparently no traceof her former discontent and unhappiness in either face or manner. Hedropped quietly into a chair by the window, and, with the homely scentsof the garden mixing with the honest odors of Aunt Chloe's cookery, watched her with an amusement that was as pleasant and grateful as itwas strange and unprecedented. "Now den, " said Aunt Chloe to her husband, as she put the finishingtouch to the repast in a plate of doughnuts as exquisitely brown andshining as Jack's eyes were at that moment, "Hannibal, you just comeaway, and let dem two white quality chillens have dey tea. Dey's donestarved, shuah. " And with an approving nod to Jack, she bundled herhusband from the room. The door closed; the young girl began to pour out the tea, but Jackremained in his seat by the window. It was a singular sensation whichhe did not care to disturb. It was no new thing for Mr. Hamlin to findhimself at a tete-a-tete repast with the admiring and complaisant fair;there was a 'cabinet particulier' in a certain San Francisco restaurantwhich had listened to their various vanities and professions of undyingfaith; he might have recalled certain festal rendezvous with a widowwhose piety and impeccable reputation made it a moral duty for her tocome to him only in disguise; it was but a few days ago that he hadbeen let privately into the palatial mansion of a high official for amidnight supper with a foolish wife. It was not strange, therefore, thathe should be alone here, secretly, with a member of that indiscreet, loving sex. But that he should be sitting there in a cheap negro laundrywith absolutely no sentiment of any kind towards the heavy-haired, freckle-faced country schoolgirl opposite him, from whom he soughtand expected nothing, and ENJOYING it without scorn of himself or hiscompanion, to use his own expression, "got him. " Presently he rose andsauntered to the table with shining eyes. "Well, what do you think of Aunt Chloe's shebang?" he asked smilingly. "Oh, it's so sweet and clean and homelike, " said the girl quickly. Atany other time he would have winced at the last adjective. It struck himnow as exactly the word. "Would you like to live here, if you could?" Her face brightened. She put the teapot down and gazed fixedly at Jack. "Because you can. Look here. I spoke to Hannibal about it. You can havethe two front rooms if you want to. One of 'em is big enough and lightenough for a studio to do your work in. You tell that nigger what youwant to put in 'em, and he's got my orders to do it. I told him aboutyour painting; said you were the daughter of an old friend, you know. Hold on, Sophy; d--n it all, I've got to do a little gilt-edged lying;but I let you out of the niece business this time. Yes, from this momentI'm no longer your uncle. I renounce the relationship. It's hard, "continued the rascal, "after all these years and considering sisterMary's feelings; but, as you seem to wish it, it must be done. " Sophy's steel-blue eyes softened. She slid her long brown hand acrossthe table and grasped Jack's. He returned the pressure quickly andfraternally, even to that half-shamed, half-hurried evasion of emotionpeculiar to all brothers. This was also a new sensation; but he likedit. "You are too--too good, Mr. Hamlin, " she said quietly. "Yes, " said Jack cheerfully, "that's what's the matter with me. It isn'tnatural, and if I keep it up too long it brings on my cough. " Nevertheless, they were happy in a boy and girl fashion, eatingheartily, and, I fear, not always decorously; scrambling somewhat forthe strawberries, and smacking their lips over the Sally Lunn. Meantime, it was arranged that Mr. Hamlin should inform Miss Mix that Sophy wouldleave school at the end of the term, only a few days hence, and thentransfer herself to lodgings with some old family servants, where shecould more easily pursue her studies in her own profession. She need notmake her place of abode a secret, neither need she court publicity. Shewould write to Jack regularly, informing him of her progress, and hewould visit her whenever he could. Jack assented gravely to the furtherproposition that he was to keep a strict account of all the moneys headvanced her, and that she was to repay him out of the proceeds of herfirst pictures. He had promised also, with a slight mental reservation, not to buy them all himself, but to trust to her success with thepublic. They were never to talk of what had happened before; she was tobegin life anew. Of such were their confidences, spoken often togetherat the same moment, and with their mouths full. Only one thing troubledJack; he had not yet told her frankly who he was and what was hisreputation; he had hitherto carelessly supposed she would learn it, and in truth had cared little if she did; but it was evident from herconversation that day that by some miracle she was still in ignorance. Unable now to tell her himself, he had charged Hannibal to break it toher casually after he was gone. "You can let me down easy if you like, but you'd better make a square deal of it while you're about it. And, "Jack had added cheerfully, "if she thinks after that she'd better dropme entirely, you just say that if she wishes to STAY, you'll see thatI don't ever come here again. And you keep your word about it too, youblack nigger, or I'll be the first to thrash you. " Nevertheless, when Hannibal and Aunt Chloe returned to clear away therepast, they were a harmonious party; albeit, Mr. Hamlin seemed morecontent to watch them silently from his chair by the window, a cigarbetween his lips, and the pleasant distraction of the homely scents andsounds of the garden in his senses. Allusion having been made again tothe morning performance of the organ, he was implored by Hannibal todiversify his talent by exercising it on an old guitar which had passedinto that retainer's possession with certain clothes of his master'swhen they separated. Mr. Hamlin accepted it dubiously; it had twangedunder his volatile fingers in more pretentious but less innocent halls. But presently he raised his tenor voice and soft brown lashes to thehumble ceiling and sang. "Way down upon the Swanee River, " Discoursed Jack plaintively, -- "Far, far away, Thar's whar my heart is turning ever, Thar's whar the old folks stay. " The two dusky scions of an emotional race, that had been wont to sweetenits toil and condone its wrongs with music, sat wrapt and silent, swaying with Jack's voice until they could burst in upon the chorus. The jasmine vines trilled softly with the afternoon breeze; a slenderyellow-hammer, perhaps emulous of Jack, swung himself from an outerspray and peered curiously into the room; and a few neighbors, gatheringat their doors and windows, remarked that "after all, when it came toreal singing, no one could beat those d----d niggers. " The sun was slowly sinking in the rolling gold of the river when Jackand Sophy started leisurely back through the broken shafts of light, andacross the far-stretching shadows of the cottonwoods. In the midst ofa lazy silence they were presently conscious of a distant monotonousthrob, the booming of the up boat on the river. The sound camenearer--passed them, the boat itself hidden by the trees; but a trailingcloud of smoke above cast a momentary shadow upon their path. The girllooked up at Jack with a troubled face. Mr. Hamlin smiled reassuringly;but in that instant he had made up his mind that it was his moral dutyto kill Mr. Edward Stratton. IV. For the next two months Mr. Hamlin was professionally engaged in SanFrancisco and Marysville, and the transfer of Sophy from the school toher new home was effected without his supervision. From letters receivedby him during that interval, it seemed that the young girl had enteredenergetically upon her new career, and that her artistic efforts werecrowned with success. There were a few Indian-ink sketches, studies madeat school and expanded in her own "studio, " which were eagerly bought assoon as exhibited in the photographer's window, --notably by a floridand inartistic bookkeeper, an old negro woman, a slangy stable boy, agorgeously dressed and painted female, and the bearded second officer ofa river steamboat, without hesitation and without comment. This, as Mr. Hamlin intelligently pointed out in a letter to Sophy, showed a generaland diversified appreciation on the part of the public. Indeed, itemboldened her, in the retouching of photographs, to offer sittingsto the subjects, and to undertake even large crayon copies, which hadresulted in her getting so many orders that she was no longer obligedto sell her drawings, but restricted herself solely to profitableportraiture. The studio became known; even its quaint surroundings addedto the popular interest, and the originality and independence of theyoung painter helped her to a genuine success. All this she wrote toJack. Meantime Hannibal had assured him that he had carried out hisinstructions by informing "Missy" of his old master's real occupationand reputation, but that the young lady hadn't "took no notice. "Certainly there was no allusion to it in her letters, nor any indicationin her manner. Mr. Hamlin was greatly, and it seemed to him properly, relieved. And he looked forward with considerable satisfaction to anearly visit to old Hannibal's laundry. It must be confessed, also, that another matter, a simple affair ofgallantry, was giving him an equally unusual, unexpected, and absurdannoyance, which he had never before permitted to such trivialities. In a recent visit to a fashionable watering-place, he had attracted theattention of what appeared to be a respectable, matter of fact woman, the wife of a recently elected rural Senator. She was, however, singularly beautiful, and as singularly cold. It was perhaps thisquality, and her evident annoyance at some unreasoning prepossessionwhich Jack's fascinations exercised upon her, that heightened thatreckless desire for risk and excitement which really made up the greaterpart of his gallantry. Nevertheless, as was his habit, he had treatedher always with a charming unconsciousness of his own attentions, and afrankness that seemed inconsistent with any insidious approach. In fact, Mr. Hamlin seldom made love to anybody, but permitted it to be made tohim with good-humored deprecation and cheerful skepticism. He had once, quite accidentally, while riding, come upon her when she had strayedfrom her own riding party, and had behaved with such unexpectedcircumspection and propriety, not to mention a certain thoughtfulabstraction, --it was the day he had received Sophy's letter, --that shewas constrained to make the first advances. This led to a later innocentrendezvous, in which Mrs. Camperly was impelled to confide to Mr. Hamlinthe fact that her husband had really never understood her. Jack listenedwith an understanding and sympathy quickened by long experience of suchconfessions. If anything had ever kept him from marriage it was thisevident incompatibility of the conjugal relations with a just conceptionof the feminine soul and its aspirations. And so eventually this yearning for sympathy dragged Mrs. Camperly'sclean skirts and rustic purity after Jack's heels into various placesand various situations not so clean, rural, or innocent; made hermiserably unhappy in his absence, and still more miserably happy in hispresence; impelled her to lie, cheat, and bear false witness; forced herto listen with mingled shame and admiration to narrow criticism of hisfaults, from natures so palpably inferior to his own that her moralsense was confused and shaken; gave her two distinct lives, but sounreal and feverish that, with a recklessness equal to his own, she wasat last ready to merge them both into his. For the first time in hislife Mr. Hamlin found himself bored at the beginning of an affair, actually hesitated, and suddenly disappeared from San Francisco. He turned up a few days later at Aunt Chloe's door, with variouspackages of presents and quite the air of a returning father of afamily, to the intense delight of that lady and to Sophy's proudgratification. For he was lost in a profuse, boyish admiration of herpretty studio, and in wholesome reverence for her art and her astoundingprogress. They were also amused at his awe and evident alarm at theportraits of two ladies, her latest sitters, that were still onthe easels, and, in consideration of his half-assumed, half-realbashfulness, they turned their faces to the wall. Then his quick, observant eye detected a photograph of himself on the mantel. "What's that?" he asked suddenly. Sophy and Aunt Chloe exchanged meaning glances. Sophy had, as a surpriseto Jack, just completed a handsome crayon portrait of himself from anold photograph furnished by Hannibal, and the picture was at that momentin the window of her former patron, --the photographer. "Oh, dat! Miss Sophy jus' put it dar fo' de lady sitters to look at togib 'em a pleasant 'spresshion, " said Aunt Chloe, chuckling. Mr. Hamlin did not laugh, but quietly slipped the photograph into hispocket. Yet, perhaps, it had not been recognized. Then Sophy proposed to have luncheon in the studio; it was quite"Bohemian" and fashionable, and many artists did it. But to her greatsurprise Jack gravely objected, preferring the little parlor of AuntChloe, the vine-fringed windows, and the heavy respectable furniture. He thought it was profaning the studio, and then--anybody might come in. This unusual circumspection amused them, and was believed to be part ofthe boyish awe with which Jack regarded the models, the draperies, andthe studies on the walls. Certain it was that he was much more at hisease in the parlor, and when he and Sophy were once more alone at theirmeal, although he ate nothing, he had regained all his old naivete. Presently he leaned forward and placed his hand fraternally on her arm. Sophy looked up with an equally frank smile. "You know I promised to let bygones be bygones, eh? Well, I intended it, and more, --I intended to make 'em so. I told you I'd never speak to youagain of that man who tried to run you off, and I intended that no oneelse should. Well, as he was the only one who could talk--that meanthim. But the cards are out of my hands; the game's been played withoutme. For he's dead!" The girl started. Mr. Hamlin's hand passed caressingly twice or thricealong her sleeve with a peculiar gentleness that seemed to magnetizeher. "Dead, " he repeated slowly. "Shot in San Diego by another man, but notby me. I had him tracked as far as that, and had my eyes on him, but itwasn't my deal. But there, " he added, giving her magnetized arm a gentleand final tap as if to awaken it, "he's dead, and so is the whole story. And now we'll drop it forever. " The girl's downcast eyes were fixed on the table. "But there's mysister, " she murmured. "Did she know you went with him?" asked Jack. "No; but she knows I ran away. " "Well, you ran away from home to study how to be an artist, don'tyou see? Some day she'll find out you ARE ONE; that settles the wholething. " They were both quite cheerful again when Aunt Chloe returned toclear the table, especially Jack, who was in the best spirits, withpreternaturally bright eyes and a somewhat rare color on his cheeks. Aunt Chloe, who had noticed that his breathing was hurried at times, watched him narrowly, and when later he slipped from the room, followedhim into the passage. He was leaning against the wall. In an instant thenegress was at his side. "De Lawdy Gawd, Marse Jack, not AGIN?" He took his handkerchief, slightly streaked with blood, from his lipsand said faintly, "Yes, it came on--on the boat; but I thought thed----d thing was over. Get me out of this, quick, to some hotel, beforeshe knows it. You can tell her I was called away. Say that"--but hisbreath failed him, and when Aunt Chloe caught him like a child in herstrong arms he could make no resistance. In another hour he was unconscious, with two doctors at his bedside, inthe little room that had been occupied by Sophy. It was a sharp attack, but prompt attendance and skillful nursing availed; he rallied the nextday, but it would be weeks, the doctors said, before he could be removedin safety. Sophy was transferred to the parlor, but spent most of hertime at Jack's bedside with Aunt Chloe, or in the studio with the dooropen between it and the bedroom. In spite of his enforced idleness andweakness, it was again a singularly pleasant experience to Jack; itamused him to sometimes see Sophy at her work through the open door, andwhen sitters came, --for he had insisted on her continuing her duties asbefore, keeping his invalid presence in the house a secret, --he had allthe satisfaction of a mischievous boy in rehearsing to Sophy such ofthe conversation as could be overheard through the closed door, andspeculating on the possible wonder and chagrin of the sitters had theydiscovered him. Even when he was convalescent and strong enough to behelped into the parlor and garden, he preferred to remain propped up inSophy's little bedroom. It was evident, however, that this predilectionwas connected with no suggestion nor reminiscence of Sophy herself. Itwas true that he had once asked her if it didn't make her "feel likehome. " The decided negative from Sophy seemed to mildly surprise him. "That's odd, " he said; "now all these fixings and things, " pointingto the flowers in a vase, the little hanging shelf of books, theknickknacks on the mantel-shelf, and the few feminine ornaments thatstill remained, "look rather like home to me. " So the days slipped by, and although Mr. Hamlin was soon able to walkshort distances, leaning on Sophy's arm, in the evening twilight, alongthe river bank, he was still missed from the haunts of dissipated men. Agood many people wondered, and others, chiefly of the more irrepressiblesex, were singularly concerned. Apparently one of these, one sultryafternoon, stopped before the shadowed window of a photographer's; shewas a handsome, well-dressed woman, yet bearing a certain countrylikesimplicity that was unlike the restless smartness of the more urbanpromenaders who passed her. Nevertheless she had halted before Mr. Hamlin's picture, which Sophy had not yet dared to bring home andpresent to him, and was gazing at it with rapt and breathless attention. Suddenly she shook down her veil and entered the shop. Could theproprietor kindly tell her if that portrait was the work of a localartist? The proprietor was both proud and pleased to say that IT WAS! It was thework of a Miss Brown, a young girl student; in fact, a mere schoolgirlone might say. He could show her others of her pictures. Thanks. But could he tell her if this portrait was from life? No doubt; the young lady had a studio, and he himself had sent hersitters. And perhaps this was the portrait of one that he had sent her? No; but she was very popular and becoming quite the fashion. Veryprobably this gentleman, who, he understood, was quite a publiccharacter, had heard of her, and selected her on that account. The lady's face flushed slightly. The photographer continued. Thepicture was not for sale; it was only there on exhibition; in fact itwas to be returned to-morrow. To the sitter? He couldn't say. It was to go back to the studio. Perhaps the sitterwould be there. And this studio? Could she have its address? The man wrote a few lines on his card. Perhaps the lady would be kindenough to say that he had sent her. The lady, thanking him, partlylifted her veil to show a charming smile, and gracefully withdrew. Thephotographer was pleased. Miss Brown had evidently got another sitter, and, from that momentary glimpse of her face, it would be a picture asbeautiful and attractive as the man's. But what was the odd idea thatstruck him? She certainly reminded him of some one! There was the sameheavy hair, only this lady's was golden, and she was older and moremature. And he remained for a moment with knitted brows musing over hiscounter. Meantime the fair stranger was making her way towards the river suburb. When she reached Aunt Chloe's cottage, she paused, with the unfamiliarcuriosity of a newcomer, over its quaint and incongruous exterior. Shehesitated a moment also when Aunt Chloe appeared in the doorway, and, with a puzzled survey of her features, went upstairs to announce avisitor. There was the sound of hurried shutting of doors, of the movingof furniture, quick footsteps across the floor, and then a girlish laughthat startled her. She ascended the stairs breathlessly to Aunt Chloe'ssummons, found the negress on the landing, and knocked at a door whichbore a card marked "Studio. " The door opened; she entered; there weretwo sudden outcries that might have come from one voice. "Sophonisba!" "Marianne!" "Hush. " The woman had seized Sophy by the wrist and dragged her to the window. There was a haggard look of desperation in her face akin to that whichHamlin had once seen in her sister's eyes on the boat, as she saidhuskily: "I did not know YOU were here. I came to see the woman who hadpainted Mr. Hamlin's portrait. I did not know it was YOU. Listen! Quick!answer me one question. Tell me--I implore you--for the sake of themother who bore us both!--tell me--is this the man for whom you lefthome?" "No! No! A hundred times no!" Then there was a silence. Mr. Hamlin from the bedroom heard no more. An hour later, when the two women opened the studio door, pale butcomposed, they were met by the anxious and tearful face of Aunt Chloe. "Lawdy Gawd, Missy, --but dey done gone!--bofe of 'em!" "Who is gone?" demanded Sophy, as the woman beside her trembled and grewpaler still. "Marse Jack and dat fool nigger, Hannibal. " "Mr. Hamlin gone?" repeated Sophy incredulously. "When? Where?" "Jess now--on de down boat. Sudden business. Didn't like to disturb yo'and yo' friend. Said he'd write. " "But he was ill--almost helpless, " gasped Sophy. "Dat's why he took dat old nigger. Lawdy, Missy, bress yo' heart. Deyboth knows aich udder, shuah! It's all right. Dar now, dar dey are;listen. " She held up her hand. A slow pulsation, that might have been the dull, labored beating of their own hearts, was making itself felt throughoutthe little cottage. It came nearer, --a deep regular inspiration thatseemed slowly to fill and possess the whole tranquil summer twilight. Itwas nearer still--was abreast of the house--passed--grew fainter and atlast died away like a deep-drawn sigh. It was the down boat, that wasnow separating Mr. Hamlin and his protegee, even as it had once broughtthem together. AN INGENUE OF THE SIERRAS. I. We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the semi-darkness ofGalloper's Ridge. The vehicle itself was only a huge lumbering shadow;its side-lights were carefully extinguished, and Yuba Bill had justpolitely removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the cigarwith which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his coolness. For ithad been rumored that the Ramon Martinez gang of "road agents" were"laying" for us on the second grade, and would time the passage of ourlights across Galloper's in order to intercept us in the "brush" beyond. If we could cross the ridge without being seen, and so get through thebrush before they reached it, we were safe. If they followed, it wouldonly be a stern chase with the odds in our favor. The huge vehicle swayed from side to side, rolled, dipped, andplunged, but Bill kept the track, as if, in the whispered words of theExpressman, he could "feel and smell" the road he could no longer see. We knew that at times we hung perilously over the edge of slopes thateventually dropped a thousand feet sheer to the tops of the sugar-pinesbelow, but we knew that Bill knew it also. The half visible heads of thehorses, drawn wedge-wise together by the tightened reins, appeared tocleave the darkness like a ploughshare, held between his rigidhands. Even the hoof-beats of the six horses had fallen into a vague, monotonous, distant roll. Then the ridge was crossed, and we plungedinto the still blacker obscurity of the brush. Rather we no longerseemed to move--it was only the phantom night that rushed by us. Thehorses might have been submerged in some swift Lethean stream; nothingbut the top of the coach and the rigid bulk of Yuba Bill arose abovethem. Yet even in that awful moment our speed was unslackened; it wasas if Bill cared no longer to GUIDE but only to drive, or as if thedirection of his huge machine was determined by other hands than his. Anincautious whisperer hazarded the paralyzing suggestion of our "meetinganother team. " To our great astonishment Bill overheard it; to ourgreater astonishment he replied. "It 'ud be only a neck and neckrace which would get to h-ll first, " he said quietly. But we wererelieved--for he had SPOKEN! Almost simultaneously the wider turnpikebegan to glimmer faintly as a visible track before us; the wayside treesfell out of line, opened up, and dropped off one after another; we wereon the broader table-land, out of danger, and apparently unperceived andunpursued. Nevertheless in the conversation that broke out again with therelighting of the lamps, and the comments, congratulations, andreminiscences that were freely exchanged, Yuba Bill preserved adissatisfied and even resentful silence. The most generous praise ofhis skill and courage awoke no response. "I reckon the old man waz justspilin' for a fight, and is feelin' disappointed, " said a passenger. But those who knew that Bill had the true fighter's scorn for any purelypurposeless conflict were more or less concerned and watchful of him. Hewould drive steadily for four or five minutes with thoughtfully knittedbrows, but eyes still keenly observant under his slouched hat, andthen, relaxing his strained attitude, would give way to a movement ofimpatience. "You ain't uneasy about anything, Bill, are you?" askedthe Expressman confidentially. Bill lifted his eyes with a slightlycontemptuous surprise. "Not about anything ter COME. It's what HEZhappened that I don't exackly sabe. I don't see no signs of Ramon's gangever havin' been out at all, and ef they were out I don't see why theydidn't go for us. " "The simple fact is that our ruse was successful, " said an outsidepassenger. "They waited to see our lights on the ridge, and, not seeingthem, missed us until we had passed. That's my opinion. " "You ain't puttin' any price on that opinion, air ye?" inquired Billpolitely. "No. " "'Cos thar's a comic paper in 'Frisco pays for them things, and I'veseen worse things in it. " "Come off, Bill, " retorted the passenger, slightly nettled by thetittering of his companions. "Then what did you put out the lights for?" "Well, " returned Bill grimly, "it mout have been because I didn't keerto hev you chaps blazin' away at the first bush you THOUGHT you saw movein your skeer, and bringin' down their fire on us. " The explanation, though unsatisfactory, was by no means an improbableone, and we thought it better to accept it with a laugh. Bill, however, resumed his abstracted manner. "Who got in at the Summit?" he at last asked abruptly of the Expressman. "Derrick and Simpson of Cold Spring, and one of the 'Excelsior' boys, "responded the Expressman. "And that Pike County girl from Dow's Flat, with her bundles. Don'tforget her, " added the outside passenger ironically. "Does anybody here know her?" continued Bill, ignoring the irony. "You'd better ask Judge Thompson; he was mighty attentive to her;gettin' her a seat by the off window, and lookin' after her bundles andthings. " "Gettin' her a seat by the WINDOW?" repeated Bill. "Yes, she wanted to see everything, and wasn't afraid of the shooting. " "Yes, " broke in a third passenger, "and he was so d----d civil thatwhen she dropped her ring in the straw, he struck a match agin all yourrules, you know, and held it for her to find it. And it was just as wewere crossin' through the brush, too. I saw the hull thing through thewindow, for I was hanging over the wheels with my gun ready for action. And it wasn't no fault of Judge Thompson's if his d----d foolishnesshadn't shown us up, and got us a shot from the gang. " Bill gave a short grunt, but drove steadily on without further commentor even turning his eyes to the speaker. We were now not more than a mile from the station at the crossroadswhere we were to change horses. The lights already glimmered in thedistance, and there was a faint suggestion of the coming dawn on thesummits of the ridge to the west. We had plunged into a belt of timber, when suddenly a horseman emerged at a sharp canter from a trail thatseemed to be parallel with our own. We were all slightly startled; YubaBill alone preserving his moody calm. "Hullo!" he said. The stranger wheeled to our side as Bill slackened his speed. He seemedto be a "packer" or freight muleteer. "Ye didn't get 'held up' on the Divide?" continued Bill cheerfully. "No, " returned the packer, with a laugh; "I don't carry treasure. But Isee you're all right, too. I saw you crossin' over Galloper's. " "SAW us?" said Bill sharply. "We had our lights out. " "Yes, but there was suthin' white--a handkerchief or woman's veil, Ireckon--hangin' from the window. It was only a movin' spot agin thehillside, but ez I was lookin' out for ye I knew it was you by that. Good-night!" He cantered away. We tried to look at each other's faces, and at Bill'sexpression in the darkness, but he neither spoke nor stirred until hethrew down the reins when we stopped before the station. The passengersquickly descended from the roof; the Expressman was about to follow, butBill plucked his sleeve. "I'm goin' to take a look over this yer stage and these yer passengerswith ye, afore we start. " "Why, what's up?" "Well, " said Bill, slowly disengaging himself from one of his enormousgloves, "when we waltzed down into the brush up there I saw a man, ezplain ez I see you, rise up from it. I thought our time had come and theband was goin' to play, when he sorter drew back, made a sign, and wejust scooted past him. " "Well?" "Well, " said Bill, "it means that this yer coach was PASSED THROUGH FREEto-night. " "You don't object to THAT--surely? I think we were deucedly lucky. " Bill slowly drew off his other glove. "I've been riskin' my everlastin'life on this d----d line three times a week, " he said with mockhumility, "and I'm allus thankful for small mercies. BUT, " he addedgrimly, "when it comes down to being passed free by some pal of a hossthief, and thet called a speshal Providence, I AIN'T IN IT! No, sir, Iain't in it!" II. It was with mixed emotions that the passengers heard that a delay offifteen minutes to tighten certain screw-bolts had been ordered by theautocratic Bill. Some were anxious to get their breakfast at Sugar Pine, but others were not averse to linger for the daylight that promisedgreater safety on the road. The Expressman, knowing the real cause ofBill's delay, was nevertheless at a loss to understand the object of it. The passengers were all well known; any idea of complicity with the roadagents was wild and impossible, and, even if there was a confederateof the gang among them, he would have been more likely to precipitate arobbery than to check it. Again, the discovery of such a confederate--towhom they clearly owed their safety--and his arrest would have beenquite against the Californian sense of justice, if not actually illegal. It seemed evident that Bill's quixotic sense of honor was leading himastray. The station consisted of a stable, a wagon shed, and a buildingcontaining three rooms. The first was fitted up with "bunks" or sleepingberths for the employees; the second was the kitchen; and the thirdand larger apartment was dining-room or sitting-room, and was usedas general waiting-room for the passengers. It was not a refreshmentstation, and there was no "bar. " But a mysterious command from theomnipotent Bill produced a demijohn of whiskey, with which he hospitablytreated the company. The seductive influence of the liquor loosened thetongue of the gallant Judge Thompson. He admitted to having struck amatch to enable the fair Pike Countian to find her ring, which, however, proved to have fallen in her lap. She was "a fine, healthy youngwoman--a type of the Far West, sir; in fact, quite a prairie blossom!yet simple and guileless as a child. " She was on her way to Marysville, he believed, "although she expected to meet friends--a friend, infact--later on. " It was her first visit to a large town--in fact, anycivilized centre--since she crossed the plains three years ago. Hergirlish curiosity was quite touching, and her innocence irresistible. In fact, in a country whose tendency was to produce "frivolity andforwardness in young girls, he found her a most interesting youngperson. " She was even then out in the stable-yard watching the horsesbeing harnessed, "preferring to indulge a pardonable healthy youngcuriosity than to listen to the empty compliments of the youngerpassengers. " The figure which Bill saw thus engaged, without being otherwisedistinguished, certainly seemed to justify the Judge's opinion. Sheappeared to be a well-matured country girl, whose frank gray eyes andlarge laughing mouth expressed a wholesome and abiding gratification inher life and surroundings. She was watching the replacing of luggage inthe boot. A little feminine start, as one of her own parcels was thrownsomewhat roughly on the roof, gave Bill his opportunity. "Now there, " hegrowled to the helper, "ye ain't carting stone! Look out, will yer! Someof your things, miss?" he added, with gruff courtesy, turning to her. "These yer trunks, for instance?" She smiled a pleasant assent, and Bill, pushing aside the helper, seizeda large square trunk in his arms. But from excess of zeal, or some othermischance, his foot slipped, and he came down heavily, strikingthe corner of the trunk on the ground and loosening its hinges andfastenings. It was a cheap, common-looking affair, but the accidentdiscovered in its yawning lid a quantity of white, lace-edged feminineapparel of an apparently superior quality. The young lady utteredanother cry and came quickly forward, but Bill was profuse in hisapologies, himself girded the broken box with a strap, and declared hisintention of having the company "make it good" to her with a new one. Then he casually accompanied her to the door of the waiting-room, entered, made a place for her before the fire by simply lifting thenearest and most youthful passenger by the coat collar from the stoolthat he was occupying, and, having installed the lady in it, displacedanother man who was standing before the chimney, and, drawing himselfup to his full six feet of height in front of her, glanced down upon hisfair passenger as he took his waybill from his pocket. "Your name is down here as Miss Mullins?" he said. She looked up, became suddenly aware that she and her questioner werethe centre of interest to the whole circle of passengers, and, with aslight rise of color, returned, "Yes. " "Well, Miss Mullins, I've got a question or two to ask ye. I ask itstraight out afore this crowd. It's in my rights to take ye aside andask it---but that ain't my style; I'm no detective. I needn't ask it atall, but act as ef I knowed the answer, or I might leave it to be askedby others. Ye needn't answer it ef ye don't like; ye've got a friendover ther--Judge Thompson--who is a friend to ye, right or wrong, jestas any other man here is--as though ye'd packed your own jury. Well, thesimple question I've got to ask ye is THIS: Did you signal to anybodyfrom the coach when we passed Galloper's an hour ago?" We all thought that Bill's courage and audacity had reached itsclimax here. To openly and publicly accuse a "lady" before a groupof chivalrous Californians, and that lady possessing the furtherattractions of youth, good looks, and innocence, was little short ofdesperation. There was an evident movement of adhesion towards thefair stranger, a slight muttering broke out on the right, but the veryboldness of the act held them in stupefied surprise. Judge Thompson, with a bland propitiatory smile began: "Really, Bill, I must protest onbehalf of this young lady"--when the fair accused, raising her eyes toher accuser, to the consternation of everybody answered with the slightbut convincing hesitation of conscientious truthfulness:-- "I DID. " "Ahem!" interposed the Judge hastily, "er--that is--er--you allowedyour handkerchief to flutter from the window, --I noticed itmyself, --casually--one might say even playfully--but without anyparticular significance. " The girl, regarding her apologist with a singular mingling of pride andimpatience, returned briefly:-- "I signaled. " "Who did you signal to?" asked Bill gravely. "The young gentleman I'm going to marry. " A start, followed by a slight titter from the younger passengers, wasinstantly suppressed by a savage glance from Bill. "What did you signal to him for?" he continued. "To tell him I was here, and that it was all right, " returned the younggirl, with a steadily rising pride and color. "Wot was all right?" demanded Bill. "That I wasn't followed, and that he could meet me on the road beyondCass's Ridge Station. " She hesitated a moment, and then, with a stillgreater pride, in which a youthful defiance was still mingled, said: "I've run away from home to marry him. And I mean to! No one can stopme. Dad didn't like him just because he was poor, and dad's got money. Dad wanted me to marry a man I hate, and got a lot of dresses and thingsto bribe me. " "And you're taking them in your trunk to the other feller?" said Billgrimly. "Yes, he's poor, " returned the girl defiantly. "Then your father's name is Mullins?" asked Bill. "It's not Mullins. I--I--took that name, " she hesitated, with her firstexhibition of self-consciousness. "Wot IS his name?" "Eli Hemmings. " A smile of relief and significance went round the circle. The fame ofEli or "Skinner" Hemmings, as a notorious miser and usurer, had passedeven beyond Galloper's Ridge. "The step that you're taking, Miss Mullins, I need not tell you, isone of great gravity, " said Judge Thompson, with a certain paternalseriousness of manner, in which, however, we were glad to detect aglaring affectation; "and I trust that you and your affianced have fullyweighed it. Far be it from me to interfere with or question the naturalaffections of two young people, but may I ask you what you know ofthe--er--young gentleman for whom you are sacrificing so much, and, perhaps, imperiling your whole future? For instance, have you known himlong?" The slightly troubled air of trying to understand, --not unlike thevague wonderment of childhood, --with which Miss Mullins had received thebeginning of this exordium, changed to a relieved smile of comprehensionas she said quickly, "Oh yes, nearly a whole year. " "And, " said the Judge, smiling, "has he a vocation--is he in business?" "Oh yes, " she returned; "he's a collector. " "A collector?" "Yes; he collects bills, you know, --money, " she went on, with childisheagerness, "not for himself, --HE never has any money, poor Charley, --butfor his firm. It's dreadful hard work, too; keeps him out for days andnights, over bad roads and baddest weather. Sometimes, when he's stoleover to the ranch just to see me, he's been so bad he could scarcelykeep his seat in the saddle, much less stand. And he's got to takemighty big risks, too. Times the folks are cross with him and won't pay;once they shot him in the arm, and he came to me, and I helped do itup for him. But he don't mind. He's real brave, --jest as brave as he'sgood. " There was such a wholesome ring of truth in this pretty praisethat we were touched in sympathy with the speaker. "What firm does he collect for?" asked the Judge gently. "I don't know exactly--he won't tell me; but I think it's a Spanishfirm. You see"--she took us all into her confidence with a sweepingsmile of innocent yet half-mischievous artfulness--"I only know becauseI peeped over a letter he once got from his firm, telling him he musthustle up and be ready for the road the next day; but I think the namewas Martinez--yes, Ramon Martinez. " In the dead silence that ensued--a silence so profound that we couldhear the horses in the distant stable-yard rattling their harness--oneof the younger "Excelsior" boys burst into a hysteric laugh, but thefierce eye of Yuba Bill was down upon him, and seemed to instantlystiffen him into a silent, grinning mask. The young girl, however, took no note of it. Following out, with lover-like diffusiveness, thereminiscences thus awakened, she went on:-- "Yes, it's mighty hard work, but he says it's all for me, and as soon aswe're married he'll quit it. He might have quit it before, but he won'ttake no money of me, nor what I told him I could get out of dad! Thatain't his style. He's mighty proud--if he is poor--is Charley. Whythar's all ma's money which she left me in the Savin's Bank that Iwanted to draw out--for I had the right--and give it to him, but hewouldn't hear of it! Why, he wouldn't take one of the things I've gotwith me, if he knew it. And so he goes on ridin' and ridin', here andthere and everywhere, and gettin' more and more played out and sad, andthin and pale as a spirit, and always so uneasy about his business, andstartin' up at times when we're meetin' out in the South Woods or in thefar clearin', and sayin': 'I must be goin' now, Polly, ' and yet alwaystryin' to be chiffle and chipper afore me. Why he must have rid milesand miles to have watched for me thar in the brush at the foot ofGalloper's to-night, jest to see if all was safe; and Lordy! I'd havegiven him the signal and showed a light if I'd died for it the nextminit. There! That's what I know of Charley--that's what I'm runningaway from home for--that's what I'm running to him for, and I don'tcare who knows it! And I only wish I'd done it afore--and Iwould--if--if--if--he'd only ASKED ME! There now!" She stopped, panted, and choked. Then one of the sudden transitions of youthful emotionovertook the eager, laughing face; it clouded up with the swift changeof childhood, a lightning quiver of expression broke over it, and--thencame the rain! I think this simple act completed our utter demoralization! We smiledfeebly at each other with that assumption of masculine superioritywhich is miserably conscious of its own helplessness at such moments. Welooked out of the window, blew our noses, said: "Eh--what?" and "I say, "vaguely to each other, and were greatly relieved, and yet apparentlyastonished, when Yuba Bill, who had turned his back upon the fairspeaker, and was kicking the logs in the fireplace, suddenly swept downupon us and bundled us all into the road, leaving Miss Mullins alone. Then he walked aside with Judge Thompson for a few moments; returned tous, autocratically demanded of the party a complete reticence towardsMiss Mullins on the subject-matter under discussion, re-entered thestation, reappeared with the young lady, suppressed a faint idioticcheer which broke from us at the spectacle of her innocent face oncemore cleared and rosy, climbed the box, and in another moment we wereunder way. "Then she don't know what her lover is yet?" asked the Expressmaneagerly. "No. " "Are YOU certain it's one of the gang?" "Can't say FOR SURE. It mout be a young chap from Yolo who bucked aginthe tiger* at Sacramento, got regularly cleaned out and busted, andjoined the gang for a flier. They say thar was a new hand in that jobover at Keeley's, --and a mighty game one, too; and ez there was somebuckshot onloaded that trip, he might hev got his share, and that wouldtally with what the girl said about his arm. See! Ef that's the man, I've heered he was the son of some big preacher in the States, and acollege sharp to boot, who ran wild in 'Frisco, and played himself forall he was worth. They're the wust kind to kick when they once geta foot over the traces. For stiddy, comf'ble kempany, " added Billreflectively, "give ME the son of a man that was HANGED!" * Gambled at faro. "But what are you going to do about this?" "That depends upon the feller who comes to meet her. " "But you ain't going to try to take him? That would be playing it prettylow down on them both. " "Keep your hair on, Jimmy! The Judge and me are only going to rastlewith the sperrit of that gay young galoot, when he drops down for hisgirl--and exhort him pow'ful! Ef he allows he's convicted of sin andwill find the Lord, we'll marry him and the gal offhand at the nextstation, and the Judge will officiate himself for nothin'. We'regoin' to have this yer elopement done on the square--and our waybillclean--you bet!" "But you don't suppose he'll trust himself in your hands?" "Polly will signal to him that it's all square. " "Ah!" said the Expressman. Nevertheless in those few moments the menseemed to have exchanged dispositions. The Expressman looked doubtfully, critically, and even cynically before him. Bill's face had relaxed, andsomething like a bland smile beamed across it, as he drove confidentlyand unhesitatingly forward. Day, meantime, although full blown and radiant on the mountain summitsaround us, was yet nebulous and uncertain in the valleys into whichwe were plunging. Lights still glimmered in the cabins and few ranchbuildings which began to indicate the thicker settlements. And theshadows were heaviest in a little copse, where a note from JudgeThompson in the coach was handed up to Yuba Bill, who at once slowlybegan to draw up his horses. The coach stopped finally near the junctionof a small crossroad. At the same moment Miss Mullins slipped down fromthe vehicle, and, with a parting wave of her hand to the Judge, who hadassisted her from the steps, tripped down the crossroad, and disappearedin its semi-obscurity. To our surprise the stage waited, Bill holdingthe reins listlessly in his hands. Five minutes passed--an eternity ofexpectation, and, as there was that in Yuba Bill's face which forbadeidle questioning, an aching void of silence also! This was at lastbroken by a strange voice from the road:-- "Go on we'll follow. " The coach started forward. Presently we heard the sound of otherwheels behind us. We all craned our necks backward to get a view ofthe unknown, but by the growing light we could only see that we werefollowed at a distance by a buggy with two figures in it. EvidentlyPolly Mullins and her lover! We hoped that they would pass us. But thevehicle, although drawn by a fast horse, preserved its distance always, and it was plain that its driver had no desire to satisfy our curiosity. The Expressman had recourse to Bill. "Is it the man you thought of?" he asked eagerly. "I reckon, " said Bill briefly. "But, " continued the Expressman, returning to his former skepticism, "what's to keep them both from levanting together now?" Bill jerked his hand towards the boot with a grim smile. "Their baggage. " "Oh!" said the Expressman. "Yes, " continued Bill. "We'll hang on to that gal's little frills andfixin's until this yer job's settled, and the ceremony's over, jestas ef we waz her own father. And, what's more, young man, " he added, suddenly turning to the Expressman, "YOU'LL express them trunks ofhers THROUGH TO SACRAMENTO with your kempany's labels, and hand her thereceipts and checks for them, so she CAN GET 'EM THERE. That'll keep HIMouter temptation and the reach o' the gang, until they get awayamong white men and civilization again. When your hoary-headed olegrandfather, or, to speak plainer, that partikler old whiskey-soakerknown as Yuba Bill, wot sits on this box, " he continued, with adiabolical wink at the Expressman, "waltzes in to pervide for a youngcouple jest startin' in life, thar's nothin' mean about his style, youbet. He fills the bill every time! Speshul Providences take a back seatwhen he's around. " When the station hotel and straggling settlement of Sugar Pine, nowdistinct and clear in the growing light, at last rose within rifleshoton the plateau, the buggy suddenly darted swiftly by us, so swiftlythat the faces of the two occupants were barely distinguishable as theypassed, and keeping the lead by a dozen lengths, reached the door of thehotel. The young girl and her companion leaped down and vanished withinas we drew up. They had evidently determined to elude our curiosity, andwere successful. But the material appetites of the passengers, sharpened by the keenmountain air, were more potent than their curiosity, and, as thebreakfast-bell rang out at the moment the stage stopped, a majority ofthem rushed into the dining-room and scrambled for places without givingmuch heed to the vanished couple or to the Judge and Yuba Bill, who haddisappeared also. The through coach to Marysville and Sacramento waslikewise waiting, for Sugar Pine was the limit of Bill's ministration, and the coach which we had just left went no farther. In the course oftwenty minutes, however, there was a slight and somewhat ceremoniousbustling in the hall and on the veranda, and Yuba Bill and the Judgereappeared. The latter was leading, with some elaboration of mannerand detail, the shapely figure of Miss Mullins, and Yuba Bill wasaccompanying her companion to the buggy. We all rushed to the windows toget a good view of the mysterious stranger and probable ex-brigandwhose life was now linked with our fair fellow-passenger. I amafraid, however, that we all participated in a certain impression ofdisappointment and doubt. Handsome and even cultivated-looking, heassuredly was--young and vigorous in appearance. But there was a certainhalf-shamed, half-defiant suggestion in his expression, yet coupled witha watchful lurking uneasiness which was not pleasant and hardly becomingin a bridegroom--and the possessor of such a bride. But the frank, joyous, innocent face of Polly Mullins, resplendent with a simple, happy confidence, melted our hearts again, and condoned the fellow'sshortcomings. We waved our hands; I think we would have given threerousing cheers as they drove away if the omnipotent eye of Yuba Bill hadnot been upon us. It was well, for the next moment we were summoned tothe presence of that soft-hearted autocrat. We found him alone with the Judge in a private sitting-room, standingbefore a table on which there was a decanter and glasses. As we filedexpectantly into the room and the door closed behind us, he cast aglance of hesitating tolerance over the group. "Gentlemen, " he said slowly, "you was all present at the beginnin' of alittle game this mornin', and the Judge thar thinks that you oughterbe let in at the finish. I don't see that it's any of YOUR d----dbusiness--so to speak; but ez the Judge here allows you're all in thesecret, I've called you in to take a partin' drink to the health of Mr. And Mrs. Charley Byng--ez is now comf'ably off on their bridal tower. What YOU know or what YOU suspects of the young galoot that's marriedthe gal ain't worth shucks to anybody, and I wouldn't give it to ayaller pup to play with, but the Judge thinks you ought all to promiseright here that you'll keep it dark. That's his opinion. Ez far as myopinion goes, gen'l'men, " continued Bill, with greater blandness andapparent cordiality, "I wanter simply remark, in a keerless, offhandgin'ral way, that ef I ketch any God-forsaken, lop-eared, chuckle-headedblatherin' idjet airin' HIS opinion"-- "One moment, Bill, " interposed Judge Thompson with a grave smile; "letme explain. You understand, gentlemen, " he said, turning to us, "thesingular, and I may say affecting, situation which our good-heartedfriend here has done so much to bring to what we hope will be a happytermination. I want to give here, as my professional opinion, that thereis nothing in his request which, in your capacity as good citizens andlaw-abiding men, you may not grant. I want to tell you, also, thatyou are condoning no offense against the statutes; that there is not aparticle of legal evidence before us of the criminal antecedents of Mr. Charles Byng, except that which has been told you by the innocent lipsof his betrothed, which the law of the land has now sealed forever inthe mouth of his wife, and that our own actual experience of his actshave been in the main exculpatory of any previous irregularity--if notincompatible with it. Briefly, no judge would charge, no jury convict, on such evidence. When I add that the young girl is of legal age, thatthere is no evidence of any previous undue influence, but rather of thereverse, on the part of the bridegroom, and that I was content, as amagistrate, to perform the ceremony, I think you will be satisfied togive your promise, for the sake of the bride, and drink a happy life tothem both. " I need not say that we did this cheerfully, and even extorted from Billa grunt of satisfaction. The majority of the company, however, who weregoing with the through coach to Sacramento, then took their leave, and, as we accompanied them to the veranda, we could see that Miss PollyMullins's trunks were already transferred to the other vehicle under theprotecting seals and labels of the all-potent Express Company. Thenthe whip cracked, the coach rolled away, and the last traces of theadventurous young couple disappeared in the hanging red dust of itswheels. But Yuba Bill's grim satisfaction at the happy issue of the episodeseemed to suffer no abatement. He even exceeded his usual deliberatelyregulated potations, and, standing comfortably with his back to thecentre of the now deserted barroom, was more than usually loquaciouswith the Expressman. "You see, " he said, in bland reminiscence, "whenyour old Uncle Bill takes hold of a job like this, he puts it straightthrough without changin' hosses. Yet thar was a moment, young feller, when I thought I was stompt! It was when we'd made up our mind to makethat chap tell the gal fust all what he was! Ef she'd rared or kicked inthe traces, or hung back only ez much ez that, we'd hev given him jestfive minits' law to get up and get and leave her, and we'd hev totedthat gal and her fixin's back to her dad again! But she jest gave alittle scream and start, and then went off inter hysterics, right onhis buzzum, laughing and cryin' and sayin' that nothin' should part 'em. Gosh! if I didn't think HE woz more cut up than she about it; a minitit looked as ef HE didn't allow to marry her arter all, but that passed, and they was married hard and fast--you bet! I reckon he's had enough ofstayin' out o' nights to last him, and ef the valley settlements hevn'tgot hold of a very shining member, at least the foothills hev got shutof one more of the Ramon Martinez gang. " "What's that about the Ramon Martinez gang?" said a quiet potentialvoice. Bill turned quickly. It was the voice of the Divisional Superintendentof the Express Company, --a man of eccentric determination of character, and one of the few whom the autocratic Bill recognized as an equal, --whohad just entered the barroom. His dusty pongee cloak and soft hatindicated that he had that morning arrived on a round of inspection. "Don't care if I do, Bill, " he continued, in response to Bill'sinvitatory gesture, walking to the bar. "It's a little raw out on theroad. Well, what were you saying about Ramon Martinez gang? You haven'tcome across one of 'em, have you?" "No, " said Bill, with a slight blinking of his eye, as he ostentatiouslylifted his glass to the light. "And you WON'T, " added the Superintendent, leisurely sipping his liquor. "For the fact is, the gang is about played out. Not from want of a jobnow and then, but from the difficulty of disposing of the results oftheir work. Since the new instructions to the agents to identify andtrace all dust and bullion offered to them went into force, you see, they can't get rid of their swag. All the gang are spotted at theoffices, and it costs too much for them to pay a fence or a middlemanof any standing. Why, all that flaky river gold they took from theExcelsior Company can be identified as easy as if it was stamped withthe company's mark. They can't melt it down themselves; they can'tget others to do it for them; they can't ship it to the Mint or AssayOffices in Marysville and 'Frisco, for they won't take it without ourcertificate and seals; and WE don't take any undeclared freight WITHINthe lines that we've drawn around their beat, except from people andagents known. Why, YOU know that well enough, Jim, " he said, suddenlyappealing to the Expressman, "don't you?" Possibly the suddenness of the appeal caused the Expressman to swallowhis liquor the wrong way, for he was overtaken with a fit ofcoughing, and stammered hastily as he laid down his glass, "Yes--ofcourse--certainly. " "No, sir, " resumed the Superintendent cheerfully, "they're pretty wellplayed out. And the best proof of it is that they've lately been robbingordinary passengers' trunks. There was a freight wagon 'held up' nearDow's Flat the other day, and a lot of baggage gone through. I had togo down there to look into it. Darned if they hadn't lifted a lot o'woman's wedding things from that rich couple who got married the otherday out at Marysville. Looks as if they were playing it rather low down, don't it? Coming down to hardpan and the bed rock--eh?" The Expressman's face was turned anxiously towards Bill, who, after ahurried gulp of his remaining liquor, still stood staring at the window. Then he slowly drew on one of his large gloves. "Ye didn't, " he said, with a slow, drawling, but perfectly distinct, articulation, "happen toknow old 'Skinner' Hemmings when you were over there?" "Yes. " "And his daughter?" "He hasn't got any. " "A sort o' mild, innocent, guileless child of nature?" persisted Bill, with a yellow face, a deadly calm and Satanic deliberation. "No. I tell you he HASN'T any daughter. Old man Hemmings is a confirmedold bachelor. He's too mean to support more than one. " "And you didn't happen to know any o' that gang, did ye?" continuedBill, with infinite protraction. "Yes. Knew 'em all. There was French Pete, Cherokee Bob, KanakaJoe, One-eyed Stillson, Softy Brown, Spanish Jack, and two or threeGreasers. " "And ye didn't know a man by the name of Charley Byng?" "No, " returned the Superintendent, with a slight suggestion of wearinessand a distraught glance towards the door. "A dark, stylish chap, with shifty black eyes and a curled-upmerstache?" continued Bill, with dry, colorless persistence. "No. Look here, Bill, I'm in a little bit of a hurry--but I supposeyou must have your little joke before we part. Now, what is your littlegame?" "Wot you mean?" demanded Bill, with sudden brusqueness. "Mean? Well, old man, you know as well as I do. You're giving me thevery description of Ramon Martinez himself, ha! ha! No--Bill! you didn'tplay me this time. You're mighty spry and clever, but you didn't catchon just then. " He nodded and moved away with a light laugh. Bill turned a stony face tothe Expressman. Suddenly a gleam of mirth came into his gloomy eyes. Hebent over the young man, and said in a hoarse, chuckling whisper:-- "But I got even after all!" "How?" "He's tied up to that lying little she-devil, hard and fast!" THE REFORMATION OF JAMES REDDY. I. It was a freshly furrowed field, so large that the eye at firstscarcely took in its magnitude. The irregular surface of upturned, oily, wave-shaped clods took the appearance of a vast, black, chopping sea, that reached from the actual shore of San Francisco Bay to the low hillsof the Coast Range. The sea-breeze that blew chilly over this bleakexpanse added to that fancy, and the line of straggling whitewashed farmbuildings, that half way across lifted themselves above it, seemed tobe placed on an island in its midst. Even the one or two huge, misshapenagricultural machines, abandoned in the furrows, bore an odd resemblanceto hulks or barges adrift upon its waste. This marine suggestion was equally noticeable from the door of one ofthe farm buildings--a long, detached wooden shed--into which a number offarm laborers were slowly filing, although one man was apparently enoughimpressed by it to linger and gaze over that rigid sea. Except in theirrough dress and the labor-stains of soil on their hands and faces, theyrepresented no particular type or class. They were young and old, robust and delicate, dull and intelligent; kept together only by somephilosophical, careless, or humorous acceptance of equally enforcedcircumstance in their labors, as convicts might have been. For they hadbeen picked up on the streets and wharves of San Francisco, --dischargedsailors, broken-down miners, helpless newcomers, unemployed professionalmen, and ruined traders, --to assist in ploughing and planting certainbroad leagues of rich alluvial soil for a speculative Joint StockCompany, at a weekly wage that would have made an European peasantindependent for half a year. Yet there was no enthusiasm in their labor, although it was seldom marked by absolute laziness or evasion, and wasmore often hindered by ill-regulated "spurts" and excessive effort, as if the laborer was anxious to get through with it; for in the fewconfidences they exchanged there was little allusion to the present, andthey talked chiefly of what they were going to do when their work wasover. They were gregarious only at their meals in one of the sheds, orwhen at night they sought their "bunks" or berths together in the largerbuilding. The man who had lingered to look at the dreary prospect had a somewhatgloomy, discontented face, whose sensitive lines indicated a certainsusceptibility to such impressions. He was further distinguished byhaving also lingered longer with the washing of his hands and facein the battered tin basin on a stool beside the door, and by thecircumstance that the operation revealed the fact that they were whiterthan those of his companions. Drying his fingers slowly on the longroller-towel, he stood gazing with a kind of hard abstraction across thedarkening field, the strip of faded colorless shore, and the chill graysea, to the dividing point of land on the opposite coast, which in thedying daylight was silhouetted against the cold horizon. He knew that around that point and behind it lay the fierce, half-grown, half-tamed city of yesterday that had worked his ruin. It was scarcely a year ago that he had plunged into its wildestexcesses, --a reckless gambler among speculators, a hopeless speculatoramong gamblers, until the little fortune he had brought thither had beenswept away. From time to time he had kept up his failing spirit with the feverishexaltation of dissipation, until, awakening from a drunkard's dream onemorning, he had found himself on board a steamboat crossing the bay, incompany with a gang of farm laborers with whom he was hired. A bittersmile crossed his lips as his eyes hovered over the cold, rugged fieldsbefore him. Yet he knew that they had saved him. The unaccustomed manuallabor in the open air, the regular hours, the silent, heavy, passionlessnights, the plain but wholesome food, were all slowly restoring hisyouth and strength again. Temptation and passion had alike fled theseunlovely fields and grim employment. Yet he was not grateful. He nursedhis dreary convalescence as he had his previous dissipation, as part ofa wrong done him by one for whose sake, he was wont to believe, he hadsacrificed himself. That person was a woman. Turning at last from the prospect and his bitter memories to join hiscompanions, he found that they had all passed in. The benches before thelong table on which supper was spread were already filled, and he stoodin hesitation, looking down the line of silent and hungrily preoccupiedmen on either side. A young girl, who was standing near a smallerserving-table, apparently assisting an older woman in directing theoperation of half a dozen Chinese waiters, moved forward and cleared aplace for him at a side-table, pushing before it the only chair in theroom, --the one she had lately vacated. As she placed some of the dishesbefore him with a timid ostentation, and her large but well-shaped handscame suddenly in contact with, and in direst contrast to his own whiterand more delicate ones, she blushed faintly. He lifted his eyes to hers. He had seen her half a dozen times before, for she was the daughter ofthe ranch superintendent, and occasionally assisted her mother inthis culinary supervision--which did not, however, bring her into anyfamiliar association with the men. Even the younger ones, perhaps fromover-consciousness of their inferior position or the preoccupation oftheir labor, never indulged in any gallantry toward her, and he himself, in his revulsion of feeling against the whole sex, had scarcely noticedthat she was good-looking. But this naive exhibition of preference couldnot be overlooked, either by his companions, who smiled cynically acrossthe table, or by himself, from whose morbid fancy it struck an ignoblesuggestion. Ah, well! the girl was pretty--the daughter of his employer, who rumor said owned a controlling share in the company; why shouldhe not make this chance preference lead to something, if only toameliorate, in ways like this, his despicable position here. He knewthe value of his own good looks, his superior education, and a certainrecklessness which women liked; why should he not profit by them as wellas the one woman who had brought him to this? He owed her sex nothing;if those among them who were not bad were only fools, there was noreason why he should not deceive them as they had him. There wasall this small audacity and cynical purpose in his brown eyes ashe deliberately fixed them on hers. And I grieve to say that theseabominable sentiments seemed only to impart to them a certain attractivebrilliancy, and a determination which the undetermining sex is apt toadmire. She blushed again, dropped her eyes, replied to his significant thankswith a few indistinct words, and drew away from the table with a suddentimidity that was half confession. She did not approach him again during the meal, but seemed to have takena sudden interest in the efficiency of the waiters, generally, which shehad not shown before. I do not know whether this was merely an effortat concealment, or an awakened recognition of her duty; but, after thefashion of her sex, --and perhaps in contrast to his, --she was kinderthat evening to the average man on account of HIM. He did not, however, notice it; nor did her absence interfere with his now healthy appetite;he finished his meal, and only when he rose to take his hat from thepeg above him did he glance around the room. Their eyes met again. Ashe passed out, although it was dark, he put on his hat a little moresmartly. The air was clear and cold, but the outlines of the landscape hadvanished. His companions, with the instinct of tired animals, werealready making their way in knots of two or three, or in silent file, across the intervening space between the building and their dormitory. A few had already lit their pipes and were walking leisurely, but themajority were hurrying from the chill sea-breeze to the warmth andcomfort of the long, well-lit room, lined with blanketed berths, and setwith plain wooden chairs and tables. The young man lingered for a momenton the wooden platform outside the dining-shed, --partly to evade thisonly social gathering of his fellows as they retired for the night, andpartly attracted by a strange fascination to the faint distant glow, beyond the point of land, which indicated the lights of San Francisco. There was a slight rustle behind him! It was the young girl who, with awhite woolen scarf thrown over her head and shoulders, had just left theroom. She started when she saw him, and for an instant hesitated. "You are going home, Miss Woodridge?" he said pleasantly. "Yes, " she returned, in a faint, embarrassed voice. "I thought I'd runon ahead of ma!" "Will you allow me to accompany you?" "It's only a step, " she protested, indicating the light in the window ofthe superintendent's house, the most remote of the group of buildings, yet scarcely a quarter of a mile distant. "But it's quite dark, " he persisted smilingly. She stepped from the platform to the ground; he instantly followed andranged himself at a little distance from her side. She protested stillfeebly against his "troubling himself, " but in another moment they werewalking on quietly together. Nevertheless, a few paces from the platformthey came upon the upheaved clods of the fresh furrows, and theirprogress over them was slow and difficult. "Shall I help you? Will you take my arm?" he said politely. "No, thank you, Mr. Reddy. " So! she knew his name! He tried to look into her eyes, but the woolenscarf hid her head. After all, there was nothing strange in herknowing him; she probably had the names of the men before her in thedining-room, or on the books. After a pause he said:-- "You quite startled me. One becomes such a mere working machine herethat one quite forgets one's own name, --especially with the prefix of'Mr. '" "And if it don't happen to be one's real name either, " said the girl, with an odd, timid audacity. He looked up quickly--more attracted by her manner than her words; moreamused than angry. "But Reddy happens to be my real name. " "Oh!" "What made you think it was not?" The clods over which they were clambering were so uneven that sometimesthe young girl was mounting one at the same moment that Reddy wasdescending from another. Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, wasdelivered over his head. "Oh, because pa says most of the men here don'tgive their real names--they don't care to be known afterward. Ashamed oftheir work, I reckon. " His face flushed a moment, even in the darkness. He WAS ashamed of hiswork, and perhaps a little of the pitiful sport he was beginning. Butoddly enough, the aggressive criticism only whetted his purpose. Thegirl was evidently quite able to take care of herself; why should he beover-chivalrous? "It isn't very pleasant to be doing the work of a horse, an ox, or amachine, if you can do other things, " he said half seriously. "But you never used to do anything at all, did you?" she asked. He hesitated. Here was a chance to give her an affecting history ofhis former exalted fortune and position, and perhaps even to stir herevidently romantic nature with some suggestion of his sacrifices to oneof her own sex. Women liked that sort of thing. It aroused at oncetheir emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized theopportunity, but--for some reason, he knew not why--awkwardly andclumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertionthat was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. Suddenly thegirl stopped him. "Yes, I know all THAT; pa told me. Told me you'd been given away by somewoman. " His face again flushed--this time with anger. The utter failure of hisstory to excite her interest, and her perfect possession of herself andthe situation, --so unlike her conduct a few moments before, --made himsavagely silent, and he clambered on sullenly at her side. Presently shestopped, balancing herself with a dexterity he could not imitate on oneof the larger upheaved clods, and said:-- "I was thinking that, as you can't do much with those hands of yours, digging and shoveling, and not much with your feet either, over ploughedground, you might do some inside work, that would pay you better, too. You might help in the dining room, setting table and washing up, helpingma and me--though I don't do much except overseeing. I could show youwhat to do at first, and you'd learn quick enough. If you say 'yes, 'I'll speak to pa to-night. He'll do whatever I say. " The rage and shame that filled his breast choked even the bitter laughthat first rose to his lips. If he could have turned on his heel andleft her with marked indignation, he would have done so, but they werescarcely half way across the field; his stumbling retreat would haveonly appeared ridiculous, and he was by no means sure that she would nothave looked upon it as merely a confession of his inability to keepup with her. And yet there was something peculiarly fascinating andtantalizing in the situation. She did not see the sardonic glitter inhis eye as he said brutally:-- "Ha! and that would give me the exquisite pleasure of being near you. " She seemed a little confused, even under her enwrappings, and instepping down her foot slipped. Reddy instantly scrambled up to herand caught her as she was pitching forward into the furrow. Yet in thestruggle to keep his own foothold he was aware that she was assistinghim, and although he had passed his arm around her waist, as if for herbetter security, it was only through HER firm grasp of his wrists thathe regained his own footing. The "cloud" had fallen back from her headand shoulders, her heavy hair had brushed his cheek and left itsfaint odor in his nostrils; the rounded outline of her figure hadbeen slightly drawn against his own. His mean resentment wavered; herproposition, which at first seemed only insulting, now took a vague formof satisfaction; his ironical suggestion seemed a natural expression. "Well, I say 'yes' then, " he said, with an affected laugh. "That is, ifyou think I can manage to do the work; it is not exactly in my line, youknow. " Yet he somehow felt that his laugh was feeble and unconvincing. "Oh, it's easy enough, " said the girl quietly. "You've only got to beclean--and that's in your line, I should say. " "And if I thought it would please you, " he added, with another attemptat gallantry. She did not reply, but moved steadily on, he fancied a little morerapidly. They were nearing the house; he felt he was losing time andopportunity. The uneven nature of the ground kept him from walkingimmediately beside her, unless he held her hand or arm. Yet an oddtimidity was overtaking him. Surely this was the same girl whoseconsciousness and susceptibility were so apparent a moment ago; yet herspeech had been inconsistent, unsympathetic, and coldly practical. "It'svery kind of you, " he began again, scrambling up one side of the furrowas she descended on the other, "to--to--take such an interest in--in astranger, and I wish you knew how" (she had mounted the ridge again, andstood balancing herself as if waiting for him to finish his sentence)"how--how deeply--I--I"--She dropped quickly down again with the samemovement of uneasy consciousness, and he left the sentence unfinished. The house was now only a few yards away; he hurried forward, but shereached the wooden platform and stoop upon it first. He, however, at thesame moment caught her hand. "I want to thank you, " he said, "and say good-night. " "Good-night. " Her voice was indistinct again, and she was trembling. Emboldened and reckless, he sprang upon the platform, and encircling herwith one arm, with his other hand he unloosed the woolen cloud aroundher head and bared her faintly flushed cheek and half-open, hurriedlybreathing lips. But the next moment she threw her head back with asingle powerful movement, and, as it seemed to him, with scarcely aneffort cast him off with both hands, and sent him toppling from theplatform to the ground. He scrambled quickly to his feet again, flushed, angry, and--frightened! Perhaps she would call her father; he would beinsulted, or worse, --laughed at! He had lost even this pitiful chance ofbettering his condition. But he was as relieved as he was surprisedto see that she was standing quietly on the edge of the platform, apparently waiting for him to rise. Her face was still uncovered, stillslightly flushed, but bearing no trace of either insult or anger. Whenhe stood erect again, she looked at him gravely and drew the woolencloud over her head, as she said calmly, "Then I'll tell pa you'll takethe place, and I reckon you'll begin to-morrow morning. " II. Angered, discomfited, and physically and morally beaten, James Reddystumbled and clambered back across the field. The beam of light that hadstreamed out over the dark field as the door opened and shut on thegirl left him doubly confused and bewildered. In his dull anger andmortification, there seemed only one course for him to pursue. He woulddemand his wages in the morning, and cut the whole concern. He would goback to San Francisco and work there, where he at least had friends whorespected his station. Yet, he ought to have refused the girl's offerbefore she had repulsed him; his retreat now meant nothing, and mighteven tempt her, in her vulgar pique, to reveal her rebuff of him. Heraised his eyes mechanically, and looked gloomily across the dark wasteand distant bay to the opposite shore. But the fog had already hiddenthe glow of the city's lights, and, thickening around the horizon, seemed to be slowly hemming him in with the dreary rancho. In hispresent frame of mind there was a certain fatefulness in this thatprecluded his once free agency, and to that extent relieved and absolvedHIM of any choice. He reached the dormitory and its turned-down lightsin a state of tired and dull uncertainty, for which sleep seemed tooffer the only relief. He rolled himself in his blankets with an animalinstinct of comfort and shut his eyes, but their sense appeared toopen upon Nelly Woodridge as she stood looking down upon him from theplatform. Even through the dull pain of his bruised susceptibilities hewas conscious of a strange satisfaction he had not felt before. He fellasleep at last, to waken only to the sunlight streaming through thecurtainless windows on his face. To his surprise the long shed was emptyand deserted, except for a single Chinaman who was sweeping the floor atthe farther end. As Reddy started up, the man turned and approached himwith a characteristic, vague, and patient smile. "All lity, John, you sleepee heap! Mistel Woodlidge he say you no gowolkee field allee same Mellikan man. You stoppee inside housee alleesame ME. Shabbee? You come to glubbee [grub] now" (pointing to thedistant dining-shed), "and then you washee dish. " The full extent of his new degradation flashed upon Reddy with thisadded insult of his brother menial's implicit equality. He understoodit all. He had been detached from the field-workers and was to come toa later breakfast, perhaps the broken victuals of the first repast, and wash the dishes. He remembered his new bargain. Very well! hewould refuse positively, take his dismissal, and leave that morning! Hehurriedly dressed himself, and followed the Chinaman into the open air. The fog still hung upon the distant bay and hid the opposite point. Butthe sun shone with dry Californian brilliancy over the league-long fieldaround him, revealing every detail of the rancho with sharp, matter offact directness, and without the least illusion of distance or romance. The rough, unplaned, unpainted walls of the dinner-shed stood outclearly before him; the half-filled buckets of water on the nearplatform, and the immense tubs piled with dirty dishes. He scowleddarkly as he walked forward, conscious, nevertheless, of theinvigorating discipline of the morning air and the wholesome whip in thesky above him. He entered sharply and aggressively. To his relief, theroom at first sight seemed, like the dormitory he had just left, to beempty. But a voice, clear, dry, direct, and practical as the morningitself, spoke in his ear: "Mornin', Reddy! My daughter says you'rewillin' to take an indoor job, and I reckon, speakin' square, as manto man, it's more in your line than what you've bin doin'. It mayn'tbe high-toned work, but work's WORK anyhow you can fix it; and the onlydifference I kin see is in the work that a man does squarely, and thework that he shirks. " "But, " said Reddy hurriedly, "there's a mistake. I came here only to"-- "Work like the others, I understand. Well, you see you CAN'T. You doyour best, I know. I ain't findin' fault, but it ain't in your line. THIS is, and the pay is better. " "But, " stammered Reddy, "Miss Woodridge didn't understand"-- "Yes, she did, " returned Woodridge impatiently, "and she told me. Shesays she'll show you round at first. You'll catch on all right. Sit downand eat your breakfast, and she'll be along before you're through. Ez for ME, I must get up and get. So long!" and before Reddy had anopportunity to continue his protest, he turned away. The young man glanced vexatiously around him. A breakfast much better inservice and quality than the one he had been accustomed to smoked on thetable. There was no one else in the room. He could hear the voices ofthe Chinese waiters in the kitchen beyond. He was healthily hungry, and after a moment's hesitation sat down and began his meal. He couldexpostulate with her afterward, and withdraw his promise. He wasentitled to his breakfast, anyway! Once or twice, while thus engaged, he heard the door of the kitchenopen and the clipping tread of the Chinese waiters, who deposited somerattling burden on the adjacent tables, but he thought it prudent notto seem to notice them. When he had finished, the pleasant, hesitating, boyish contralto of Miss Woodridge fell upon his ear. "When you're ready, I'll show you how to begin your work. " He turned quickly, with a flush of mortification at being discoveredat his repast, and his anger returned. But as his eyes fell uponher delicately colored but tranquil face, her well-shaped figure, coquettishly and spotlessly cuffed, collared, and aproned, and her clearblue but half-averted eyes, he again underwent a change. She certainlywas very pretty--that most seductive prettiness which seemed to bewarmed into life by her consciousness of himself. Why should he take heror himself so seriously? Why not play out the farce, and let thosewho would criticise him and think his acceptance of the work degradingunderstand that it was only an affair of gallantry. He could affordto serve Woodridge at least a few weeks for the favor of this Rachel!Forgetful of his rebuff of the night before, he fixed his brown eyes onhers with an audacious levity. "Oh yes--the work! Let us see it. I'm ready in name and nature foranything that Miss Woodridge wants of me. I'm just dying to begin. " His voice was raised slightly, with a high comedy jauntiness, forthe benefit of the Chinese waiters who might be lingering to see the"Mellican man" assume their functions. But it failed in effect. Withtheir characteristic calm acceptance of any eccentricity in a "foreigndevil, " they scarcely lifted their eyes. The young girl pointed toa deep basket filled with dishes which had been placed on the largertable, and said, without looking at Reddy:-- "You had better begin by 'checking' the crockery. That is, counting thepieces separately and then arranging them in sets as they come back fromwashing. There's the book to compare them with and to set down what isbroken, missing, or chipped. You'll have a clean towel with you to wipethe pieces that have not been cleaned enough; or, if they are too dirty, you'll send them back to the kitchen. " "Couldn't I wash them myself?" said Reddy, continuing his ostentatiouslevity. "Not yet, " said the girl, with grave hesitation; "you'd break them. " She stood watching him, as with affected hilarity he began to take thedishes from the basket. But she noticed that in spite of this jocularsimulation his grasp was firm and delicate, and that there was noclatter--which would have affected her sensitive ear--as he put themdown. She laid a pencil and account book beside him and turned away. "But you are not going?" he said, in genuine surprise. "Yes, " she said quietly, "until you get through 'checking. ' Then I'llcome back and show you what you have to do next. You're getting on verywell. " "But that was because you were with me. " She colored slightly and, without looking at him, moved slowly to thedoor and disappeared. Reddy went back to his work, disappointed but not discomfited. He wasgetting accustomed to the girl's eccentricities. Whether it was thefreshness of the morning air and sunlight streaming in at the openwindows, the unlooked-for solitude and security of the empty room, orthat there was nothing really unpleasant in his occupation, he went oncheerfully "checking" the dishes, narrowly examining them for chips andcracks, and noting them in the book. Again discovering that a few wereimperfectly cleaned and wiped, he repaired the defect with cold waterand a towel without the least thought of the operation being degrading. He had finished his task in half an hour; she had not returned; whyshould he not go on and set the table? As he straightened and turned thecoarse table-cloth, he made the discovery that the long table wasreally composed of half a dozen smaller ones, and that the hideousparallelogram which had always so offended him was merely the outcome ofcarelessness and want of taste. Without a moment's hesitation he setat work to break up the monotonous line and rearranged the tableslaterally, with small open spaces between them. The task was no lightone, even for a stronger man, but he persevered in it with a new-foundenergy until he had changed the whole aspect of the room. It lookedlarger, wider, and less crowded; its hard practical, workhouse-likeformality had disappeared. He had paused to survey it, panting stillwith his unusual exertion, when a voice broke upon his solitude. "Well, I wanter know!" The voice was not Nelly's, but that of her mother, --a large-boned, angular woman of fifty, --who had entered the room unperceived. Theaccents were simply those of surprise, but on James Reddy's presentsensitive mood, coupled with the feeling that here was a new witnessto his degradation, he might have resented it; but he detected thehandsome, reserved figure of the daughter a few steps behind her. Theireyes met; wonderful to relate, the young girl's no longer evaded him, but looked squarely into his with a bright expression of pleasure hehad not seen before. He checked himself with a sudden thrill ofgratification. "Well, I declare, " continued Mrs. Woodridge; "is that YOUR idea--oryours, Helen?" Here Reddy simply pointed out the advantages for serving afforded by thenew arrangement; that all the tables were equally and quickly accessiblefrom the serving-table and sideboard, and that it was no longernecessary to go the whole length of the room to serve the upper table. He tactfully did not refer to the improved appearance of the room. "Well, as long as it ain't mere finikin, " said the lady graciously, "andseems to bring the folks and their vittles nearer together--we'll tryit to-day. It does look kinder CITYFIED--and I reckoned that was all thegood it was. But I calkilated you were goin' to check the crockery thismorning. " "It's done, " said Reddy, smilingly handing her the account-book. Mrs. Woodridge glanced over it, and then surveyed her new assistant. "And you didn't find any plates that were dirty and that had to be sentback?" "Yes, two or three, but I cleaned them myself. " Mrs. Woodridge glanced at him with a look of approving curiosity, buthis eyes were just then seeking her daughter's for a more gratefulsympathy. All of which the good lady noted, and as it apparentlyanswered the unasked question in her own mind, she only uttered thesingle exclamation, "Humph!" But the approbation he received later at dinner, in the satisfactionof his old companions with the new arrangement, had also the effectof diverting from him the criticism he had feared they would makein finding him installed as an assistant to Mrs. Woodridge. On thecontrary, they appeared only to recognize in him some especialand superior faculty utilized for their comfort, and when thesuperintendent, equally pleased, said it was "all Reddy's own idea, " noone doubted that it was this particular stroke of genius which gainedhim the obvious promotion. If he had still thought of offering hisflirtation with Nelly as an excuse, there was now no necessity for any. Having shown to his employers his capacity for the highest and lowestwork, they naturally preferred to use his best abilities--and hewas kept from any menial service. His accounts were so carefully andintelligently rendered that the entire care of the building and itsappointments was intrusted to him. At the end of the week Mr. Woodridgetook him aside. "I say, you ain't got any job in view arter you finish up here, hev ye?" Reddy started. Scarcely ten days ago he had a hundred projects, schemes, and speculations, more or less wild and extravagant, wherewith he was toavenge and recoup himself in San Francisco. Now they were gone he knewnot where and how. He briefly said he had not. "Because, " continued Woodridge, "I've got an idea of startin' a hotel inthe Oak Grove, just on the slope back o' the rancho. The company's boundto make some sort o' settlement there for the regular hands, and theplace is pooty enough for 'Frisco people who want to run over here andget set up for a day or two. Thar's plenty of wood and water up thar, and the company's sure to have a wharf down on the shore. I'll providethe capital, if you will put in your time. You can sling in ez muchstyle as you like there" (this was an allusion to Reddy's attempt toenliven the blank walls with colored pictures from the illustratedpapers and green ceanothus sprays from the slope); "in fact, the morestyle the better for them city folks. Well, you think it over. " He did. But meantime he seemed to make little progress in his court ofthe superintendent's daughter. He tried to think it was because he hadallowed himself to be diverted by his work, but although she alwaysbetrayed the same odd physical consciousness of his presence, it wascertain that she never encouraged him. She gave him the few directionsthat his new occupation still made necessary, and looked her approvalof his success. But nothing more. He was forced to admit that this wasexactly what she might have done as the superintendent's daughter to adeserving employee. Whereat, for a few days he assumed an air of coldand ceremonious politeness, until perceiving that, far from piquing thegirl, it seemed to gratify her, and even to render her less sensitivein his company, he sulked in good earnest. This proving ineffectivealso, --except to produce a kind of compassionate curiosity, --his formerdull rage returned. The planting of the rancho was nearly over; hisservice would be ended next week; he had not yet given his answer toWoodridge's proposition; he would decline it and cut the whole concern! It was a crisp Sunday morning. The breakfast hour was later on thatday to allow the men more time for their holiday, which, however, theygenerally spent in cards, gossip, or reading in their sleeping sheds. It usually delayed Reddy's work, but as he cared little for thecompanionship of his fellows, it enabled him, without a show ofunsociability, to seclude himself in the dining-room. And this morninghe was early approached by his employer. "I'm goin' to take the women folks over to Oakdale to church, " said Mr. Woodridge; "ef ye keer to join us thar's a seat in the wagon, and I'llturn on a couple of Chinamen to do the work for you, just now; and Nellyor the old woman will give you a lift this afternoon with the countingup. " Reddy felt instinctively that the invitation had been instigated by theyoung girl. A week before he would have rejoiced at it; a month ago hewould have accepted it if only as a relief to his degraded position, butin the pique of this new passion he almost rudely declined it. An hourlater he saw Nelly, becomingly and even tastefully dressed, --withthe American girl's triumphant superiority to her condition andsurroundings, --ride past in her father's smart "carryall. " He wasstartled to see that she looked so like a lady. Then, with a new andjealous inconsistency, significant of the progress of his passion, heresolved to go to church too. She should see that he was not going toremain behind like a mere slave. He remembered that he had still certainremnants of his past finery in his trunk; he would array himself inthem, walk to Oakdale, and make one of the congregation. He managed tochange his clothes without attracting the attention of his fellows, andset out. The air was pure but keen, with none of the languor of spring inits breath, although a few flowers were beginning to star the weedywagon-tracked lane, and there was an awakening spice in the waysidesouthernwood and myrtle. He felt invigorated, although it seemed only towhet his jealous pique. He hurried on without even glancing toward thedistant coast-line of San Francisco or even thinking of it. The bittermemories of the past had been obliterated by the bitterness of thepresent. He no longer thought of "that woman;" even when he hadthreatened to himself to return to San Francisco, he was vaguelyconscious that it was not SHE who was again drawing him there, but Nellywho was driving him away. The service was nearly over when he arrived at the chilly littlecorrugated-zinc church at Oakdale, but he slipped into one of the backseats. A few worshipers turned round to look at him. Among them were thedaughters of a neighboring miller, who were slightly exercised over theunusual advent of a good-looking stranger with certain exterior signs ofelegance. Their excitement was communicated by some mysterious instinctto their neighbor, Nelly Woodridge. She also turned and caught hiseye. But to all appearances she not only showed no signs of her usualagitation at his presence, but did not seem to even recognize him. In the acerbity of his pique he was for a moment gratified at what hebelieved to be the expression of her wounded pride, but his uneasinessquickly returned, and at the conclusion of the service he slipped out ofthe church with one or two of the more restless in the congregation. As he passed through the aisle he heard the escort of the miller'sdaughters, in response to a whispered inquiry, say distinctly: "Onlythe head-waiter over at the company's rancho. " Whatever hesitating ideaReddy might have had of waiting at the church door for the appearanceof Nelly vanished before the brutal truth. His brow darkened, and withflushed cheeks he turned his back upon the building and plunged into thewoods. This time there was no hesitation in his resolve; he wouldleave the rancho at the expiration of his engagement. Even in a higheroccupation he felt he could never live down his reputation there. In his morose abstraction he did not know how long or how aimlessly hehad wandered among the mossy live-oaks, his head and shoulders oftenimperiled by the downcurving of some huge knotted limb; his feetstraying blindly from the faint track over the thickly matted carpetof chickweed which hid their roots. But it was nearly an hour before heemerged upon a wide, open, wooded slope, and, from the distant view offield and shore, knew that he was at Oak Grove, the site of Woodridge'sprojected hotel. And there, surely, at a little distance, wasthe Woodridges' wagon and team tied up to a sapling, while thesuperintendent and his wife were slowly climbing the slope, andapparently examining the prospect. Without waiting to see if Nelly waswith them, Reddy instantly turned to avoid meeting them. But he had notproceeded a hundred yards before he came upon that young lady, whohad evidently strayed from the party, and who was now unconsciouslyadvancing toward him. A rencontre was inevitable. She started slightly, and then stopped, with all her old agitation andembarrassment. But, to his own surprise, he was also embarrassed andeven tongue-tied. She spoke first. "You were at church. I didn't quite know you in--in--these clothes. " In her own finery she had undergone such a change to Reddy'sconsciousness that he, for the first time in their acquaintance, nowaddressed her as on his own level, and as if she had no understanding ofhis own feelings. "Oh, " he said, with easy bitterness, "OTHERS did, if you did not. Theyall detected the 'head-waiter' at the Union Company's rancho. Even if Ihad accepted your kindness in offering me a seat in your wagon it wouldhave made no difference. " He was glad to put this construction onhis previous refusal, for in the new relations which seemed to beestablished by their Sunday clothes he was obliged to soften thechurlishness of that refusal also. "I don't think you'd look nice setting the table in kid gloves, " shesaid, glancing quickly at his finery as if accepting it as the realissue; "but you can wear what you like at other times. I never foundfault with your working clothes. " There was such a pleasant suggestion in her emphasis that his ill-humorsoftened. Her eyes wandered over the opposite grove, where herunconscious parents had just disappeared. "Papa's very keen about the hotel, " she continued, "and is going tohave the workmen break ground to-morrow. He says he'll have it up in twomonths and ready to open, if he has to make the men work double time. When you're manager, you won't mind what folks say. " There was no excuse for his further hesitation. He must speak out, buthe did it in a half-hearted way. "But if I simply go away--WITHOUT being manager--I won't hear theircriticism either. " "What do you mean?" she said quickly. "I've--I've been thinking of--of going back to San Francisco, " hestammered awkwardly. A slight flush of contemptuous indignation passed over her face, andgave it a strength and expression he had never seen there before. "Oh, you've not reformed yet, then?" she said, under her scornful lashes. "I don't understand you, " he said, flushing. "Father ought to have told you, " she went on dryly, "that that woman hasgone off to the Springs with her husband, and you won't see HER at SanFrancisco. " "I don't know what you mean--and your father seems to take anunwarrantable interest in my affairs, " said Reddy, with an anger that hewas conscious, however, was half simulated. "No more than he ought to, if he expects to trust you with all HISaffairs, " said the girl shortly; "but you had better tell him you havechanged your mind at once, before he makes any further calculations onyour staying. He's just over the hill there, with mother. " She turned away coldly as she spoke, but moved slowly and in thedirection of the hill, although she took a less direct trail thanthe one she had pointed to him. But he followed her, albeit stillembarrassedly, and with that new sense of respect which had checked hisformer surliness. There was her strong, healthy, well-developedfigure moving before him, but the modish gray dress seemed to give itspronounced outlines something of the dignity of a goddess. Even the firmhands had the distinguishment of character. "You understand, " he said apologetically, "that I mean no discourtesy toyour father or his offer. And"--he hesitated--"neither is my reason whatyou would infer. " "Then what is it?" she asked, turning to him abruptly. "You know youhave no other place when you leave here, nor any chance as good as theone father offers you. You are not fit for any other work, and you knowit. You have no money to speculate with, nor can you get any. If youcould, you would have never stayed here. " He could not evade the appalling truthfulness of her clear eyes. Heknew it was no use to lie to her; she had evidently thoroughly informedherself regarding his past; more than that, she seemed to read hispresent thoughts. But not all of them! No! he could startle her still!It was desperate, but he had nothing now to lose. And she liked thetruth, --she should have it! "You are right, " he said shortly; "these are not my reasons. " "Then what reason have you?" "You!" "Me?" she repeated incredulously, yet with a rising color. "Yes, YOU! I cannot stay here, and have you look down upon me. " "I don't look down on you, " she said simply, yet without the haste ofrepelling an unjust accusation. "Why should I? Mother and I have donethe same work that you are doing, --if that's what you mean; and father, who is a man like yourself, helped us at first, until he could do otherthings better. " She paused. "Perhaps you think so because YOU lookeddown on us when you first came here. " "But I didn't, " said Reddy quickly. "You did, " said the young girl quietly. "That's why you acted toward meas you did the night you walked home with me. You would not havebehaved in that way to any San Francisco young lady--and I'm not one ofyour--fast--MARRIED WOMEN. " Reddy felt the hot blood mount to his cheek, and looked away. "Iwas foolish and rude--and I think you punished me at the time, " hestammered. "But you see I was right in saying you looked down on me, " heconcluded triumphantly. This was at best a feeble sequitur, but the argument of the affectionsis not always logical. And it had its effect on the girl. "I wasn't thinking of THAT, " she said. "It's that you don't know yourown mind. " "If I said that I would stay and accept your father's offer, would youthink that I did?" he asked quickly. "I should wait and see what you actually DID do, " she replied. "But if I stayed--and--and--if I told you that I stayed on YOURaccount--to be with you and near you only--would you think that aproof?" He spoke hesitatingly, for his lips were dry with a nervousnesshe had not known before. "I might, if you told father you expected to be engaged on those terms. For it concerns HIM as much as me. And HE engages you, and not I. Otherwise I'd think it was only your talk. " Reddy looked at her in astonishment. There was not the slightest traceof coyness, coquetry, or even raillery in her clear, honest eyes, andyet it would seem as if she had taken his proposition in its fullestsense as a matrimonial declaration, and actually referred him to herfather. He was pleased, frightened, and utterly unprepared. "But what would YOU say, Nelly?" He drew closer to her and held out bothhis hands. But she retreated a step and slipped her own behind her. "Better see what father says first, " she said quietly. "You may changeyour mind again and go back to San Francisco. " He was confused, and reddened again. But he had become accustomed to herways; rather, perhaps, he had begun to recognize the quaint justice thatunderlaid them, or, possibly, some better self of his own, that had beenburied under bitterness and sloth and struggled into life. "But whateverhe says, " he returned eagerly, "cannot alter my feelings to YOU. It canonly alter my position here, and you say you are above being influencedby that. Tell me, Nelly--dear Nelly! have you nothing to say to me, ASI AM, or is it only to your father's manager that you would speak?" Hisvoice had an unmistakable ring of sincerity in it, and even startledhim--half rascal as he was! The young girl's clear, scrutinizing eyes softened; her red resolutelips trembled slightly and then parted, the upper one hovering a littleto one side over her white teeth. It was Nelly's own peculiar smile, andits serious piquancy always thrilled him. But she drew a little fartherback from his brightening eyes, her hands still curled behind her, andsaid, with the faintest coquettish toss of her head toward the hill: "Ifyou want to see father, you'd better hurry up. " With a sudden determination as new to him as it was incomprehensible, Reddy turned from her and struck forward in the direction of the hill. He was not quite sure what he was going for. Yet that he, who had onlya moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and her, was nowgoing to her father to demand her hand as a contingency of his remainingdid not strike him as so extravagant and unexpected a denouement asit was a difficult one. He was only concerned HOW, and in what way, heshould approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he hesitated, turned, and looked behind him. She was standing where he had left her, gazing after him, leaningforward with her hands still held behind her. Suddenly, as with aninspiration, she raised them both, carried them impetuously to her lips, blew him a dozen riotous kisses, and then, lowering her head like acolt, whisked her skirt behind her, and vanished in the cover. III. It was only May, but the freshness of early summer already clothedthe great fields of the rancho. The old resemblance to a sea was stillthere, more accented, perhaps, by the undulations of bluish-greengrain that rolled from the actual shore-line to the foothills. The farmbuildings were half submerged in this glowing tide of color and losttheir uncouth angularity with their hidden rude foundations. The samesea-breeze blew chilly and steadily from the bay, yet softened andsubdued by the fresh odors of leaf and flower. The outlying fringe ofoaks were starred through their underbrush with anemones and dog-roses;there were lupines growing rankly in the open spaces, and along thegentle slopes of Oak Grove daisies were already scattered. And, as if itwere part of this vernal efflorescence, the eminence itself was crownedwith that latest flower of progress and improvement, --the new Oak GroveHotel! Long, low, dazzling with white colonnades, verandas, and balconies whichretained, however, enough of the dampness of recent creation to makethem too cool for loungers, except at high noon, the hotel neverthelesshad the charms of freshness, youth, and cleanliness. Reddy's fastidiousneatness showed itself in all the appointments, from the mirrored andmarbled barroom, gilded parlors, and snowy dining-room, to the chintzand maple furnishing of the bedrooms above. Reddy's taste, too, hadselected the pretty site; his good fortune had afterward discoveredin an adjoining thicket a spring of blandly therapeutic qualities. Acomplaisant medical faculty of San Francisco attested to its merits;a sympathetic press advertised the excellence of the hotel; anovelty-seeking, fashionable circle--as yet without laws and blindlyimitative--found the new hotel an admirable variation to the vulgarordinary "across the bay" excursion, and an accepted excuse for a novelsocial dissipation. A number of distinguished people had already visitedit; certain exclusive families had secured the best rooms; there were ascore of pretty women to be seen in its parlors; there had already beena slight scandal. Nothing seemed wanting to insure its success. Reddy was passing through the little wood where four months before hehad parted from Kelly Woodridge to learn his fate from her father. Heremembered that interview to which Nelly's wafted kiss had inspiredhim. He recalled to-day, as he had many times before, the singularcomplacency with which Mr. Woodridge had received his suit, as if itwere a slight and unimportant detail of the business in hand, and how hehad told him that Kelly and her mother were going to the "States" for athree months' visit, but that after her return, if they were both "stillagreed, " he, Woodridge, would make no objection. He remembered theslight shock which this announcement of Kelly's separation from himduring his probationary labors had given him, and his sudden suspicionthat he had been partly tricked of his preliminary intent to secure hercompany to solace him. But he had later satisfied himself that sheknew nothing of her father's intentions at the time, and he was fain tocontent himself with a walk through the fields at her side the day shedeparted, and a single kiss--which left him cold. And now in a few daysshe would return to witness the successful fufillment of his labors, and--reward him! It was certainly a complacent prospect. He could look forward to asensible, prosperous, respectable future. He had won back his goodname, his fortune, and position, --not perhaps exactly in the way hehad expected, --and he had stilled the wanton, foolish cravings of hispassionate nature in the calm, virginal love of an honest, handsome girlwho would make him a practical helpmeet, and a comfortable, trustworthywife. He ought to be very happy. He had never known such perfect healthbefore; he had lost his reckless habits; his handsome, nervous face hadgrown more placid and contented; his long curls had been conventionallyclipped; he had gained flesh unmistakably, and the lower buttons ofthe slim waistcoat he had worn to church that memorable Sunday were tootight for comfort or looks. HE WAS happy; yet as he glanced over thematerial spring landscape, full of practical health, blossom, andpromise of fruition, it struck him that the breeze that blew over it waschilly, even if healthful; and he shivered slightly. He reached the hotel, entered the office, glanced at the register, andpassed through into his private room. He had been away for two days, and noticed with gratification that the influx of visitors was stillincreasing. His clerk followed into the room. "There's a lady in 56 who wanted to see you when you returned. She askedparticularly for the manager. " "Who is she?" "Don't know. It's a Mrs. Merrydew, from Sacramento. Expecting herhusband on the next steamer. " "Humph! You'll have to be rather careful about these solitary marriedwomen. We don't want another scandal, you know. " "She asked for you by name, sir, and I thought you might know her, "returned the clerk. "Very well. I'll go up. " He sent a waiter ahead to announce him, and leisurely mounted thestairs. No. 56 was the sitting-room of a private suite on the firstfloor. The waiter was holding the door open. As he approached it afaint perfume from the interior made him turn pale. But he recovered hispresence of mind sufficiently to close the door sharply upon the waiterbehind him. "Jim, " said a voice which thrilled him. He looked up and beheld what any astute reader of romance will havealready suspected--the woman to whom he believed he owed his ruin inSan Francisco. She was as beautiful and alluring as ever, albeit she wasthinner and more spiritual than he had ever seen her. She was tastefullydressed, as she had always been, a certain style of languorous silkendeshabille which she was wont to affect in better health now became herpaler cheek and feverishly brilliant eyes. There was the same opulenceof lace and ornament, and, whether by accident or design, clasped aroundthe slight wrist of her extended hand was a bracelet which he rememberedhad swept away the last dregs of his fortune. He took her hand mechanically, yet knowing whatever rage was in hisheart he had not the strength to refuse it. "They told me it was Mrs. Merrydew, " he stammered. "That was my mother's name, " she said, with a little laugh. "I thoughtyou knew it. But perhaps you didn't. When I got my divorce fromDick--you didn't know that either, I suppose; it's three months ago, --Ididn't care to take my maiden name again; too many people rememberedit. So after the decree was made I called myself Mrs. Merrydew. You haddisappeared. They said you had gone East. " "But the clerk says you are expecting your HUSBAND on the steamer. Whatdoes this mean? Why did you tell him that?" He had so far collectedhimself that there was a ring of inquisition in his voice. "Oh, I had to give him some kind of reason for my being alone when I didnot find you as I expected, " she said half wearily. Then a change cameover her tired face; a smile of mingled audacity and tentative coquetrylit up the small features. "Perhaps it is true; perhaps I may have ahusband coming on the steamer--that depends. Sit down, Jim. " She let his hand drop, and pointed to an armchair from which she hadjust risen, and sank down herself in a corner of the sofa, her thinfingers playing with and drawing themselves through the tassels of thecushion. "You see, Jim, as soon as I was free, Louis Sylvester--you rememberLouis Sylvester?--wanted to marry me, and even thought that he was thecause of Dick's divorcing me. He actually went East to settle up someproperty he had left him there, and he's coming on the steamer. " "Louis Sylvester!" repeated Reddy, staring at her. "Why, he was a biggerfool than I was, and a worse man!" he added bitterly. "I believe he was, " said the lady, smiling, "and I think he stillis. But, " she added, glancing at Reddy under her light fringed lids, "you--you're regularly reformed, aren't you? You're stouter, too, andaltogether more solid and commercial looking. Yet who'd have thought ofyour keeping a hotel or ever doing anything but speculate in wild-cator play at draw poker. How did you drift into it? Come, tell me! I'm notMrs. Sylvester just yet, and maybe I might like to go into the businesstoo. You don't want a partner, do you?" Her manner was light and irresponsible, or rather it suggested achildlike putting of all responsibility for her actions upon others, which he remembered now too well. Perhaps it was this which kept himfrom observing that the corners of her smiling lips, however, twitchedslightly, and that her fingers, twisting the threads of the tassel, were occasionally stiffened nervously. For he burst out: Oh yes; he haddrifted into it when it was a toss up if it wasn't his body insteadthat would be found drifting out to sea from the first wharf of SanFrancisco. Yes, he had been a common laborer, --a farm hand, in thosefields she had passed, --a waiter in the farm kitchen, and but for luckhe might be taking her orders now in this very hotel. It was not herfault if he was not in the gutter. She raised her thin hand with a tired gesture as if to ward off theonset of his words. "The same old Jim, " she repeated; "and yet I thoughtyou had forgotten all that now, and become calmer and more sensiblesince you had taken flesh and grown so matter of fact. You ought to haveknown then, as you know now, that I never could have been anything toyou as long as I was tied to Dick. And you know you forced your presentson me, Jim. I took them from YOU because I would take nothing from Dick, for I hated him. And I never knew positively that you were in straitsthen; you know you always talked big, Jim, and were always going to makeyour fortune with the next thing you had in hand!" It was true, and he remembered it. He had not intended this kind ofrecrimination, but he was exasperated with her wearied acceptance of hisreproaches and by a sudden conviction that his long-cherished grievanceagainst her now that he had voiced it was inadequate, mean, andtrifling. Yet he could not help saying:-- "Then you had presents from Sylvester, too. I presume you did not hatehim, either?" "He would have married me the day after I got my divorce. " "And so would I, " burst out Reddy. She looked at him fixedly. "You would?" she said with a peculiaremphasis. "And now"-- He colored. It had been part of his revengeful purpose on seeing her totell her of his engagement to Kelly. He now found himself tongue-tied, irresolute, and ashamed. Yet he felt she was reading his innermostthoughts. She, however, only lowered her eyes, and with the same tired expressionsaid: "No matter now. Let us talk of something nearer. That was twomonths ago. And so you have charge of this hotel! I like it so much. Imean the place itself. I fancy I could live here forever. It is so faraway and restful. I am so sick of towns and cities, and people. And thislittle grove is so secluded. If one had merely a little cottage here, one might be so happy. " What did she mean?--what did she expect?--what did she think of doing?She must be got rid of before Kelly's arrival, and yet he found himselfwavering under her potent and yet scarcely exerted influence. Thedesperation of weakness is apt to be more brutal than the determinationof strength. He remembered why he had come upstairs, and blurted out:"But you can't stay here. The rules are very stringent in regard to--tostrangers like yourself. It will be known who you really are and whatpeople say of you. Even your divorce will tell against you. It's allwrong, I know--but what can I do? I didn't make the rules. I am only aservant of the landlord, and must carry them out. " She leaned back against the sofa and laughed silently. But she presentlyrecovered herself, although with the same expression of fatigue. "Don'tbe alarmed, my poor Jim! If you mean your friend, Mr. Woodridge, Iknow him. It was he, himself, who suggested my coming here. Anddon't misunderstand him--nor me either. He's only a good friend ofSylvester's; they had some speculation together. He's coming here to seeme after Louis arrives. He's waiting in San Francisco for his wife anddaughter, who come on the same steamer. So you see you won't get intotrouble on my account. Don't look so scared, my dear boy. " "Does he know that you knew me?" said Reddy, with a white face. "Perhaps. But then that was three months ago, " returned the lady, smiling, "and you know how you have reformed since, and grown ever somuch more steady and respectable. " "Did he talk to you of me?" continued Reddy, still aghast. "A little--complimentary of course. Don't look so frightened. I didn'tgive you away. " Her laugh suddenly ceased, and her face changed into a more nervousactivity as she rose and went toward the window. She had heard the soundof wheels outside--the coach had just arrived. "There's Mr. Woodridge now, " she said in a more animated voice. "Thesteamer must be in. But I don't see Louis; do you?" She turned to where Reddy was standing, but he was gone. The momentary animation of her face changed. She lifted her shoulderswith a half gesture of scorn, but in the midst of it suddenly threwherself on the sofa, and buried her face in her hands. A few moments elapsed with the bustle of arrival in the hall andpassages. Then there was a hesitating step at her door. She quicklypassed her handkerchief over her wet eyes and resumed her former lookof weary acceptation. The door opened. But it was Mr. Woodridge whoentered. The rough shirt-sleeved ranchman had developed, during the lastfour months, into an equally blunt but soberly dressed proprietor. Hiskeen energetic face, however, wore an expression of embarrassment andanxiety, with an added suggestion of a half humorous appreciation of it. "I wouldn't have disturbed you, Mrs. Merrydew, " he said, with a gentlebluntness, "if I hadn't wanted to ask your advice before I saw Reddy. I'm keeping out of his way until I could see you. I left Nelly and hermother in 'Frisco. There's been some queer goings-on on the steamercoming home; Kelly has sprang a new game on her mother, and--and suthin'that looks as if there might be a new deal. However, " here a sense thathe was, perhaps, treating his statement too seriously, stopped him, andhe smiled reassuringly, "that is as may be. " "I don't know, " he went on, "as I ever told you anything about my Kellyand Reddy, --partik'lerly about Kelly. She's a good girl, a square girl, but she's got some all-fired romantic ideas in her head. Mebbee it kemfrom her reading, mebbee it kem from her not knowing other girls, orseeing too much of a queer sort of men; but she got an interest in thebad ones, and thought it was her mission to reform them, --reform themby pure kindness, attentive little sisterly ways, and moral example. Shefirst tried her hand on Reddy. When he first kem to us he was--well, hewas a blazin' ruin! She took him in hand, yanked him outer himself, puthis foot on the bedrock, and made him what you see him now. Well--whathappened; why, he got reg'larly soft on her; wanted to MARRY HER, andI agreed conditionally, of course, to keep him up to the mark. Did youspeak?" "No, " said the lady, with her bright eyes fixed upon him. "Well, that was all well and good, and I'd liked to have carried out mypart of the contract, and was willing, and am still. But you see, Kelly, after she'd landed Reddy on firm ground, got a little tired, I reckon, gal-like, of the thing she'd worked so easily, and when she went Eastshe looked around for some other wreck to try her hand on, and she foundit on the steamer coming back. And who do you think it was? Why, ourfriend Louis Sylvester!" Mrs. Merrydew smiled slightly, with her bright eyes still on thespeaker. "Well, you know he IS fast at times--if he is a friend of mine--and shereg'larly tackled him; and as my old woman says, it was a sight to seeher go for him. But then HE didn't tumble to it. No! Reformin' ain't inHIS line I'm afeard. And what was the result? Why, Kelly only got allthe more keen when she found she couldn't manage him like Reddy, --and, between you and me, she'd have liked Reddy more if he hadn't been soeasy, --and it's ended, I reckon, in her now falling dead in love withSylvester. She swears she won't marry any one else, and wants to devoteher whole life to him! Now, what's to be done! Reddy don't know it yet, and I don't know how to tell him. Kelly says her mission was ended whenshe made a new man of him, and he oughter be thankful for that. Couldn'tyou kinder break the news to him and tell him there ain't any show forhim?" "Does he love the girl so much, then?" said the lady gently. "Yes; but I am afraid there is no hope for Reddy as long as she thinksthere's a chance of her capturing Sylvester. " The lady rose and went to the writing-table. "Would it be any comfortto you, Mr. Woodridge, if you were told that she had not the slightestchance with Sylvester?" "Yes. " She wrote a few lines on a card, put it in an envelope, and handed it toWoodridge. "Find out where Sylvester is in San Francisco, and give himthat card. I think it will satisfy you. And now as I have to catch thereturn coach in ten minutes, I must ask you to excuse me while I put mythings together. " "And you won't first break the news to Reddy for me?" "No; and I advise you to keep the whole matter to yourself for thepresent. Good-by!" She smiled again, fascinatingly as usual, but, as it seemed to him, atrifle wearily, and then passed into the inner room. Years after, in hispractical, matter of fact recollections of this strange woman, he alwaysremembered her by this smile. But she had sufficiently impressed him by her parting adjuration tocause him to answer Reddy's eager inquiries with the statement thatKelly and her mother were greatly preoccupied with some friends inSan Francisco, and to speedily escape further questioning. Reddy'sdisappointment was somewhat mitigated by the simultaneous announcementof Mrs. Merrydew's departure. But he was still more relieved andgratified to hear, a few days later, of the marriage of Mrs. Merrydewwith Louis Sylvester. If, to the general surprise and comment itexcited, he contributed only a smile of cynical toleration and superiorself-complacency, the reader will understand and not blame him. Nor didthe public, who knew the austere completeness of his reform. Nor did Mr. Woodridge, who failed to understand the only actor in this little comedywho might perhaps have differed from them all. A month later James Reddy married Kelly Woodridge, in the chilly littlechurch at Oakdale. Perhaps by that time it might have occurred to himthat although the freshness and fruition of summer were everywhere, thebuilding seemed to be still unwarmed. And when he stepped forth with hisbride, and glanced across the prosperous landscape toward the distantbay and headlands of San Francisco, he shivered slightly at the drylypractical kiss of the keen northwestern Trades. But he was prosperous and comfortable thereafter, as the respectableowner of broad lands and paying shares. It was said that Mrs. Reddycontributed much to the popularity of the hotel by her charming freedomfrom prejudice and sympathy with mankind; but this was perhaps only dueto the contrast to her more serious and at times abstracted husband. Atleast this was the charitable opinion of the proverbially tolerant andkind-hearted Baroness Streichholzer (nee Merrydew, and relict of thelate lamented Louis Sylvester, Esq. ), whom I recently had the pleasureof meeting at Wiesbaden, where the waters and reposeful surroundingsstrongly reminded her of Oakdale. THE HEIR OF THE McHULISHES. I. The consul for the United States of America at the port of St. Kentigernwas sitting alone in the settled gloom of his private office. Yet it wasonly high noon, of a "seasonable" winter's day, by the face of the clockthat hung like a pallid moon on the murky wall opposite to him. Whatelse could be seen of the apartment by the faint light that struggledthrough the pall of fog outside the lustreless windows presented theordinary aspect of a business sanctum. There were a shelf of fog-boundadmiralty law, one or two colored prints of ocean steamships underfull steam, bow on, tremendously foreshortened, and seeming to forcethemselves through shadowy partitions; there were engravings of Lincolnand Washington, as unsubstantial and shadowy as the dead themselves. Outside, against the window, which was almost level with the street, an occasional procession of black silhouetted figures of men and women, with prayer-books in their hands and gloom on their faces, seemed to beborn of the fog, and prematurely to return to it. At which a convictionof sin overcame the consul. He remembered that it was the Sabbath day, and that he had no business to be at the consulate at all. Unfortunately, with this shameful conviction came the sound of a bellringing somewhere in the depths of the building, and the shuffling offeet on the outer steps. The light of his fire had evidently been seen, and like a beacon had attracted some wandering and possibly intoxicatedmariner with American papers. The consul walked into the hall with asudden righteous frigidity of manner. It was one thing to be loungingin one's own office on the Sabbath day, and quite another to bedeliberately calling there on business. He opened the front door, and a middle-aged man entered, accompanyingand partly shoving forward a more diffident and younger one. Neitherappeared to be a sailor, although both were dressed in that dingyrespectability and remoteness of fashion affected by second and thirdmates when ashore. They were already well in the hall, and making theirway toward the private office, when the elder man said, with an airof casual explanation, "Lookin' for the American consul; I reckon thisyer's the consulate?" "It is the consulate, " said the official dryly, "and I am the consul;but"-- "That's all right, " interrupted the stranger, pushing past him, andopening the door of the private office, into which he shoved hiscompanion. "Thar now!" he continued to the diffident youth, pointing toa chair, and quite ignoring the presence of the consul; "thar's a bitof America. Sit down thar. You're under the flag now, and can do asyou darn please. " Nevertheless, he looked a little disappointed as heglanced around him, as if he had expected a different environment andpossibly a different climate. "I presume, " said the consul suavely, "you wish to see me on some urgentmatter; for you probably know that the consulate is closed on Sunday toordinary business. I am here myself quite accidentally. " "Then you don't live here?" said the visitor disappointedly. "No. " "I reckon that's the reason why we didn't see no flag a-flyin' when wewas a-huntin' this place yesterday. We were directed here, but I says toMalcolm, says I, 'No; it ain't here, or you'd see the Stars and Stripesafore you'd see anythin' else. ' But I reckon you float it over yourhouse, eh?" The consul here explained smilingly that he did NOT fly a flag over hislodgings, and that except on national holidays it was not customary todisplay the national ensign on the consulate. "Then you can't do here--and you a CONSUL--what any nigger can do in theStates, eh? That's about how it pans out, don't it? But I didn't thinkYOU'D tumble to it quite so quick, Jack. " At this mention of his Christian name, the consul turned sharply on thespeaker. A closer scrutiny of the face before him ended with a flashof reminiscence. The fog without and within seemed to melt away; he wasstanding once more on a Western hillside with this man; a hundred milesof sparkling sunshine and crisp, dry air stretching around him, andabove a blue and arched sky that roofed the third of a continent withsix months' summer. And then the fog seemed to come back heavier andthicker to his consciousness. He emotionally stretched out his hand tothe stranger. But it was the fog and his personal surroundings which nowseemed to be unreal. "Why it's Harry Custer!" he said with a laugh that, however, ended ina sigh. "I didn't recognize you in this half light. " He then glancedcuriously toward the diffident young man, as if to identify anotherpossible old acquaintance. "Well, I spotted you from the first, " said Custer, "though I ain't seenyou since we were in Scott's Camp together. That's ten years ago. You'relookin' at HIM, " he continued, following the consul's wandering eye. "Well, it's about him that I came to see you. This yer's a McHulish--agenuine McHulish!" He paused, as if to give effect to this statement. But the nameapparently offered no thrilling suggestion to the consul, who regardedthe young man closely for further explanation. He was a fair-faced youthof about twenty years, with pale reddish-brown eyes, dark hair reddishat the roots, and a singular white and pink waxiness of oval cheek, which, however, narrowed suddenly at the angle of the jaw, and fell awaywith the retreating chin. "Yes, " continued Custer; "I oughter say the ONLY McHulish. He is thedirect heir--and of royal descent! He's one of them McHulishes whosename in them old history times was enough to whoop up the boys and make'em paint the town red. A regular campaign boomer--the old McHulish was. Stump speeches and brass-bands warn't in it with the boys when HE wasaround. They'd go their bottom dollar and last cartridge--if they'd hadcartridges in them days--on him. That was the regular McHulish gait. AndMalcolm there's the last of 'em--got the same style of features, too. " Ludicrous as the situation was, it struck the consul dimly, asthrough fog and darkness, that the features of the young man were notunfamiliar, and indeed had looked out upon him dimly and vaguely atvarious times, from various historic canvases. It was the face ofcomplacent fatuity, incompetency, and inconstancy, which had draggeddown strength, competency, and constancy to its own idiotic fate andlevels, --a face for whose weaknesses valor and beauty had not onlysacrificed themselves, but made things equally unpleasant to a greatmany minor virtues. Nevertheless, the consul, with an amused sense ofits ridiculous incongruity to the grim Scottish Sabbath procession inthe street, and the fog-bound volumes of admiralty law in the room, smiled affably. "Of course our young friend has no desire to test the magic of his namehere, in these degenerate days. " "No, " said Custer complacently; "though between you and me, old man, there's always no tellin' what might turn up over in this yer monarchy. Things of course are different over our way. But jest now Malcolm willbe satisfied to take the title and property to which he's rightfulheir. " The consul's face fell. Alas! it was only the old, old story. Itsendless repetitions and variations had been familiar to him even in hisyouth and in his own land. "Ef that man had his rights, " had once beenpointed out to him in a wild Western camp, "he'd be now sittin' inscarlet on the right of the Queen of England!" The gentleman who wasindicated in this apocalyptical vision, it appeared, simply bore asingular likeness to a reigning Hanoverian family, which for someunexplained reason he had contented himself with bearing with fortitudeand patience. But it was in his official capacity that the consul'sexperience had been the most trying. At times it had seemed to him thatmuch of the real property and peerage of Great Britain was the inheritedright of penniless American republicans who had hitherto refrainedfrom presenting their legal claims, and that the habitual first duty ofgenerations of British noblemen on coming into their estates and titleswas to ship their heirs and next of kin to America, and then forget allabout them. He had listened patiently to claims to positions moreor less exalted, --claims often presented with ingenuous sophistry orpathetic simplicity, prosecuted with great good humor, and abandonedwith invincible cheerfulness; but they seldom culminated more seriouslythan in the disbursement of a few dollars by the consul to enable therightful owner of millions to procure a steerage passage back to hisprevious democratic retirement. There had been others, less sincere butmore pretentious in quality, to whom, however, a letter to the Heralds'College in London was all sufficient, and who, on payment of variousfees and emoluments, were enabled to stagger back to New York or Bostonwith certain unclaimed and forgotten luggage which a more gallantancestor had scorned to bring with him into the new life, or had thrownaside in his undue haste to make them citizens of the republic. Still, all this had grown monotonous and wearisome, and was disappointingas coming through the intervention of an old friend who ought to knowbetter. "Of course you have already had legal opinion on the subject overthere, " said the consul, with a sigh, "but here, you know, you oughtfirst to get some professional advice from those acquainted with Scotchprocedure. But perhaps you have that too. " "No, " said Custer cheerfully. "Why, it ain't only two months ago thatI first saw Malcolm. Tumbled over him on his own farm jest out ofMacCorkleville, Kentucky, where he and his fathers before him had beenlivin' nigh a hundred years--yes, A HUNDRED YEARS, by Jove! ever sincethey first emigrated to the country. Had a talk over it; saw an oldBible about as big and as used up as that, "--lifting the well-wornconsular Bible, --"with dates in it, and heard the whole story. And herewe are. " "And you have consulted no lawyer?" gasped the consul. "The McHulishes, " said an unexpected voice that sounded thin andfeminine, "never took any legal decision. From the craggy summits ofGlen Crankie he lifted the banner of his forefathers, or raised thewar-cry, 'Hulish dhu, ieroe!' from the battlements of Craigiedurrach. And the clan gathered round him with shouts that rent the air. That wasthe way of it in old times. And the boys whooped him up and stood byhim. " It was the diffident young man who had half spoken, half recited, with an odd enthusiasm that even the culminating slang could not makeconventional. "That's about the size of it, " said Custer, leaning back in his chaireasily with an approving glance at the young man. "And I don't know ifthat ain't the way to work the thing now. " The consul stared hopelessly from the one to the other. It had alwaysseemed possible that this dreadful mania might develop into actualinsanity, and he had little doubt but that the younger man's brainwas slightly affected. But this did not account for the delusion andexpectations of the elder. Harry Custer, as the consul remembered him, was a level-headed, practical miner, whose leaning to adventure andexcitement had not prevented him from being a cool speculator, and hehad amassed more than a competency by reason of his judicious foresightand prompt action. Yet he was evidently under the glamour of thismadman, although outwardly as lazily self-contained as ever. "Do you mean to tell me, " said the consul in a suppressed voice, "thatyou two have come here equipped only with a statement of facts anda family Bible, and that you expect to take advantage of a feudalenthusiasm which no longer exists--and perhaps never did exist out ofthe pages of romance--as a means of claiming estates whose titles havelong since been settled by law, and can be claimed only under thattenure? Surely I have misunderstood you. You cannot be in earnest. " "Honest Injun, " said Custer, nodding his head lazily. "We mean it, butnot jest that way you've put it. F'r instance, it ain't only us two. This yer thing, ole pard, we're runnin' as a syndicate. " "A syndicate?" echoed the consul. "A syndicate, " repeated Custer. "Half the boys that were at Eagle Campare in it, and two of Malcolm's neighbors from Kentucky--the regularold Scotch breed like himself; for you know that MacCorkle Countywas settled by them old Scotch Covenanters, and the folks are ScotchPresbyterians to this day. And for the matter of that, the Eagle boysthat are in it are of Scotch descent, or a kind of blend, you know; infact, I'm half Scotch myself--or Irish, " he added thoughtfully. "Soyou see that settles your argument about any local opinion, for if themScots don't know their own people, who does?" "May I ask, " said the consul, with a desperate attempt to preserve hiscomposure, "what you are proposing to do?" "Well, " said Custer, settling himself comfortably back in his chairagain, "that depends. Do you remember the time that we jumped themMexican claims on the North Fork--the time them greasers wanted to takein the whole river-bank because they'd found gold on one of the upperbars? Seems to me we jest went peaceful-like over there one moonshinynight, and took up THEIR stakes and set down OURS. Seems to me YOU wereone of the party. " "That was in our own country, " returned the consul hastily, "and was anindefensible act, even in a lawless frontier civilization. But you aresurely not mad enough even to conceive of such a thing HERE!" "Keep your hair on, Jack, " said Custer lazily. "What's the matter withconstitutional methods, eh? Do you remember the time when we didn't likePueblo rules, and we laid out Eureka City on their lines, and whooped upthe Mexicans and diggers to elect mayor and aldermen, and put the cityfront on Juanita Creek, and then corraled it for water lots? Seems tome you were county clerk then. Now who's to keep Dick Macgregor and JoeHamilton, that are both up the Nile now, from droppin' in over here tosee Malcolm in his own house? Who's goin' to object to Wallace or Baird, who are on this side, doin' the Eytalian lakes, from comin' here ontheir way home; or Watson and Moore and Timley, that are livin' over inParis, from joinin' the boys in givin' Malcolm a housewarmin' in his oldhome? What's to keep the whole syndicate from gatherin' at Kelpie Islandup here off the west coast, among the tombs of Malcolm's ancestors, andfixin' up things generally with the clan?" "Only one thing, " said the consul, with a gravity which he neverthelessfelt might be a mistaken attitude. "You shouldn't have told ME aboutit. For if, as your old friend, I cannot keep you from committing anunconceivable folly, as the American consul here it will be my firstduty to give notice to our legation, and perhaps warn the authorities. And you may be sure I will do it. " To his surprise Custer leaned forward and pressed his hand with anexpression of cheerful relief. "That's so, old pard; I reckoned on it. In fact, I told Malcolm that that would be about your gait. Of courseyou couldn't do otherwise. And it would have been playin' it rather lowdown on you to have left you out in the cold--without even THAT show inthe game. For what you will do in warnin' the other fellows, don't yousee, will just waken up the clan. It's better than a campaign circular. " "Don't be too sure of that, " said the consul, with a half-hystericallaugh. "But we won't consider so lamentable a contingency. Come anddine with me, both of you, and we'll discuss the only thing worthdiscussing, --your LEGAL rights, --and you can tell me your whole story, which, by the way, I haven't heard. " "Sorry, Jack, but it can't be done, " said Custer, with his firstapproach to seriousness of manner. "You see, we'd made up our mind notto come here again after this first call. We ain't goin' to compromiseyou. " "I am the best judge of that, " returned the consul dryly. Then suddenlychanging his manner, he grasped Custer's hands with both his own. "Come, Harry, " he said earnestly; "I will not believe that this is not a joke, but I beg of you to promise me one thing, --do not move a step further inthis matter without legal counsel. I will give you a letter to a legalfriend of mine--a man of affairs, a man of the world, and a Scot astypical, perhaps, as any you have mentioned. State your LEGAL caseto him--only that; but his opinion will show you also, if I am notmistaken, the folly of your depending upon any sectional or historicalsentiment in this matter. " Without waiting for a reply, he sat down and hastily wrote a few linesto a friendly local magnate. When he had handed the note to Custer, thelatter looked at the address, and showed it to his young companion. "Same name, isn't it?" he asked. "Yes, " responded Mr. McHulish. "Do you know him?" asked the consul, evidently surprised. "We don't, but he's a friend of one of the Eagle boys. I reckon we wouldhave seen him anyhow; but we'll agree with you to hold on until we do. It's a go. Goodby, old pard! So long. " They both shook the consul's hand, and departed, leaving him staring atthe fog into which they had melted as if they were unreal shadows of thepast. II. The next morning the fog had given way to a palpable, horizontallydriving rain, which wet the inside as well as the outside of umbrellas, and caused them to be presented at every conceivable angle as theydrifted past the windows of the consulate. There was a tap at the door, and a clerk entered. "Ye will be in to Sir James MacFen?" The consul nodded, and added, "Show him in here. " It was the magnate to whom he had sent the note the previous day, a manof large yet slow and cautious nature, learned and even pedantic, yetfar-sighted and practical; very human and hearty in social intercourse, which, however, left him as it found him, --with no sentimental orunbusiness-like entanglements. The consul had known him sensible andsturdy at board meetings and executive councils; logical and convincingat political gatherings; decorous and grave in the kirk; and humorousand jovial at festivities, where perhaps later in the evening, incompany with others, hands were clasped over a libation lyricallydefined as a "right guid williewaught. " On one of these occasions theyhad walked home together, not without some ostentation of steadiness;yet when MacFen's eminently respectable front door had closed uponhim, the consul was perfectly satisfied that a distinctly proper andunswerving man of business would issue from it the next morning. "Ay, but it's a soft day, " said Sir James, removing his gloves. "Ye'llnot be gadding about in this weather. " "You got my note of introduction, I suppose?" said the consul, when themomentous topic of the weather was exhausted. "Oh, ay. " "And you saw the gentlemen?" "Ay. " "And what's your opinion of--his claims?" "He's a fine lad--that Malcolm--a fine type of a lad, " said SirJames, with an almost too effusive confidence. "Ye'll be thinking soyourself--no doubt? Ay, it's wonderful to consider the preservation oftype so long after its dispersal in other lands. And it's a strangeand wonderful country that of yours, with its plantations--as one mightsay--of homogeneity unimpaired for so many years, and keeping the oldfaith too--and all its strange survivals. Ay, and that Kentucky, where his land is--it will be a rich State! It's very instructing andinteresting to hear his account of that remarkable region they call 'theblue grass country, ' and the stock they raise there. I'm obliged to ye, my friend, for a most edifying and improving evening. " "But his claim--did he not speak of that?" "Oh, ay. And that Mr. Custer--he's a grand man, and an amusing one. Ye'll be great comrades, you and he! Man! it was delightful to hear himtell of the rare doings and the bit fun ye two had in the old times. Eh, sir, but who'd think that of the proper American consul at St. Kentigern!" And Sir James leaned back in his chair, and bestowed anadmiring smile on that official. The consul thought he began to understand this evasion. "Then you don'tthink much of Mr. McHulish's claim?" he said. "I'm not saying that. " "But do you really think a claim based upon a family Bible and a familylikeness a subject for serious consideration?" "I'm not saying THAT either, laddie. " "Perhaps he has confided to you more fully than he has to me, orpossibly you yourself knew something in corroboration of his facts. " His companion had evidently no desire to be communicative. But theconsul had heard enough to feel that he was justified in leaving thematter in his hands. He had given him fair warning. Yet, nevertheless, he would be even more explicit. "I do not know, " he began, "whether this young McHulish confided to youhis great reliance upon some peculiar effect of his presence among thetenants, and of establishing his claim to the property by exciting theenthusiasm of the clan. It certainly struck me that he had some ratherexaggerated ideas, borrowed, perhaps, from romances he'd read, like DonQuixote his books of chivalry. He seems to believe in the existence of aclan loyalty, and the actual survival of old feudal instincts and of oldfeudal methods in the Highlands. He appears to look upon himself as akind of local Prince Charlie, and, by Jove! I've an idea he's almost ascrazy. " "And why should he na believe in his own kith and kin?" said Sir James, quickly, with a sudden ring in his voice, and a dialectical freedomquite distinct from his former deliberate and cautious utterance. "TheMcHulishes were chieftains before America was discovered, and many's thetime they overran the border before they went as far as that. If there'sanything in blood and loyalty, it would be strange if they did narespond. And I can tell ye, ma frien', there's more in the Hielands thanany 'romancer, ' as ye call them, --ay, even Scott hissel', and he was butan Edinboro' man, --ever dreamed of. Don't fash yoursel' about that. Andyou and me'll not agree about Prince Charlie. Some day I'll tell ye, ma frien', mair aboot that bonnie laddie than ye'll gather from yourpartisan historians. Until then ye'll be wise when ye'll be talking toScotchmen not to be expressing your Southern prejudices. " Intensely surprised and amused at this sudden outbreak of enthusiasm onthe part of the usually cautious lawyer, the consul could not refrainfrom accenting it by a marked return to practical business. "I shall be delighted to learn more about Prince Charlie, " he said, smiling, "but just now his prototype--if you'll allow me to call himso--is a nearer topic, and for the present, at least until he assume hisnew titles and dignities, has a right to claim my protection, and Iam responsible for him as an American citizen. Now, my dear friend, isthere really any property, land, or title of any importance involved inhis claim, and what and where, in Heaven's name, is it? For I assure youI know nothing practical about it, and cannot make head or tail of it. " Sir James resumed his slow serenity, and gathered up his gloves. "Ay, there's a great deer-forest in Ballochbrinkie, and there's part ofLoch Phillibeg in Cairngormshire, and there's Kelpie Island offMoreovershire. Ay, there's enough land when the crofters are clearedoff, and the small sheep-tenants evicted. It will be a grand propertythen. " The consul stared. "The crofters and tenants evicted!" he repeated. "Arethey not part of the clan, and loyal to the McHulish?" "The McHulish, " said Sir James with great deliberation, "hasn't set footthere for years. They'd be burning him in effigy. " "But, " said the astonished consul, "that's rather bad for the expectantheir--and the magic of the McHulish presence. " "I'm not saying that, " returned Sir James cautiously. "Ye see he can bemaking better arrangements with the family on account of it. " "With the family?" repeated the consul. "Then does he talk ofcompromising?" "I mean they would be more likely to sell for a fair consideration, andhe'd be better paying money to them than the lawyers. The syndicatewill be rich, eh? And I'm not saying the McHulish wouldn't take Kentuckylands in exchange. It's a fine country, that blue grass district. " The consul stared at Sir James so long that a faint smile came into thelatter's shrewd eyes; at which the consul smiled, too. A vague air ofrelief and understanding seemed to fill the apartment. "Oh, ay, " continued Sir James, drawing on his gloves with easydeliberation, "he's a fine lad that Malcolm, and it's a praiseworthyinstinct in him to wish to return to the land of his forebears, and takehis place again among them. And I'm noticing, Mr. Consul, that a greatmany of your countrymen are doing the same. Eh, yours is a gran' countryof progress and ceevel and religious liberty, but for a' that, as Burnssays, it's in your blood to turn to the auld home again. And it's a finething to have the money to do it--and, I'm thinking, money well spentall around. Good-morning. Eh, but I'm forgetting that I wanted to askyou to dine with me and Malcolm, and your Mr. Custer, and Mr. Watson, who will be one of your syndicate, and whom I once met abroad. But ye'llget a bit note of invitation, with the day, from me later. " The consul remembered that Custer had said that one of the "Eagle boys"had known Sir James. This was evidently Watson. He smiled again, butthis time Sir James responded only in a general sort of way, as hegenially bowed himself out of the room. The consul watched his solid and eminently respectable figure as itpassed the window, and then returned to his desk, still smiling. Firstof all he was relieved. What had seemed to him a wild and recklessenterprise, with possibly some grim international complications on thepart of his compatriots, had simply resolved itself into an ordinarybusiness speculation--the ethics of which they had pretty equallydivided with the local operators. If anything, it seemed that theScotchman would get the best of the bargain, and that, for once atleast, his countrymen were deficient in foresight. But that was a matterbetween the parties, and Custer himself would probably be the first toresent any suggestion of the kind from the consul. The vision of theMcHulish burned in effigy by his devoted tenants and retainers, and thethought that the prosaic dollars of his countrymen would be substitutedfor the potent presence of the heir, tickled, it is to be feared, thesaturnine humor of the consul. He had taken an invincible dislike tothe callow representative of the McHulish, who he felt had in someextraordinary way imposed upon Custer's credulity. But then he hadapparently imposed equally upon the practical Sir James. The thought ofthis sham ideal of feudal and privileged incompetency being elevatedto actual position by the combined efforts of American republicans andhard-headed Scotch dissenters, on whom the soft Scotch mists fell fromabove with equal impartiality, struck him as being very amusing, andfor some time thereafter lightened the respectable gloom of his office. Other engagements prevented his attendance at Sir James's dinner, although he was informed afterward that it had passed off with greateclat, the later singing of "Auld lang Syne, " and the drinking of thehealth of Custer and Malcolm with "Hieland honors. " He learned also thatSir James had invited Custer and Malcolm to his lacustrine country-seatin the early spring. But he learned nothing more of the progress ofMalcolm's claim, its details, or the manner in which it was prosecuted. No one else seemed to know anything about it; it found no echo in thegossip of the clubs, or in the newspapers of St. Kentigern. In theabsence of the parties connected with it, it began to assume to him theaspect of a half-humorous romance. He often found himself wondering ifthere had been any other purpose in this quest or speculation than whathad appeared on the surface, it seemed so inadequate in result. It wouldhave been so perfectly easy for a wealthy syndicate to buy up a muchmore valuable estate. He disbelieved utterly in the sincerity ofMalcolm's sentimental attitude. There must be some other reason--perhapsnot known even to the syndicate. One day he thought that he had found it. He had received a noteaddressed from one of the principal hotels, but bearing a largepersonal crest on paper and envelope. A Miss Kirkby, passing through St. Kentigern on her way to Edinburgh, desired to see the consul the nextday, if he would appoint an hour at the consulate; or, as her time waslimited, she would take it as a great favor if he would call at herhotel. Although a countrywoman, her name might not be so well known tohim as those of her "old friends" Harry Custer, Esq. , and SirMalcolm McHulish. The consul was a little surprised; the use of thetitle--unless it referred to some other McHulish--would seem to indicatethat Malcolm's claim was successful. He had, however, no previousknowledge of the title of "Sir" in connection with the estate, andit was probable that his fair correspondent--like most of hercountrywomen--was more appreciative than correct in her bestowal ofdignities. He determined to waive his ordinary business rules, andto call upon her at once, accepting, as became his patriotism, thatcharming tyranny which the American woman usually reserves exclusivelyfor her devoted countrymen. She received him with an affectation of patronage, as if she hadlately become uneasily conscious of being in a country where there weredistinctions of class. She was young, pretty, and tastefully dressed;the national feminine adaptability had not, however, extended to hervoice and accent. Both were strongly Southwestern, and as she began tospeak she seemed to lose her momentary affectation. "It was mighty good of you to come and see me, for the fact is, I didn'tadmire going to your consulate--not one bit. You see, I'm a Southerngirl, and never was 'reconstructed' either. I don't hanker after yourGov'ment. I haven't recognized it, and don't want to. I reckon I ain'tbeen under the flag since the wah. So you see, I haven't any papers toget authenticated, nor any certificates to ask for, and ain't wantingany advice or protection. I thought I'd be fair and square with you fromthe word 'go. '" Nothing could be more fascinating and infectious than the mirthfulingenuousness which accompanied and seemed to mitigate this ungraciousspeech, and the consul was greatly amused, albeit conscious that it wasonly an attitude, and perhaps somewhat worn in sentiment. He knew thatduring the war of the rebellion, and directly after it, Great Britainwas the resort of certain Americans from the West as well as fromthe South who sought social distinction by the affectation ofdissatisfaction with their own government or the ostentatious simulationof enforced exile; but he was quite unprepared for this senselessprotraction of dead and gone issues. He ventured to point out withgood-humored practicality that several years had elapsed since the war, that the South and North were honorably reconciled, and that he waslegally supposed to represent Kentucky as well as New York. "Yourfriends, " he added smilingly, "Mr. Custer and Mr. McHulish, seemed toaccept the fact without any posthumous sentiment. " "I don't go much on that, " she said with a laugh. "I've been livingin Paris till maw--who's lying down upstairs--came over and brought meacross to England for a look around. And I reckon Malcolm's got to keeptouch with you on account of his property. " The consul smiled. "Ah, then, I hope you can tell me something aboutTHAT, for I really don't know whether he has established his claim ornot. " "Why, " returned the girl with naive astonishment, "that was just what Iwas going to ask YOU. He reckoned you'd know all about it. " "I haven't heard anything of the claim for two months, " said theconsul; "but from your reference to him as 'Sir Malcolm, ' I presumed youconsidered it settled. Though, of course, even then he wouldn't be 'SirMalcolm, ' and you might have meant somebody else. " "Well, then, Lord Malcolm--I can't get the hang of those titles yet. " "Neither 'Lord' nor 'Sir'; you know the estate carries no title whateverwith it, " said the consul smilingly. "But wouldn't he be the laird of something or other, you know?" "Yes; but that is only a Scotch description, not a title. It's not thesame as Lord. " The young girl looked at him with undisguised astonishment. A half laughtwitched the corners of her mouth. "Are you sure?" she said. "Perfectly, " returned the consul, a little impatiently; "but do Iunderstand that you really know nothing more of the progress of theclaim?" Miss Kirkby, still abstracted by some humorous astonishment, saidquickly: "Wait a minute. I'll just run up and see if maw's coming down. She'd admire to see you. " Then she stopped, hesitated, and as she roseadded, "Then a laird's wife wouldn't be Lady anything, anyway, wouldshe?" "She certainly would acquire no title merely through her marriage. " The young girl laughed again, nodded, and disappeared. The consul, amused yet somewhat perplexed over the naive brusqueness of theinterview, waited patiently. Presently she returned, a little out ofbreath, but apparently still enjoying some facetious retrospect, andsaid, "Maw will be down soon. " After a pause, fixing her bright eyesmischievously on the consul, she continued:-- "Did you see much of Malcolm?" "I saw him only once. " "What did you think of him?" The consul in so brief a period had been unable to judge. "You wouldn't think I was half engaged to him, would you?" The consul was obliged again to protest that in so short an interview hehad been unable to conceive of Malcolm's good fortune. "I know what you mean, " said the girl lightly. "You think he's a crank. But it's all over now; the engagement's off. " "I trust that this does not mean that you doubt his success?" The lady shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. "That's all right enough, I reckon. There's a hundred thousand dollars in the syndicate. Maw putin twenty thousand, and Custer's bound to make it go--particularly asthere's some talk of a compromise. But Malcolm's a crank, and I reckonif it wasn't for the compromise the syndicate wouldn't have much show. Why, he didn't even know that the McHulishes had no title. " "Do you think he has been suffering under a delusion in regard to hisrelationship?" "No; he was only a fool in the way he wanted to prove it. He actuallygot these boys to think it could be filibustered into his possession. Had a sort of idea of 'a rising in the Highlands, ' you know, like thatpoem or picture--which is it? And those fool boys, and Custer amongthem, thought it would be great fun and a great spree. Luckily, maw hadthe gumption to get Watson to write over about it to one of his friends, a Mr. --Mr. --MacFen, a very prominent man. " "Perhaps you mean Sir James MacFen, " suggested the consul. "He's aknight. And what did HE say?" he added eagerly. "Oh, he wrote a most sensible letter, " returned the lady, apparentlymollified by the title of Watson's adviser, "saying that there waslittle doubt, if any, that if the American McHulishes wanted the oldestate they could get it by the expenditure of a little capital. Heoffered to make the trial; that was the compromise they're talkingabout. But he didn't say anything about there being no 'Lord' McHulish. " "Perhaps he thought, as you were Americans, you didn't care for THAT, "said the consul dryly. "That's no reason why we shouldn't have it if it belonged to us, or wechose to pay for it, " said the lady pertly. "Then your changed personal relations with Mr. McHulish is the reasonwhy you hear so little of his progress or his expectations?" "Yes; but he don't know that they are changed, for we haven't seen himsince we've been here, although they say he's here, and hiding somewhereabout. " "Why should he be hiding?" The young girl lifted her pretty brows. "Maybe he thinks it'smysterious. Didn't I tell you he was a crank?" Yet she laughed sonaively, and with such sublime unconsciousness of any reflection onherself, that the consul was obliged to smile too. "You certainly do not seem to be breaking your heart as well as yourengagement, " he said. "Not much--but here comes maw. Look here, " she said, turning suddenlyand coaxingly upon him, "if she asks you to come along with us up north, you'll come, won't you? Do! It will be such fun!" "Up north?" repeated the consul interrogatively. "Yes; to see the property. Here's maw. " A more languid but equally well-appointed woman had entered the room. When the ceremony of introduction was over, she turned to her daughterand said, "Run away, dear, while I talk business with--er--thisgentleman, " and, as the girl withdrew laughingly, she half stifled areminiscent yawn, and raised her heavy lids to the consul. "You've had a talk with my Elsie?" The consul confessed to having had that pleasure. "She speaks her mind, " said Mrs. Kirkby wearily, "but she means well, and for all her flightiness her head's level. And since her father diedshe runs me, " she continued with a slight laugh. After a pause, sheadded abstractedly, "I suppose she told you of her engagement to youngMcHulish?" "Yes; but she said she had broken it. " Mrs. Kirkby lifted her eyebrows with an expression of relief. "It was apiece of girl and boy foolishness, anyway, " she said. "Elsie and he werechildren together at MacCorkleville, --second cousins, in fact, --and Ireckon he got her fancy excited over his nobility, and his being thechief of the McHulishes. Of course Custer will manage to get somethingfor the shareholders out of it, --I never knew him to fail in a moneyspeculation yet, --but I think that's about all. I had an idea of goingup with Elsie to take a look at the property, and I thought of askingyou to join us. Did Elsie tell you? I know she'd like it--and so wouldI. " For all her indolent, purposeless manner, there was enough latentsincerity and earnestness in her request to interest the consul. Besides, his own curiosity in regard to this singularly supported claimwas excited, and here seemed to be an opportunity of satisfying it. Hewas not quite sure, either, that his previous antagonism to his faircountrywoman's apparent selfishness and snobbery was entirely just. Hehad been absent from America a long time; perhaps it was he himselfwho had changed, and lost touch with his compatriots. And yet thedemonstrative independence and recklessness of men like Custer were lessobjectionable to, and less inconsistent with, his American ideas thanthe snobbishness and almost servile adaptability of the women. Or wasit possible that it was only a weakness of the sex, which no republicannativity or education could eliminate? Nevertheless he looked upsmilingly. "But the property is, I understand, scattered about in various places, "he said. "Oh, but we mean to go only to Kelpie Island, where there is the ruin ofan old castle. Elsie must see that. " The consul thought it might be amusing. "By all means let us see that. Ishall be delighted to go with you. " His ready and unqualified assent appeared to relieve and dissipate thelady's abstraction. She became more natural and confiding; spoke freelyof Malcolm's mania, which she seemed to accept as a hallucination or aconviction with equal cheerfulness, and, in brief, convinced theconsul that her connection with the scheme was only the caprice ofinexperienced and unaccustomed idleness. He left her, promising toreturn the next day and arrange for their early departure. His way home lay through one of the public squares of St. Kentigern, atan hour of the afternoon when it was crossed by working men and womenreturning to their quarters from the docks and factories. Never in anylight a picturesque or even cheery procession, there were days whenits unwholesome, monotonous poverty and dull hopelessness of prospectimpressed him more forcibly. He remembered how at first the spectacleof barefooted girls and women slipping through fog and mist across thegreasy pavement had offended his fresh New World conception of a moretenderly nurtured sex, until his susceptibilities seemed to have grownas callous and hardened as the flesh he looked upon, and he had begun toregard them from the easy local standpoint of a distinct and differentlyequipped class. It chanced, also, that this afternoon some of the male workers had addedto their usual solidity a singular trance-like intoxication. It hadoften struck him before as a form of drunkenness peculiar to the St. Kentigern laborers. Men passed him singly and silently, as if followingsome vague alcoholic dream, or moving through some Scotch mist ofwhiskey and water. Others clung unsteadily but as silently together, with no trace of convivial fellowship or hilarity in their dull fixedfeatures and mechanically moving limbs. There was something weird inthis mirthless companionship, and the appalling loneliness of thosefixed or abstracted eyes. Suddenly he was aware of two men who werereeling toward him under the influence of this drug-like intoxication, and he was startled by a likeness which one of them bore to some onehe had seen; but where, and under what circumstances, he could notdetermine. The fatuous eye, the features of complacent vanity andself-satisfied reverie were there, either intensified by drink, orperhaps suggesting it through some other equally hopeless form ofhallucination. He turned and followed the man, trying to identifyhim through his companion, who appeared to be a petty tradesman of ashrewder, more material type. But in vain, and as the pair turned intoa side street the consul slowly retraced his steps. But he had notproceeded far before the recollection that had escaped him returned, andhe knew that the likeness suggested by the face he had seen was that ofMalcolm McHulish. III. A journey to Kelpie Island consisted of a series of consecutive episodesby rail, by coach, and by steamboat. The consul was already familiarwith them, as indeed were most of the civilized world, for it seemedthat all roads at certain seasons led out of and returned to St. Kentigern as a point in a vast circle wherein travelers were sureto meet one another again, coming or going, at certain depots andcaravansaries with more or less superiority or envy. Tourists on theroad to the historic crags of Wateffa came sharply upon other touristsreturning from them, and glared suspiciously at them, as if to wrest thedread secret from their souls--a scrutiny which the others returned withhalf-humorous pity or superior calm. The consul knew, also, that the service by boat and rail was admirableand skillful; for were not the righteous St. Kentigerners of the tribeof Tubal-cain, great artificers in steel and iron, and a mighty raceof engineers before the Lord, who had carried their calling and accentbeyond the seas? He knew, too, that the land of these delightfulcaravansaries overflowed with marmalade and honey, and that the mannaof delicious scones and cakes fell even upon deserted waters of cragand heather. He knew that their way would lie through much scenerywhose rude barrenness, and grim economy of vegetation, had been usuallyaccepted by cockney tourists for sublimity and grandeur; but he knew, also, that its severity was mitigated by lowland glimpses of sylvanluxuriance and tangled delicacy utterly unlike the complacent snugnessof an English pastoral landscape, with which it was often confounded andmisunderstood, as being tame and civilized. It rained the day they left St. Kentigern, and the next, and the dayafter that, spasmodically, as regarded local effort, sporadically, asseen through the filmed windows of railway carriages or from the shiningdecks of steamboats. There was always a shower being sown somewherealong the valley, or reluctantly tearing itself from a mountain-top, or being pulled into long threads from the leaden bosom of a lake; thecoach swept in and out of them to the folding and unfolding of umbrellasand mackintoshes, accompanied by flying beams of sunlight that racedwith the vehicle on long hillsides, and vanished at the turn of theroad. There were hat-lifting scurries of wind down the mountain-side, small tumults in little lakes below, hysteric ebullitions on mild, melancholy inland seas, boisterous passages of nearly half an hour withlandings on tempestuous miniature quays. All this seen through wonderfulaqueous vapor, against a background of sky darkened at times to thedepths of an India ink washed sketch, but more usually blurredand confused on the surface like the gray silhouette of a child'sslate-pencil drawing, half rubbed from the slate by soft palms. Occasionally a rare glinting of real sunshine on a distant fringe ofdripping larches made some frowning crest appear to smile as through wetlashes. Miss Elsie tucked her little feet under the mackintosh. "I know, " shesaid sadly, "I should get web-footed if I stayed here long, Why, it'slike coming down from Ararat just after the deluge cleared up. " Mrs. Kirkby suggested that if the sun would only shine squarely anddecently, like a Christian, for a few moments, they could see theprospect better. The consul here pointed out that the admirers of Scotch scenery thoughtthat this was its greatest charm. It was this misty effect which made itso superior to what they called the vulgar chromos and sun-pictures ofless favored lands. "You mean because it prevents folks from seeing how poor the view reallyis. " The consul remarked that perhaps distance was lacking. As to the sunshining in a Christian way, this might depend upon the local idea ofChristianity. "Well, I don't call the scenery giddy or frivolous, certainly. And Ireckon I begin to understand the kind of sermons Malcolm's folks broughtover to MacCorkleville. I guess they didn't know much of the heaventhey only saw once a year. Why, even the highest hills--which they callmountains here--ain't big enough to get above the fogs of their owncreating. " Feminine wit is not apt to be abstract. It struck the consul that inMiss Elsie's sprightliness there was the usual ulterior and personalobject, and he glanced around at his fellow-passengers. The objectevidently was sitting at the end of the opposite seat, an amused butwell-behaved listener. For the rest, he was still young and reserved, but in face, figure, and dress utterly unlike his companions, --anEnglishman of a pronounced and distinct type, the man of society andclubs. While there was more or less hinting of local influence in theapparel of the others, --there was a kilt, and bare, unweather-beatenknees from Birmingham, and even the American Elsie wore a bewitchingtam-o'-shanter, --the stranger carried easy distinction, from his tweedtraveling-cap to his well-made shoes and gaiters, as an unmistakableSoutherner. His deep and pleasantly level voice had been heard only onceor twice, and then only in answering questions, and his quiet, composedeyes alone had responded to the young girl's provocation. They were passing a brown glen, in the cheerless depths of which a brownwatercourse, a shade lighter, was running, and occasionally foaminglike brown beer. Beyond it heaved an arid bulk of hillside, the scantvegetation of which, scattered like patches of hair, made it look likethe decaying hide of some huge antediluvian ruminant. On the dreariestpart of the dreary slope rose the ruins of a tower, and crumbling wallsand battlements. "Whatever possessed folks to build there?" said Miss Elsie. "If theywere poor, it might be some excuse; but that those old swells, orchiefs, should put up a castle in such a God-forsaken place gets ME. " "But don't you know, they WERE poor, according to our modern ideas, andI fancy they built these things more for defense than show, and reallymore to gather in cattle--like one of your Texan ranches--after a raid. That is, I have heard so; I rather fancy that was the idea, wasn't it?"It was the Englishman who had spoken, and was now looking around at theother passengers as if in easy deference to local opinion. "What raid?" said Miss Elsie, animatedly. "Oh, yes; I see--one of theirold border raids--moss-troopers. I used to like to read about them. " "I fancy, don't you know, " said the Englishman slowly, "that it wasn'texactly THAT sort of thing, you know, for it's a good way from theborder; but it was one of their raids upon their neighbors, to lifttheir cattle--steal 'em, in fact. That's the way those chaps had. Butof course you've read all about that. You Americans, don't you know, areall up in these historical matters. " "Eh, but they were often reprisals, " said a Scotch passenger. "I don't suppose they took much trouble to inquire if the beastsbelonged to an enemy, " said the Englishman. But here Miss Elsie spoke of castles generally, and averred that thedearest wish of her life was to see Macbeth's castle at Glamis, whereDuncan was murdered. At which the Englishman, still deferentially, mistrusted the fact that the murder had been committed there, andthought that the castle to which Shakespeare probably referred, if hehadn't invented the murder, too, was farther north, at Cawdor. "Youknow, " he added playfully, "over there in America you've discovered thatShakespeare himself was an invention. " This led to some retaliating brilliancy from the young lady, and whenthe coach stopped at the next station their conversation had presumablybecome interesting enough to justify him in securing a seat nearer toher. The talk returning to ruins, Miss Elsie informed him that they weregoing to see some on Kelpie Island. The consul, from some instinctiveimpulse, --perhaps a recollection of Custer's peculiar methods, gave hera sign of warning. But the Englishman only lifted his eyebrows in a kindof half-humorous concern. "I don't think you'd like it, you know. It's a beastly place, --rocksand sea, --worse than this, and half the time you can't see the mainland, only a mile away. Really, you know, they oughtn't to have induced you totake tickets there--those excursion-ticket chaps. They're jolly frauds. It's no place for a stranger to go to. " "But there are the ruins of an old castle, the old seat of"--began theastonished Miss Elsie; but she was again stopped by a significant glancefrom the consul. "I believe there was something of the kind there once--somethinglike your friends the cattle-stealers' castle over on that hillside, "returned the Englishman; "but the stones were taken by the fishermen fortheir cabins, and the walls were quite pulled down. " "How dared they do that?" said the young lady indignantly. "I call itnot only sacrilege, but stealing. " "It was defrauding the owner of the property; they might as well takehis money, " said Mrs. Kirkby, in languid protest. The smile which this outburst of proprietorial indignation brought tothe face of the consul lingered with the Englishman's reply. "But it was only robbing the old robbers, don't you know, and they puttheir spoils to better use than their old masters did; certainly tomore practical use than the owners do now, for the ruins are good fornothing. " "But the hallowed associations--the picturesqueness!" continued Mrs. Kirkby, with languid interest. "The associations wouldn't be anything except to the family, you know;and I should fancy they wouldn't be either hallowed or pleasant. As forpicturesqueness, the ruins are beastly ugly; weather-beaten instead ofbeing mellowed by time, you know, and bare where they ought to be hiddenby vines and moss. I can't make out why anybody sent you there, for youAmericans are rather particular about your sightseeing. " "We heard of them through a friend, " said the consul, with assumedcarelessness. "Perhaps it's as good an excuse as any for a pleasantjourney. " "And very likely your friend mistook it for something else, or washimself imposed upon, " said the Englishman politely. "But you might notthink it so, and, after all, " he added thoughtfully, "it's years sinceI've seen it. I only meant that I could show you something better afew miles from my place in Gloucestershire, and not quite so far froma railway as this. If, " he added with a pleasant deliberation whichwas the real courtesy of his conventionally worded speech, "you everhappened at any time to be anywhere near Audrey Edge, and would look meup, I should be glad to show it to you and your friends. " An hour later, when he left them at a railway station where their paths diverged, MissElsie recovered a fluency that she had lately checked. "Well, I likethat! He never told us his name, or offered a card. I wonder if theycall that an invitation over here. Does he suppose anybody's going tolook up his old Audrey Edge--perhaps it's named after his wife--to findout who HE is? He might have been civil enough to have left his name, ifhe--meant anything. " "But I assure you he was perfectly sincere, and meant an invitation, "returned the consul smilingly. "Audrey Edge is evidently a well-knownplace, and he a man of some position. That is why he didn't specifyeither. " "Well, you won't catch me going there, " said Miss Elsie. "You would be quite right in either going or staying away, " said theconsul simply. Miss Elsie tossed her head slightly. Nevertheless, before they left thestation, she informed him that she had been told that the station-masterhad addressed the stranger as "my lord, " and that another passenger hadsaid he was "Lord Duncaster. " "And that proves"-- "That I'm right, " said the young lady decisively, "and that hisinvitation was a mere form. " It was after sundown when they reached the picturesque andwell-appointed hotel that lifted itself above the little fishing-villagewhich fronted Kelpie Island. The hotel was in as strong contrast to thenarrow, curving street of dull, comfortless-looking stone cottages belowit, as were the smart tourists who had just landed from the steamer tothe hard-visaged, roughly clad villagers who watched them with a certainmingling of critical independence and superior self-righteousness. As the new arrivals walked down the main street, half beach, halfthoroughfare, their baggage following them in low trolleys drawn byporters at their heels, like a decorous funeral, the joyless faces ofthe lookers-on added to the resemblance. Beyond them, in the prolongednorthern twilight, the waters of the bay took on a peculiar pewterybrightness, but with the usual mourning-edged border of Scotch seacoastscenery. Low banks of cloud lay on the chill sea; the outlines of KelpieIsland were hidden. But the interior of the hotel, bright with the latest fastidiousness inmodern decoration and art-furniture, and gay with pictured canvases andcolor, seemed to mock the sullen landscape, and the sterile crags amidwhich the building was set. An attempt to make a pleasance in thisbarren waste had resulted only in empty vases, bleak statuary, andiron settees, as cold and slippery to the touch as the sides of theirsteamer. "It'll be a fine morning to-morra, and ther'll be a boat going away toKelpie for a peekneek in the ruins, " said the porter, as the consul andhis fair companions looked doubtfully from the windows of the cheerfulhall. A picnic in the sacred ruins of Kelpie! The consul saw the ladiesstiffening with indignation at this trespass upon their possible rightsand probable privileges, and glanced at them warningly. "Do you mean to say that it is common property, and ANYBODY can gothere?" demanded Miss Elsie scornfully. "No; it's only the hotel that owns the boat and gives the tickets--ahalf-crown the passage. " "And do the owners, the McHulishes, permit this?" The porter looked at them with a puzzled, half-pitying politeness. Hewas a handsome, tall, broad-shouldered young fellow, with a certainnaive and gentle courtesy of manner that relieved his strong accent, "Oh, ay, " he said, with a reassuring smile; "ye'll no be troubled byTHEM. I'll just gang away noo, and see if I can secure the teekets. " An elderly guest, who was examining a time-table on the wall, turned tothem as the porter disappeared. "Ye'll be strangers noo, and not knowing that Tonalt the porter is aMcHulish hissel'?" he said deliberately. "A what?" said the astonished Miss Elsie. "A McHulish. Ay, one of the family. The McHulishes of Kelpie were hisown forebears. Eh, but he's a fine lad, and doin' well for the hotel. " Miss Elsie extinguished a sudden smile with her handkerchief as hermother anxiously inquired, "And are the family as poor as that?" "But I am not saying he's POOR, ma'am, no, " replied the stranger, withnative caution. "What wi' tips and gratooities and percentages on theteekets, it's a bit of money he'll be having in the bank noo. " The prophecy of Donald McHulish as to the weather came true. The nextmorning was bright and sunny, and the boat to Kelpie Island--a largeyawl--duly received its complement of passengers and provisionhampers. The ladies had apparently become more tolerant of their fellowpleasure-seekers, and it appeared that Miss Elsie had even overcome herhilarity at the discovery of what "might have been" a relative inthe person of the porter Donald. "I had a long talk with him beforebreakfast this morning, " she said gayly, "and I know all about him. Itappears that there are hundreds of him--all McHulishes--all along thecoast and elsewhere--only none of them ever lived ON the island, and don't want to. But he looks more like a 'laird' and a chief thanMalcolm, and if it comes to choosing a head of the family, remember, maw, I shall vote solid for him. " "How can you go on so, Elsie?" said Mrs. Kirkby, with languid protest. "Only I trust you didn't say anything to him of the syndicate. And, thank Heaven! the property isn't here. " "No; the waiter tells me all the lovely things we had for breakfast camefrom miles away. And they don't seem to have ever raised anything onthe island, from its looks. Think of having to row three miles for themorning's milk!" There was certainly very little appearance of vegetation on the sterilecrags that soon began to lift themselves above the steely waves ahead. A few scraggy trees and bushes, which twisted and writhed like vinesaround the square tower and crumbling walls of an irregular but angularbuilding, looked in their brown shadows like part of the debris. "It's just like a burnt-down bone-boiling factory, " said Miss Elsiecritically; "and I shouldn't wonder if that really was old McHulish'sbusiness. They couldn't have it on the mainland for its being anuisance. " Nevertheless, she was one of the first to leap ashore when the yawl'sbow grated in a pebbly cove, and carried her pretty but incongruouslittle slippers through the seaweed, wet sand, and slimy cobbles with aheroism that redeemed her vanity. A scrambling ascent of a few momentsbrought them to a wall with a gap in it, which gave easy ingress tothe interior of the ruins. This was merely a little curving hollow fromwhich the outlines of the plan had long since faded. It was kept greenby the brown walls, which, like the crags of the mainland valleys, sheltered it from the incessant strife of the Atlantic gales. A fewpale flowers that might have grown in a damp cellar shivered againstthe stones. Scraps of newspapers, soda-water and beer bottles, highlydecorated old provision tins, and spent cartridge cases, --the remainsof chilly picnics and damp shooting luncheons, --had at first sight lentcolor to the foreground by mere contrast, but the corrosion of timeand weather had blackened rather than mellowed the walls in a way whichforcibly reminded the consul of Miss Elsie's simile of the "burnt-downfactory. " The view from the square tower--a mere roost for uncleansea-fowl, from the sides of which rags of peeling moss and vine hunglike tattered clothing--was equally depressing. The few fishermen's hutsalong the shore were built of stones taken from the ruin, and roofed inwith sodden beams and timbers in the last stages of deliquescence. Thethick smoke of smouldering peat-fires came from the low chimneys, anddrifted across the ruins with the odors of drying fish. "I've just seen a sort of ground-plan of the castle, " said Miss Elsiecheerfully. "It never had a room in it as big as our bedroom in thehotel, and there weren't windows enough to go round. A slit in thewall, about two inches wide by two feet long, was considered dazzlingextravagance to Malcolm's ancestors. I don't wonder some of 'em brokeout and swam over to America. That reminds me. Who do you suppose ishere--came over from the hotel in a boat of his own, just to see maw!" "Not Malcolm, surely. " "Not much, " replied Miss Elsie, setting her small lips together. "It'sMr. Custer. He's talking business with her now down on the beach. They'll be here when lunch is ready. " The consul remembered the romantic plan which the enthusiastic Custerhad imparted to him in the foggy consulate at St. Kentigern, and thenthought of the matter of fact tourists, the few stolid fishermen, andthe prosaic ruins around them, and smiled. He looked up, and saw thatMiss Elsie was watching him. "You know Mr. Custer, don't you?" "We are old Californian friends. " "I thought so; but I think he looked a little upset when he heard youwere here, too. " He certainly was a little awkward, as if struggling with somehalf-humorous embarrassment, as he came forward a few moments later withMrs. Kirkby. But the stimulation of the keen sea air triumphed over theinfelicities of the situation and surroundings, and the little partywere presently enjoying their well-selected luncheon with the wholesomeappetite of travel and change. The chill damp made limp the napkinsand table-cloth, and invaded the victuals; the wind, which was rising, whistled round the walls, and made miniature cyclones of the torn paperand dried twigs around them: but they ate, drank, and were merry. At theend of the repast the two gentlemen rose to light their cigars in thelee of the wall. "I suppose you know all about Malcolm?" said Custer, after an awkwardpause. "My dear fellow, " said the consul, somewhat impatiently, "I know nothingabout him, and you ought to know that by this time. " "I thought YOUR FRIEND, Sir James, might have told you, " continuedCuster, with significant emphasis. "I have not seen Sir James for two months. " "Well, Malcolm's a crank--always was one, I reckon, and is reg'larlyoff his head now. Yes, sir; Scotch whiskey and your friend Sir Jamesfinished him. After that dinner at MacFen's he was done for--went wild. Danced a sword-dance, or a strathspey, or some other blamed thing, onthe table, and yelled louder than the pipes. So they all did. Jack, I'vepainted the town red once myself; I thought I knew what a first-classjamboree was: but they were prayer-meetings to that show. Everybody wasblind drunk--but they all got over it except HIM. THEY were a differentlot of men the next day, as cool and cautious as you please, but HE wasshut up for a week, and came out crazy. " "But what's that to do with his claim?" "Well, there ain't much use 'whooping up the boys' when only the whoopergets wild. " "Still, that does not affect any right he may have in the property. " "But it affects the syndicate, " said Custer gloomily; "and when we foundthat he was whooping up some shopkeepers and factory hands who claimedto belong to the clan, --and you can't heave a stone at a dog around herewithout hitting a McHulish, --we concluded we hadn't much use for himornamentally. So we shipped him home last steamer. " "And the property?" "Oh, that's all right, " said Custer, still gloomily. "We've effected anamicable compromise, as Sir James calls it. That means we've taken a lotof land somewhere north, that you can shoot over--that is, you needn'tbe afraid of hitting a house, or a tree, or a man anywhere; and we'vegot a strip more of the same sort on the seashore somewhere off here, occupied only by some gay galoots called crofters, and you can raisea lawsuit and an imprecation on every acre. Then there's thissoul-subduing, sequestered spot, and what's left of the old bone-boilingestablishment, and the rights of fishing and peat-burning, and otherwisecreating a nuisance off the mainland. It cost the syndicate only ahundred thousand dollars, half cash and half in Texan and Kentucky grasslands. But we've carried the thing through. " "I congratulate you, " said the consul. "Thanks. " Custer puffed at his cigar for a few moments. "That Sir JamesMacFen is a fine man. " "He is. " "A large, broad, all-round man. Knows everything and everybody, don'the?" "I think so. " "Big man in the church, I should say? No slouch at a party canvass, orward politics, eh? As a board director, or president, just takes thecake, don't he?" "I believe so. " "Nothing mean about Jimmy as an advocate or an arbitrator, either, isthere? Rings the bell every time, don't he? Financiers take a back seatwhen he's around? Owns half of Scotland by this time, I reckon. " The consul believed that Sir James had the reputation of beingexceedingly sagacious in financial and mercantile matters, and that hewas a man of some wealth. "Naturally. I wonder what he'd take to come over to America, and givethe boys points, " continued Custer, in meditative admiration. "Therewere two or three men on Scott's River, and one Chinaman, that we usedto think smart, but they were doddering ijuts to HIM. And as for me--Isay, Jack, you didn't see any hayseed in my hair that day I walked interyour consulate, did you?" The consul smilingly admitted that he had not noticed these signs ofrustic innocence in his friend. "Nor any flies? Well, for all that, when I get home I'm going to resign. No more foreign investments for ME. When anybody calls at the consulateand asks for H. J. Custer, say you don't know me. And you don't. And Isay, Jack, try to smooth things over for me with HER. " "With Miss Elsie?" Custer cast a glance of profound pity upon the consul. "No with Mrs. Kirkby, of course. See?" The consul thought he did see, and that he had at last found a clue toCuster's extraordinary speculation. But, like most theorists whoargue from a single fact, a few months later he might have doubted hisdeduction. He was staying at a large country-house many miles distant from thescene of his late experiences. Already they had faded from his memorywith the departure of his compatriots from St. Kentigern. He was smokingby the fire in the billiard-room late one night when a fellow-guestapproached him. "Saw you didn't remember me at dinner. " The voice was hesitating, pleasant, and not quite unfamiliar. Theconsul looked up, and identified the figure before him as one of the newarrivals that day, whom, in the informal and easy courtesy of thehouse, he had met with no further introduction than a vague smile. Heremembered, too, that the stranger had glanced at him once or twice atdinner, with shy but engaging reserve. "You must see such a lot of people, and the way things are arrangedand settled here everybody expects to look and act like everybodyelse, don't you know, so you can't tell one chap from another. Deucedannoying, eh? That's where you Americans are different, and that'swhy those countrywomen of yours were so charming, don't you know, sooriginal. We were all together on the top of a coach in Scotland, don'tyou remember? Had such a jolly time in the beastly rain. You didn'tcatch my name. It's Duncaster. " The consul at once recalled his former fellow-traveler. The two menshook hands. The Englishman took a pipe from his smoking-jacket, anddrew a chair beside the consul. "Yes, " he continued, comfortably filling his pipe, "the daughter, Miss Kirkby, was awfully good fun; so fresh, so perfectly natural andinnocent, don't you know, and yet so extraordinarily sharp and clever. She had some awfully good chaff over that Scotch scenery before thoseScotch tourists, do you remember? And it was all so beastly true, too. Perhaps she's with you here?" There was so much unexpected and unaffected interest in the youngEnglishman's eyes that the consul was quite serious in his regrets thatthe ladies had gone back to Paris. "I'd like to have taken them over to Audrey Edge from here. It's nodistance by train. I did ask them in Scotland, but I suppose they hadsomething better to do. But you might tell them I've got some sistersthere, and that it is an old place and not half bad, don't you know, when you write to them. You might give me their address. " The consul did so, and added a few pleasant words regarding theirposition, --barring the syndicate, --which he had gathered from Custer. Lord Duncaster's look of interest, far from abating, became gentlyconfidential. "I suppose you must see a good deal of your countrymen in your business, and I suppose, just like Englishmen, they differ, by Jove! Some of them, don't you know, are rather pushing and anxious for position, and allthat sort of thing; and some of 'em, like your friends, are quiteindependent and natural. " He stopped, and puffed slowly at his pipe. Presently he took it fromhis mouth, with a little laugh. "I've a mind to tell you a rather queerexperience of mine. It's nothing against your people generally, youknow, nor do I fancy it's even an American type; so you won't mind myspeaking of it. I've got some property in Scotland, --rather poor stuffyou'd call it, --but, by Jove! some Americans have been laying claimto it under some obscure plea of relationship. There might have beensomething in it, although not all they claim, but my business man, aclever chap up in your place, --perhaps you may have heard of him, Sir James MacFen, --wrote to me that what they really wanted were someancestral lands with the right to use the family name and privileges. The oddest part of the affair was that the claimant was an impossiblesort of lunatic, and the whole thing was run by a syndicate of shrewdWestern men. As I don't care for the property, which has only beendropping a lot of money every year for upkeep and litigation, Sir James, who is an awfully far-sighted chap at managing, thought he could effecta compromise, and get rid of the property at a fair valuation. And, by Jove! he did. But what your countrymen can get out of it, --forthe shooting isn't half as good as what they can get in their owncountry, --or what use the privileges are to them, I can't fancy. " "I think I know the story, " said the consul, eying his fellow-guestattentively; "but if I remember rightly, the young man claimed to be therightful and only surviving heir. " The Englishman rose, and, bending over the hearth, slowly knocked theashes from his pipe. "That's quite impossible, don't you know. For, " headded, as he stood up in front of the fire in face, figure, and carelessrepose more decidedly English than ever, "you see my title of Duncasteronly came to me through an uncle, but I am the direct and sole heir ofthe old family, and the Scotch property. I don't perhaps look like aScot, --we've been settled in England some time, --but, " he continuedwith an invincible English drawling deliberation, "I--am--really--you--know--what they call The McHulish. " AN EPISODE OF WEST WOODLANDS. I. The rain was dripping monotonously from the scant eaves of the littlechurch of the Sidon Brethren at West Woodlands. Hewn out of the veryheart of a thicket of buckeye spruce and alder, unsunned and unblownupon by any wind, it was so green and unseasoned in its solitude that itseemed a part of the arboreal growth, and on damp Sundays to havetaken root again and sprouted. There were moss and shining spots on theunderside of the unplaned rafters, little green pools of infusoria stoodon the ledge of the windows whose panes were at times suddenly cloudedby mysterious unknown breaths from without or within. It was oppressedwith an extravagance of leaves at all seasons, whether in summer, whengreen and limp they crowded the porch, doorways, and shutters, or whenpenetrating knot-holes and interstices of shingle and clapboard, on somecreeping vine, they unexpectedly burst and bourgeoned on the walls likebanners; or later, when they rotted in brown heaps in corners, outlinedthe edges of the floor with a thin yellow border, or invaded the ranksof the high-backed benches which served as pews. There had been a continuous rustling at the porch and the shaking outof waterproofs and closing of umbrellas until the half-filled church wasalready redolent of damp dyes and the sulphur of India rubber. The eyesof the congregation were turned to the door with something more than theusual curiosity and expectation. For the new revivalist preacher fromHorse Shoe Bay was coming that morning. Already voices of authority wereheard approaching, and keeping up their conversation to the very doorof the sacred edifice in marked contrast with the awed and bashfulwhisperings in the porch of the ordinary congregation. The worshipersrecognized the voices of Deacons Shadwell and Bradley; in thereverential hush of the building they seemed charged with undueimportance. "It was set back in the road for quiet in the Lord's work, " saidBradley. "Yes, but it oughtn't be hidden! Let your light so shine before men, you know, Brother Bradley, " returned a deep voice, unrecognized andunfamiliar--presumably that of the newcomer. "It wouldn't take much to move it--on skids and rollers--nearer to theroad, " suggested Shadwell tentatively. "No, but if you left it stranded there in the wind and sun, green andsappy as it is now, ye'd have every seam and crack startin' till theribs shone through, and no amount of calkin' would make it watertightagin. No; my idea is--clear out the brush and shadder around it! Let thelight shine in upon it! Make the waste places glad around it, but keepit THERE! And that's my idea o' gen'ral missionary work; that's how thegospel orter be rooted. " Here the bell, which from the plain open four-posted belfry abovehad been clanging with a metallic sharpness that had an odd impatientworldliness about it, suddenly ceased. "That bell, " said Bradley's voice, with the same suggestion of conveyingimportant truths to the listening congregation within, "was took fromthe wreck of the Tamalpais. Brother Horley bought it at auction atHorse Shoe Bay and presented it. You know the Tamalpais ran ashore onSkinner's Reef, jest off here. " "Yes, with plenty of sea room, not half a gale o' wind blowing, and herreal course fifty miles to westward! The whole watch must have drunk orsunk in slothful idleness, " returned the deep voice again. A momentarypause followed, and then the two deacons entered the church with thestranger. He appeared to be a powerfully-built man, with a square, beardless chin;a face that carried one or two scars of smallpox and a deeper one ofa less peaceful suggestion, set in a complexion weather-beaten to thecolor of Spanish leather. Two small, moist gray eyes, that glistenedwith every emotion, seemed to contradict the hard expression of theother features. He was dressed in cheap black, like the two deacons, with the exception of a loose, black alpaca coat and the usual blacksilk neckerchief tied in a large bow under a turndown collar, --thegeneral sign and symbol of a minister of his sect. He walked directlyto the raised platform at the end of the chapel, where stood a table onwhich was a pitcher of water, a glass and hymnbook, and a tall uprightdesk holding a Bible. Glancing over these details, he suddenly paused, carefully lifted some hitherto undetected object from the desk besidethe Bible, and, stooping gently, placed it upon the floor. As it hoppedaway the congregation saw that it was a small green frog. The intrusionwas by no means an unusual one, but some odd contrast between thispowerful man and the little animal affected them profoundly. Noone--even the youngest--smiled; every one--even the youngest--becamesuddenly attentive. Turning over the leaves of the hymnbook, he thengave out the first two lines of a hymn. The choir accordion in the frontside bench awoke like an infant into wailing life, and Cissy Appleby, soprano, took up a little more musically the lugubrious chant. At theclose of the verse the preacher joined in, after a sailor fashion, witha breezy bass that seemed to fill the little building with the troubleof the sea. Then followed prayer from Deacon Shadwell, broken by "Amens"from the preacher, with a nautical suggestion of "Ay, ay, " about them, and he began his sermon. It was, as those who knew his methods might have expected, a suggestionof the conversation they had already overheard. He likened the littlechapel, choked with umbrage and rotting in its dampness, to the gospelseed sown in crowded places, famishing in the midst of plenty, andsterile from the absorptions of the more active life around it. Hepointed out again the true work of the pioneer missionary; thecareful pruning and elimination of those forces that grew up with theChristian's life, which many people foolishly believed were a part ofit. "The WORLD must live and the WORD must live, " said they, and therewere easy-going brethren who thought they could live together. But hewarned them that the World was always closing upon--"shaddering"--andstrangling the Word, unless kept down, and that "fair seemin'settlement, " or city, which appeared to be "bustin' and bloomin'" withlife and progress, was really "hustlin' and jostlin'" the Word of God, even in the midst of these "fancy spires and steeples" it had erectedto its glory. It was the work of the missionary pioneer to keep down orroot out this carnal, worldly growth as much in the settlement as in thewilderness. Some were for getting over the difficulty by dragging themere wasted "letter of the Word, " or the rotten and withered husks ofit, into the highways and byways, where the "blazin'" scorn of the Worldwould finish it. A low, penitential groan from Deacon Shadwell followedthis accusing illustration. But the preacher would tell them that theonly way was to boldly attack this rankly growing World around them;to clear out fresh paths for the Truth, and let the sunlight of Heavenstream among them. There was little doubt that the congregation was moved. Whatever theymight have thought of the application, the fact itself was patent. Therheumatic Beaseleys felt the truth of it in their aching bones; it camehome to the fever and ague stricken Filgees in their damp seats againstthe sappy wall; it echoed plainly in the chronic cough of Sister MaryStrutt and Widow Doddridge; and Cissy Appleby, with her round brown eyesfixed upon the speaker, remembering how the starch had been taken out ofher Sunday frocks, how her long ringlets had become uncurled, her frillslimp, and even her ribbons lustreless, felt that indeed a prophet hadarisen in Israel! One or two, however, were disappointed that he had as yet given noindication of that powerful exhortatory emotion for which he was famed, and which had been said to excite certain corresponding corybanticsymptoms among his sensitive female worshipers. When the service wasover, and the congregation crowded around him, Sister Mary Strutt, onthe outer fringe of the assembly, confided to Sister Evans that she had"hearn tell how that when he was over at Soquel he prayed that pow'fulthat all the wimmen got fits and tremblin' spells, and ole Mrs. Jacksonhad to be hauled off his legs that she was kneelin' and claspin' whilewrestling with the Sperit. " "I reckon we seemed kinder strange to him this morning, and he wanted tojest feel his way to our hearts first, " exclaimed Brother Jonas Steerspolitely. "He'll be more at home at evenin' service. It's queer thatsome of the best exhortin' work is done arter early candlelight. Ireckon he's goin' to stop over with Deacon Bradley to dinner. " But it appeared that the new preacher, now formally introduced asBrother Seabright, was intending to walk over to Hemlock Mills todinner. He only asked to be directed the nearest way; he would nottrouble Brother Shadwell or Deacon Bradley to come with him. "But here's Cissy Appleby lives within a mile o' thar, and you couldgo along with her. She'd jest admire to show you the way, " interruptedBrother Shadwell. "Wouldn't you, Cissy?" Thus appealed to, the young chorister--a tall girl of sixteen orseventeen--timidly raised her eyes to Brother Seabright as he was aboutto repeat his former protestation, and he stopped. "Ef the young lady IS goin' that way, it's only fair to accept herkindness in a Christian sperit, " he said gently. Cissy turned with a mingling of apology and bashfulness towards a youngfellow who seemed to be acting as her escort, but who was hesitatingin an equal bashfulness, when Seabright added: "And perhaps our youngfriend will come too?" But the young friend drew back with a confused laugh, and BrotherSeabright and Cissy passed out from the porch together. For a fewmoments they mingled with the stream and conversation of the departingcongregation, but presently Cissy timidly indicated a diverging bypath, and they both turned into it. It was much warmer in the open than it had been in the chapel andthicket, and Cissy, by way of relieving a certain awkward tension ofsilence, took off the waterproof cloak and slung it on her arm. Thisdisclosed her five long brown cable-like curls that hung down hershoulders, reaching below her waist in some forgotten fashion ofgirlhood. They were Cissy's peculiar adornment, remarkable for theirlength, thickness, and the extraordinary youthfulness imparted to afigure otherwise precociously matured. In some wavering doubt of heractual years and privileges, Brother Seabright offered to carryher cloak for her, but she declined it with a rustic and youthfulpertinacity that seemed to settle the question. In fact, Cissy wasas much embarrassed as she was flattered by the company of thisdistinguished stranger. However, it would be known to all West Woodlandthat he had walked home with her, while nobody but herself would knowthat they had scarcely exchanged a word. She noticed how he lounged onwith a heavy, rolling gait, sometimes a little before or behind her asthe path narrowed. At such times when they accidentally came in contactin passing, she felt a half uneasy, physical consciousness of him, whichshe referred to his size, the scars on his face, or some latent hardnessof expression, but was relieved to see that he had not observed it. Yet this was the man that made grown women cry; she thought of oldMrs. Jackson fervently grasping the plodding ankles before her, anda hysteric desire to laugh, with the fear that he might see it on herface, overcame her. Then she wondered if he was going to walk all theway home without speaking, yet she knew she would be more embarrassed ifhe began to talk to her. Suddenly he stopped, and she bumped up against him. "Oh, excuse me!" she stammered hurriedly. "Eh?" He evidently had not noticed the collision. "Did you speak?" "No!--that is--it wasn't anything, " returned the girl, coloring. But he had quite forgotten her, and was looking intently before him. They had come to a break in the fringe of woodland, and upon a suddenview of the ocean. At this point the low line of coast-range whichsheltered the valley of West Woodlands was abruptly cloven by a gorgethat crumbled and fell away seaward to the shore of Horse Shoe Bay. On its northern trend stretched the settlement of Horse Shoe to thepromontory of Whale Mouth Point, with its outlying reef of rocks curvedinwards like the vast submerged jaw of some marine monster, throughwhose blunt, tooth-like projections the ship-long swell of the Pacificstreamed and fell. On the southern shore the light yellow sands ofPunta de las Concepcion glittered like sunshine all the way to theolive-gardens and white domes of the Mission. The two shores seemed totypify the two different climates and civilizations separated by thebay. The heavy, woodland atmosphere was quickened by the salt breath of thesea. The stranger inhaled it meditatively. "That's the reef where the Tamalpais struck, " he said, "and more'n fiftymiles out of her course--yes, more'n fifty miles from where she shouldhave bin! It don't look nat'ral. No--it--don't--look--nat'ral!" As he seemed to be speaking to himself, the young girl, who had beengazing with far greater interest at the foreign-looking southern shore, felt confused and did not reply. Then, as if recalling her presence, Brother Seabright turned to her and said:-- "Yes, young lady; and when you hear the old bell of the Tamalpais, andthink of how it came here, you may rejoice in the goodness of the Lordthat made even those who strayed from the straight course and the truereckoning the means of testifying onto Him. " But the young are quicker to detect attitudes and affectation than weare apt to imagine; and Cissy could distinguish a certain other strayingin this afterthought or moral of the preacher called up by her presence, and knew that it was not the real interest which the view had evoked. She had heard that he had been a sailor, and, with the tact of her sex, answered with what she thought would entertain him:-- "I was a little girl when it happened, and I heard that some sailors gotashore down there, and climbed up this gully from the rocks below. And they camped that night--for there were no houses at West Woodlandsthen--just in the woods where our chapel now stands. It was funny, wasn't it?--I mean, " she corrected herself bashfully, "it was strangethey chanced to come just there?" But she had evidently hit the point of interest. "What became of them?" he said quickly. "They never came to Horse ShoeSettlement, where the others landed from the wreck. I never heard ofthat boat's crew or of ANY landing HERE. " "No. They kept on over the range south to the Mission. I reckon theydidn't know there was a way down on this side to Horse Shoe, " returnedCissy. Brother Seabright moved on and continued his slow, plodding march. But he kept a little nearer Cissy, and she was conscious that heoccasionally looked at her. Presently he said:-- "You have a heavenly gift, Miss Appleby. " Cissy flushed, and her hand involuntarily went to one of her long, distinguishing curls. It might be THAT. The preacher continued:-- "Yes; a voice like yours is a heavenly gift. And you have properlydevoted it to His service. Have you been singing long?" "About two years. But I've got to study a heap yet. " "The little birds don't think it necessary to study to praise Him, " saidthe preacher sententiously. It occurred to Cissy that this was very unfair argument. She saidquickly:-- "But the little birds don't have to follow words in the hymn-books. Youdon't give out lines to larks and bobolinks, " and blushed. The preacher smiled. It was a very engaging smile, Cissy thought, thatlightened his hard mouth. It enabled her to take heart of grace, andpresently to chatter like the very birds she had disparaged. Oh yes; sheknew she had to learn a great deal more. She had studied "some" already. She was taking lessons over at Point Concepcion, where her aunt hadfriends, and she went three times a week. The gentleman who taught herwas not a Catholic, and, of course, he knew she was a Protestant. Shewould have preferred to live there, but her mother and father were bothdead, and had left her with her aunt. She liked it better because itwas sunnier and brighter there. She loved the sun and warmth. She hadlistened to what he had said about the dampness and gloom of the chapel. It was true. The dampness was that dreadful sometimes it just ruined herclothes, and even made her hoarse. Did he think they would really takehis advice and clear out the woods round the chapel? "Would you like it?" he asked pleasantly. "Yes. " "And you think you wouldn't pine so much for the sunshine and warmth ofthe Mission? "I'm not pining, " said Cissy with a toss of her curls, "for anything oranybody; but I think the woods ought to be cleared out. It's just as itwas when the runaways hid there. " "When the RUNAWAYS HID THERE!" said Brother Seabright quickly. "Whatrunaways?" "Why, the boat's crew, " said Cissy. "Why do you call them runaways?" "I don't know. Didn't YOU?" said Cissy simply. "Didn't you say theynever came back to Horse Shoe Bay. Perhaps I had it from aunty. ButI know it's damp and creepy; and when I was littler I used to befrightened to be alone there practicing. " "Why?" said the preacher quickly. "Oh, I don't know, " hurried on Cissy, with a vague impression that shehad said too much. "Only my fancy, I guess. " "Well, " said Brother Seabright after a pause; "we'll see what can bedone to make a clearing there. Birds sing best in the sunshine, and YOUought to have some say about it. " Cissy's dimples and blushes came together this time. "That's ourhouse, " she said suddenly, with a slight accent of relief, pointing to aweather-beaten farmhouse on the edge of the gorge. "I turn off here, butyou keep straight on for the Mills; they're back in the woods apiece. But, " she stammered with a sudden sense of shame of forgottenhospitality, "won't you come in and see aunty?" "No, thank you, not now. " He stopped, turning his gaze from the house toher. "How old is your house? Was it there at the time of the wreck?" "Yes, " said Cissy. "It's odd that the crew did not come there for help, eh?" "Maybe they overlooked it in the darkness and the storm, " said Cissysimply. "Good-by, sir. " The preacher held her hand for an instant in his powerful, but gentlygraduated grasp. "Good-by until evening service. " "Yes, sir, " said Cissy. The young girl tripped on towards her house a little agitated andconscious, and yet a little proud as she saw the faces of her aunt, heruncle, her two cousins, and even her discarded escort, Jo Adams, at thewindows, watching her. "So, " said her aunt, as she entered breathlessly, "ye walked home withthe preacher! It was a speshal providence and manifestation for ye, Cissy. I hope ye was mannerly and humble--and profited by the words ofgrace. " "I don't know, " said Cissy, putting aside her hat and cloak listlessly. "He didn't talk much of anything--but the old wreck of the Tamalpais. " "What?" said her aunt quickly. "The wreck of the Tamalpais, and the boat's crew that came up thegorge, " repeated the young girl. "And what did HE know about the boat's crew?" said her aunt hurriedly, fixing her black eyes on Cissy. "Nothing except what I told him. " "What YOU told him!" echoed her aunt, with an ominous color filling thesallow hollows of her cheek. "Yes! He has been a sailor, you know--and I thought it would interesthim; and it did! He thought it strange. " "Cecilia Jane Appleby, " said her aunt shrilly, "do you mean to say thatyou threw away your chances of salvation and saving grace just to tellgossiping tales that you knew was lies, and evil report, and falsewitnesses!" "I only talked of what I'd heard, aunt Vashti, " said Ceciliaindignantly. "And he afterwards talked of--of--my voice, and said I hada heavenly gift, " she added, with a slight quiver of her lip. Aunt Vashti regarded the girl sharply. "And you may thank the Lord for that heavenly gift, " she said, in aslightly lowered voice; "for ef ye hadn't to use it tonight, I'd shutye up in your room, to make it pay for yer foolish gaddin' TONGUE! AndI reckon I'll escort ye to chapel tonight myself, miss, and get shut o'some of this foolishness. " II. The broad plaza of the Mission de la Concepcion had been baking in theday-long sunlight. Shining drifts from the outlying sand dunes, blownacross the ill-paved roadway, radiated the heat in the faces of the fewloungers like the pricking of liliputian arrows, and invaded even thecactus hedges. The hot air visibly quivered over the dark red tiles ofthe tienda roof as if they were undergoing a second burning. The blackshadow of a chimney on the whitewashed adobe wall was like a door orcavernous opening in the wall itself; the tops of the olive and peartrees seen above it were russet and sere already in the fierce light. Even the moist breath of the sea beyond had quite evaporated before itcrossed the plaza, and now rustled the leaves in the Mission garden witha dry, crepitant sound. Nevertheless, it seemed to Cissy Appleby, as she crossed the plaza, avery welcome change from West Woodlands. Although the late winter rainshad ceased a month ago, --a few days after the revivalist preacher hadleft, --the woods around the chapel were still sodden and heavy, and thethreatened improvement in its site had not taken place. Neither had thepreacher himself alluded to it again; his evening sermon--the only otherone he preached there--was unexciting, and he had, in fact, left WestWoodlands without any display of that extraordinary exhortatory facultyfor which he was famous. Yet Cissy, in spite of her enjoyment of thedry, hot Mission, remembered him, and also recalled, albeit poutingly, his blunt suggesting that she was "pining for it. " Nevertheless, shewould like to have sung for him HERE--supposing it was possible toconceive of a Sidon Brotherhood Chapel at the Mission. It was a greatpity, she thought, that the Sidon Brotherhood and the FranciscanBrotherhood were not more brotherly TOWARDS EACH OTHER. Cissy belongedto the former by hereditary right, locality, and circumstance, but it isto be feared that her theology was imperfect. She entered a lane between the Mission wall and a lighter iron fencedinclosure, once a part of the garden, but now the appurtenance of aprivate dwelling that was reconstructed over the heavy adobe shell ofsome forgotten structure of the old ecclesiastical founders. It waspierced by many windows and openings, and that sunlight and publicitywhich the former padres had jealously excluded was now wooed from longbalconies and verandas by the new proprietor, a well to do American. Elisha Braggs, whose name was generously and euphoniously translated byhis native neighbors into "Don Eliseo, " although a heretic, had givenlargess to the church in the way of restoring its earthquake-shakentower, and in presenting a new organ to its dilapidated choir. He hadfurther endeared himself to the conservative Spanish population byintroducing no obtrusive improvements; by distributing his means throughthe old channels; by apparently inciting no further alien immigration, but contenting himself to live alone among them, adopting their habits, customs, and language. A harmless musical taste, and a disposition toinstruct the young boy choristers, was equally balanced by great skillin horsemanship and the personal management of a ranche of wild cattleon the inland plains. Consciously pretty, and prettily conscious in her white-starched, rose-sprigged muslin, her pink parasol, beribboned gypsy hat, and thelong mane-like curls that swung over her shoulders, Cissy entered thehouse and was shown to the large low drawing-room on the ground-floor. She once more inhaled its hot potpourri fragrance, in which the spice ofthe Castilian rose-leaves of the garden was dominant. A few boys, whomshe recognized as the choristers of the Mission and her fellow-pupils, were already awaiting her with some degree of anxiety and impatience. This fact, and a certain quick animation that sprang to the blue eyesof the master of the house as the rose-sprigged frock and long curlsappeared at the doorway, showed that Cissy was clearly the favoritepupil. Elisha Braggs was a man of middle age, with a figure somewhat rounded bythe adipose curves of a comfortable life, and an air of fastidiousnesswhich was, however, occasionally at variance with what seemed to behis original condition. He greeted Cissy with a certain nervousoverconsciousness of his duties as host and teacher, and then plungedabruptly into the lesson. It lasted an hour, Cissy tactfullydividing his somewhat exclusive instruction with the others, and eveninterpreting it to their slower comprehension. When it was over, thechoristers shyly departed, according to their usual custom, leavingCissy and Don Eliseo--and occasionally one of the padres to moreinformal practicing and performance. Neither the ingenuousness of Cissynor the worldly caution of aunt Vashti had ever questioned the proprietyof these prolonged and secluded seances; and the young girl herself, although by no means unaccustomed to the bashful attentions of the youthof West Woodlands, had never dreamed of these later musical interviewsas being anything but an ordinary recreation of her art. The feeling ofgratitude and kindness she had for Don Eliseo, her aunt's friend, hadnever left her conscious or embarrassed when she was alone with him. But to-day, possibly from his own nervousness and preoccupation, she wasaware of some vague uneasiness, and at an early opportunity rose to go. But Don Eliseo gently laid his hand on hers and said:-- "Don't go yet; I want to talk to you. " His touch suddenly reminded herthat once or twice before he had done the same thing, and she had beendisagreeably impressed by it. But she lifted her brown eyes to his withan unconsciousness that was more crushing than a withdrawal of her hand, and waited for him to go on. "It is such a long way for you to come, and you have so little time tostay when you are here, that I am thinking of asking your aunt to letyou live here at the Mission, as a pupil, in the house of the SenoraHernandez, until your lessons are finished. Padre Jose will attend tothe rest of your education. Would you like it?" Poor Cissy's eyes leaped up in unaffected and sparkling affirmationbefore her tongue replied. To bask in this beloved sunshine for daystogether; to have this quaint Spanish life before her eyes, and thosesoft Spanish accents in her ears; to forget herself in wandering in theold-time Mission garden beyond; to have daily access to Mr. Braggs'spiano and the organ of the church--this was indeed the realizationof her fondest dreams! Yet she hesitated. Somewhere in her inheritedPuritan nature was a vague conviction that it was wrong, and it seemedeven to find an echo in the warning of the preacher: this was what shewas "pining for. " "I don't know, " she stammered. "I must ask auntie; I shouldn't like toleave her; and there's the chapel. " "Isn't that revivalist preacher enough to run it for a while?" said hercompanion, half-sneeringly. The remark was not a tactful one. "Mr. Seabright hasn't been here for a month, " she answered somewhatquickly. "But he's coming next Sunday, and I'm glad of it. He's a verygood man. And there's nothing he don't notice. He saw how silly it wasto stick the chapel into the very heart of the woods, and he told themso. " "And I suppose he'll run up a brand-new meeting-house out on the road, "said Braggs, smiling. "No, he's going to open up the woods, and let the sun and light in, andclear out the underbrush. " "And what's that for?" There was such an utter and abrupt change in the speaker's voice andmanner--which until then had been lazily fastidious and confident--thatCissy was startled. And the change being rude and dictatorial, she wasstartled into opposition. She had wanted to say that the improvement hadbeen suggested by HER, but she took a more aggressive attitude. "Brother Seabright says it's a question of religion and morals. It's ascandal and a wrong, and a disgrace to the Word, that the chapel shouldhave been put there. " Don Eliseo's face turned so white and waxy that Cissy would have noticedit had she not femininely looked away while taking this attitude. "I suppose that's a part of his sensation style, and very effective, " hesaid, resuming his former voice and manner. "I must try to hear him someday. But, now, in regard to your coming here, of course I shall consultyour aunt, although I imagine she will have no objection. I only wantedto know how YOU felt about it. " He again laid his hand on hers. "I should like to come very much, " said Cissy timidly; "and it's verykind of you, I'm sure; but you'll see what auntie says, won't you?" Shewithdrew her hand after momentarily grasping his, as if his own act hadbeen only a parting salutation, and departed. Aunt Vashti received Cissy's account of her interview with a grimsatisfaction. She did not know what ideas young gals had nowadays, butin HER time she'd been fit to jump outer her skin at such an offer fromsuch a good man as Elisha Braggs. And he was a rich man, too. And ef hewas goin' to give her an edication free, it wasn't goin' to stopthere. For her part, she didn't like to put ideas in young girls'heads, --goodness knows they'd enough foolishness already; but if Cissymade a Christian use of her gifts, and 'tended to her edication andprivileges, and made herself a fit helpmeet for any man, she would saythat there were few men in these parts that was as "comf'ble ketch" asLish Braggs, or would make as good a husband and provider. The blood suddenly left Cissy's cheeks and then returned withuncomfortable heat. Her aunt's words had suddenly revealed to herthe meaning of the uneasiness she had felt in Braggs's house thatmorning--the old repulsion that had come at his touch. She had neverthought of him as a suitor or a beau before, yet it now seemed perfectlyplain to her that this was the ulterior meaning of his generosity. Andyet she received that intelligence with the same mixed emotions withwhich she had received his offer to educate her. She did not concealfrom herself the pride and satisfaction she felt in this presumptiveselection of her as his wife; the worldly advantages that it promised;nor that it was a destiny far beyond her deserts. Yet she was consciousof exactly the same sense of wrong-doing in her preferences--somethingthat seemed vaguely akin to that "conviction of sin" of which she hadheard so much--as when she received his offer of education. It was thismixture of fear and satisfaction that caused her alternate paling andflushing, yet this time it was the fear that came first. Perhaps she wasbecoming unduly sensitive. The secretiveness of her sex came to her aidhere, and she awkwardly changed the subject. Aunt Vashti, complacentlybelieving that her words had fallen on fruitful soil, discreetly said nomore. It was a hot morning when Cissy walked alone to chapel early nextSunday. There was a dry irritation in the air which even the northwesttrades, blowing through the seaward gorge, could not temper, and for thefirst time in her life she looked forward to the leafy seclusion of theburied chapel with a feeling of longing. She had avoided her youthfulescort, for she wished to practice alone for an hour before the servicewith the new harmonium that had taken the place of the old accordion andits unskillful performer. Perhaps, too, there was a timid desire to beat her best on the return of Brother Seabright, and to show him, witha new performance, that the "heavenly gift" had not been neglected. Sheopened the chapel with the key she always carried, "swished" away anintrusive squirrel, left the door and window open for a moment, untilthe beating of frightened wings against the rafters had ceased, and, after carefully examining the floor for spiders, mice, and othercreeping things, brushed away a few fallen leaves and twigs from the topof the harmonium. Then, with her long curls tossed over her shouldersand hanging limply down the back of her new maple-leaf yellowfrock, --which was also a timid recognition of Brother Seabright'sreturn, --and her brown eyes turned to the rafters, this rustic St. Cecilia of the Coast Range began to sing. The shell of the littlebuilding dilated with the melody; the sashes of the windows pulsated, the two ejected linnets joined in timidly from their coign of vantage inthe belfry outside, and the limp vines above the porch swayed like hercurls. Once she thought she heard stealthy footsteps without; once shewas almost certain she felt the brushing of somebody outside against thethin walls of the chapel, and once she stopped to glance quickly at thewindow with a strange instinct that some one was looking at her. But shequickly reflected that Brother Seabright would come there only when thedeacons did, and with them. Why she should think that it was BrotherSeabright, or why Brother Seabright should come thus and at such a time, she could not have explained. He did not, in fact, make his appearance until later, and after thecongregation had quite filled the chapel; he did not, moreover, appearto notice her as she sat there, and when he gave out the hymn heseemed to have quietly overlooked the new harmonium. She sang her best, however, and more than one of the audience thought that "little SisterAppleby" had greatly improved. Indeed, it would not have seemed strangeto some--remembering Brother Seabright's discursive oratory--if he hadmade some allusion to it. But he did not. His heavy eyes moved slowlyover the congregation, and he began. As usual he did not take a text. But he would talk to them that morningabout "The Conviction of Sin" and the sense of wrong-doing that wasinnate in the sinner. This included all form of temptation, for whatwas temptation but the inborn consciousness of something to struggleagainst, and that was sin! At this apparently concise exposition ofher own feelings in regard to Don Eliseo's offer, Cissy felt herselfblushing to the roots of her curls. Could it be possible that BrotherSeabright had heard of her temptation to leave West Woodlands, andthat this warning was intended for her? He did not even look in herdirection. Yet his next sentence seemed to be an answer to her ownmental query. "Folks might ask, " he continued, "if even the young and inexperiencedshould feel this--or was there a state of innocent guilt withoutconsciousness?" He would answer that question by telling them what hadhappened to him that morning. He had come to the chapel, not by theroad, but through the tangled woods behind them (Cissy started)--throughthe thick brush and undergrowth that was choking the life out of thislittle chapel--the wilderness that he had believed was never beforetrodden by human feet, and was known only to roaming beasts and vermin. But that was where he was wrong. In the stillness and listening silence, a sudden cough from some onein one of the back benches produced that instantaneous diversion ofattention common to humanity on such occasions. Cissy's curls swunground with the others. But she was surprised to see that Mr. Braggs wasseated in one of the benches near the door, and from the fact ofhis holding a handkerchief to his mouth, and being gazed at by hisneighbors, it was evident that it was he who had coughed. Perhaps hehad come to West Woodlands to talk to her aunt! With the preacherbefore her, and her probable suitor behind her, she felt herself againblushing. Brother Seabright continued. Yes, he was WRONG, for there before him, inthe depths of the forest, were two children. They were looking at a bushof "pizon berries, "--the deadly nightshade, as it was fitly called, --andone was warning the other of its dangerous qualities. "But how do you know it's the 'pizon berry'?" asked the other. "Because it's larger, and nicer, and bigger, and easier to get than thereal good ones, " returned the other. And it was so. Thus was the truth revealed from the mouths of babesand sucklings; even they were conscious of temptation and sin! But herethere was another interruption from the back benches, which proved, however, to be only the suppressed giggle of a boy--evidently theyouthful hero of the illustration, surprised into nervous hilarity. The preacher then passed to the "Conviction of Sin" in its more familiarphases. Many brothers confounded this with DISCOVERY AND PUBLICITY. Itwas not their own sin "finding them out, " but others discovering it. Until that happened, they fancied themselves safe, stilling theirconsciences, confounding the blinded eye of the world with theall-seeing eye of the Lord. But were they safe even then? Did not sooneror later the sea deliver up its dead, the earth what was buried in it, the wild woods what its depths had hidden? Was not the foolish secret, the guilty secret, the forgotten sin, sure to be disclosed? Then if theycould not fly from the testimony of His works, if they could not evadeeven their fellow-man, why did they not first turn to Him? Why, from thepenitent child at his mother's knee to the murderer on the scaffold, didthey only at THE LAST confess unto Him? His voice and manner had suddenly changed. From the rough note ofaccusation and challenge it had passed into the equally rough, butbroken and sympathetic, accents of appeal. Why did they hesitate longerto confess their sin--not to man--but unto Him? Why did they delay?Now--that evening! That very moment! This was the appointed time! Heentreated them in the name of religious faith, in the name of a humanbrotherly love. His delivery was now no longer deliberate, buthurried and panting; his speech now no longer chosen, but made upof reiterations and repetitions, ejaculations, and even incoherentepithets. His gestures and long intonations which began to take theplace of even that interrupted speech affected them more than hisreasoning! Short sighs escaped them; they swayed to and fro with therhythm of his voice and movements. They had begun to comprehendthis exacerbation of emotion--this paroxysmal rhapsody. This was thedithyrambic exaltation they had ardently waited for. They respondedquickly. First with groans, equally inarticulate murmurs of assent, shouts of "Glory, " and the reckless invocation of sacred names. Then awave of hysteria seemed to move the whole mass, and broke into tearsand sobs among the women. In her own excited consciousness it seemedto Cissy that some actual struggle between good and evil--like untothe casting out of devils--was shaking the little building. She cast ahurried glance behind her and saw Mr. Braggs sitting erect, white andscornful. She knew that she too was shrinking from the speaker, --notfrom any sense of conviction, but because he was irritating anddisturbing her innate sense of fitness and harmony, --and she was painedthat Mr. Braggs should see him thus. Meantime the weird, invisiblestruggle continued, heightened and, it seemed to her, incited by thepartisan groans and exultant actions of those around her, until suddenlya wild despairing cry arose above the conflict. A vague fear seizedher--the voice was familiar! She turned in time to see the figureof aunt Vashti rise in her seat with a hysterical outburst, and fallconvulsively forward upon her knees! She would have rushed to her side, but the frenzied woman was instantly caught by Deacon Shadwell andsurrounded by a group of her own sex and became hidden. And when Cissyrecovered herself she was astonished to find Brother Seabright--withevery trace of his past emotion vanished from his hard-set face--calmlytaking up his coherent discourse in his ordinary level tones. Thefurious struggle of the moment before was over; the chapel and itscongregation had fallen back into an exhausted and apathetic silence!Then the preacher gave out the hymn--the words were singularly jubilantamong that usually mournful collection in the book before her--and Cissybegan it with a tremulous voice. But it gained strength, clearness, andvolume as she went on, and she felt thrilled throughout with a new humansympathy she had never known before. The preacher's bass supported hernow for the first time not unmusically--and the service was over. Relieved, she turned quickly to join her aunt, but a hand was laidgently upon her shoulder. It was Brother Seabright, who had just steppedfrom the platform. The congregation, knowing her to be the niece of thehysteric woman, passed out without disturbing them. "You have, indeed, improved your gift, Sister Cecilia, " he said gravely. "You must have practiced much. " "Yes--that is, no!--only a little, " stammered Cissy. "But, excuse me, I must look after auntie, " she added, drawing timidlyaway. "Your aunt is better, and has gone on with Sister Shadwell. She is notin need of your help, and really would do better without you just now. Ishall see her myself presently. " "But YOU made her sick already, " said Cissy, with a sudden, half-nervousaudacity. "You even frightened ME. " "Frightened you?" repeated Seabright, looking at her quickly. "Yes, " said Cissy, meeting his gaze with brown, truthful eyes. "Yes, when you--when you--made those faces. I like to hear you talk, but"--shestopped. Brother Seabright's rare smile again lightened his face. But it seemedsadder than when she had first seen it. "Then you have been practicing again at the Mission?" he said quietly;"and you still prefer it?" "Yes, " said Cissy. She wanted to appear as loyal to the Mission inBrother Seabright's presence as she was faithful to West Woodlandsin Mr. Braggs's. She had no idea that this was dangerously near tocoquetry. So she said a little archly, "I don't see why YOU don't likethe Mission. You're a missionary yourself. The old padres came here tospread the Word. So do you. " "But not in that way, " he said curtly. "I've seen enough of them whenI was knocking round the world a seafaring man and a sinner. I knewthem--receivers of the ill-gotten gains of adventurers, fools, andscoundrels. I knew them--enriched by the spoils of persecution andoppression; gathering under their walls outlaws and fugitives fromjustice, and flinging an indulgence here and an absolution there, asthey were paid for it. Don't talk to me of THEM--I know them. " They were passing out of the chapel together, and he made an impatientgesture as if dismissing the subject. Accustomed though she was tothe sweeping criticism of her Catholic friends by her West Woodlandsassociates, she was nevertheless hurt by his brusqueness. She droppeda little behind, and they separated at the porch. Notwithstandingher anxiety to see her aunt, she felt she could not now go to DeaconShadwell's without seeming to follow him--and after he had assured herthat her help was not required! She turned aside and made her way slowlytowards her home. There she found that her aunt had not returned, gathering from her unclethat she was recovering from a fit of "high strikes" (hysterics), andwould be better alone. Whether he underrated her complaint, or hada consciousness of his masculine helplessness in such disorders, heevidently made light of it. And when Cissy, afterwards, a little ashamedthat she had allowed her momentary pique against Brother Seabright tostand in the way of her duty, determined to go to her aunt, instead ofreturning to the chapel that evening, he did not oppose it. She learnedalso that Mr. Braggs had called in the morning, but, finding that heraunt Vashti was at chapel, he had followed her there, intending toreturn with her. But he had not been seen since the service, and hadevidently returned to the Mission. But when she reached Deacon Shadwell's house she was received by Mrs. Shadwell only. Her aunt, said that lady, was physically better, butBrother Seabright had left "partkler word" that she was to see nobody. It was an extraordinary case of "findin' the Lord, " the like of whichhad never been known before in West Woodlands, and she (Cissy) would yetbe proud of one of her "fammerly being speshally selected for grace. "But the "workin's o' salvation was not to be finicked away on worldlythings or even the affections of the flesh;" and if Cissy really lovedher aunt, "she wouldn't interfere with her while she was, so to speak, still on the mourners' bench, wrastlin' with the Sperret in their backsittin'-room. " But she might wait until Brother Seabright's return fromevening chapel after service. Cissy waited. Nine o'clock came, but Brother Seabright did not return. Then a small but inconsequent dignity took possession of her, and sheslightly tossed her long curls from her shoulders. She was not goingto wait for any man's permission to see her own aunt. If auntie did notwant to see her, that was enough. She could go home alone. She didn'twant any one to go with her. Lifted and sustained by these lofty considerations, with an erect headand slightly ruffled mane, well enwrapped in a becoming white merino"cloud, " the young girl stepped out on her homeward journey. Shehad certainly enough to occupy her mind and, perhaps, justify herindependence. To have a suitor for her hand in the person of thesuperior and wealthy Mr. Braggs, --for that was what his visit thatmorning to West Woodlands meant, --and to be personally complimentedon her improvement by the famous Brother Seabright, all within twelvehours, was something to be proud of, even although it was mitigatedby her aunt's illness, her suitor's abrupt departure, and BrotherSeabright's momentary coldness and impatience. Oddly enough, this lastand apparently trivial circumstance occupied her thoughts more than theothers. She found herself looking out for him in the windings of themoonlit road, and when, at last, she reached the turning towards thelittle wood and chapel, her small feet unconsciously lingered untilshe felt herself blushing under her fleecy "cloud. " She looked down thelane. From the point where she was standing the lights of the chapelshould have been plainly visible; but now all was dark. It was nearlyten o'clock, and he must have gone home by another road. Then a spiritof adventure seized her. She had the key of the chapel in her pocket. She remembered she had left a small black Spanish fan--a former gift ofMr. Braggs lying on the harmonium. She would go and bring it away, andsatisfy herself that Brother Seabright was not there still. It was but astep, and in the clear moonlight. The lane wound before her like a silver stream, except where it wasinterrupted and bridged over by jagged black shadows. The chapel itselfwas black, the clustering trees around it were black also; the porchseemed to cover an inky well of shadow; the windows were rayless anddead, and in the chancel one still left open showed a yawning vault ofobscurity within. Nevertheless, she opened the door softly, glided intothe dark depths, and made her way to the harmonium. But here the soundof footsteps without startled her; she glanced hurriedly through theopen window, and saw the figure of Elisha Braggs suddenly revealed inthe moonlight as he crossed the path behind the chapel. He was closelyfollowed by two peons, whom she recognized as his servants at theMission, and they each carried a pickaxe. From their manner it wasevident that they had no suspicion of her presence in the chapel. Butthey had stopped and were listening. Her heart beat quickly; witha sudden instinct she ran and bolted the door. But it was evidentlyanother intruder they were watching, for she presently saw BrotherSeabright quietly cross the lane and approach the chapel. The three menhad disappeared; but there was a sudden shout, the sound of scuffling, the deep voice of Brother Seabright saying, "Back, there, will you!Hands off!" and a pause. She could see nothing; she listened in everypulse. Then the voice of Brother Seabright arose again quite clearly, slowly, and as deliberately as if it had risen from the platform in thechapel. "Lish Barker! I thought as much! Lish Barker, first mate of theTamalpais, who was said to have gone down with a boat's crew and theship's treasure after she struck. I THOUGHT I knew that face today. " "Yes, " said the voice of him whom she had known as Elisha Braggs, --"yes, and I knew YOUR face, Jim Seabright, ex-whaler, slaver, pirate, andbo's'n of the Highflyer, marooned in the South Pacific, where you foundthe Lord--ha! ha!--and became the psalm-singing, converted Americansailor preacher!" "I am not ashamed before men of my past, which every one knows, "returned Seabright slowly. "But what of YOURS, Elisha Barker--YOURSthat has made you sham death itself to hide it from them? What ofYOURS--spent in the sloth of your ill-gotten gains! Turn, sinner, turn!Turn, Elisha Braggs, while there is yet time!" "Belay there, Brother Seabright; we're not INSIDE your gospel-shop justnow! Keep your palaver for those that need it. Let me pass, before Ihave to teach you that you haven't to deal with a gang of hysterical oldwomen to-night. " "But not until you know that one of those women, --Vashti White, --byGod's grace converted of her sins, has confessed her secret and yours, Elisha Barker! Yes! She has told me how her sister's husband--the fatherof the young girl you are trying to lure away--helped you off that nightwith your booty, took his miserable reward and lived and died in exilewith the rest of your wretched crew, --afraid to return to his home andcountry--whilst you--shameless and impenitent--lived in slothful ease atthe Mission!" "Liar! Let me pass!" "Not until I know your purpose here to-night. " "Then take the consequences! Here, Pedro! Ramon! Seize him. Tie him headand heels together, and toss him in the bush!" The sound of scuffling recommenced. The struggle seemed fierce and long, with no breath wasted in useless outcry. Then there was a bright flash, a muffled report, and the stinging and fire of gunpowder at the window. Transfixed with fear, Cissy cast a despairing glance around her. Ah, the bell-rope! In another instant she had grasped it frantically in herhands. All the fear, indignation, horror, sympathy, and wild appeal for helpthat had arisen helplessly in her throat and yet remained unuttered, nowseemed to thrill through her fingers and the tightened rope, and brokeinto frantic voice in the clanging metal above her. The whole chapel, the whole woodland, the clear, moonlit sky above was filled with itsalarming accents. It shrieked, implored, protested, summoned, andthreatened, in one ceaseless outcry, seeming to roll over and over--as, indeed, it did--in leaps and bounds that shook the belfry. Never before, even in the blows of the striking surges, had the bell of the Tamalpaisclamored like that! Once she heard above the turmoil the shaking of thedoor against the bolt that still held firmly; once she thought sheheard Seabright's voice calling to her; once she thought she smelledthe strong smoke of burning grass. But she kept on, until the window wassuddenly darkened by a figure, and Brother Seabright, leaping in, caughther in his arms as she was reeling fainting, but still clinging to therope. But his strong presence and some powerful magnetism in his touchrestored her. "You have heard all!" he said. "Yes. " "Then for your aunt's sake, for your dead father's sake, FORGET all!That wretched man has fled with his wounded hirelings--let his singo with him. But the village is alarmed--the brethren may be here anymoment! Neither question nor deny what I shall tell them. Fear nothing. God will forgive the silence that leaves the vengeance to His handsalone!" Voices and footsteps were heard approaching the chapel. BrotherSeabright significantly pressed her hand and strode towards the door. Deacon Shadwell was first to enter. "You here--Brother Seabright! What has happened?" "God be praised!" said Brother Seabright cheerfully, "nothing ofconsequence! The danger is over! Yet, but for the courage and presenceof mind of Sister Appleby a serious evil might have been done. " Hepaused, and with another voice turned half-interrogatively towards her. "Some children, or a passing tramp, had carelessly thrown matches inthe underbrush, and they were ignited beside the chapel. Sister Appleby, chancing to return here for"-- "For my fan, " said Cissy with a timid truthfulness of accent. "Found herself unable to cope with it, and it occurred to her to givethe alarm you heard. I happened to be passing and was first to respond. Happily the flames had made but little headway, and were quickly beatendown. It is all over now. But let us hope that the speedy clearing outof the underbrush and the opening of the woods around the chapel willprevent any recurrence of the alarm of to-night. " ***** That the lesson thus reiterated by Brother Seabright was effective, thefollowing extract, from the columns of the "Whale Point Gazette, " maynot only be offered as evidence, but may even give the cautious readerfurther light on the episode itself:-- STRANGE DISCOVERY AT WEST WOODLANDS. --THE TAMALPAIS MYSTERY AGAIN. The improvements in the clearing around the Sidon Chapel at WestWoodlands, undertaken by the Rev. James Seabright, have disclosedanother link in the mystery which surrounded the loss of the Tamalpaissome years ago at Whale Mouth Point. It will be remembered that the boatcontaining Adams & Co. 's treasure, the Tamalpais' first officer, anda crew of four men was lost on the rocks shortly after leaving theill-fated vessel. None of the bodies were ever recovered, and thetreasure itself completely baffled the search of divers and salvers. Alidless box bearing the mark of Adams & Co. , of the kind in which theirtreasure was usually shipped, was yesterday found in the woods behindthe chapel, half buried in brush, bark, and windfalls. There were noother indications, except the traces of a camp-fire at some remoteperiod, probably long before the building of the chapel. But how andwhen the box was transported to the upland, and by whose agency, stillremains a matter of conjecture. Our reporter who visited the Rev. Mr. Seabright, who has lately accepted the regular ministry of the chapel, was offered every facility for information, but it was evident that theearly settlers who were cognizant of the fact--if there were any--areeither dead or have left the vicinity. THE HOME-COMING OF JIM WILKES. I. For many minutes there had been no sound but the monotonous drumming ofthe rain on the roof of the coach, the swishing of wheels through thegravelly mud, and the momentary clatter of hoofs upon some rocky outcropin the road. Conversation had ceased; the light-hearted young editor inthe front seat, more than suspected of dangerous levity, had relapsedinto silence since the heavy man in the middle seat had taken toregarding the ceiling with ostentatious resignation, and the thin femalebeside him had averted her respectable bonnet. An occasional lurch ofthe coach brought down a fringe of raindrops from its eaves that filmedthe windows and shut out the sodden prospect already darkening intonight. There had been a momentary relief in their hurried dash throughSummit Springs, and the spectacle of certain newly arrived CountyDelegates crowding the veranda of its one hotel; but that was now threemiles behind. The young editor's sole resource was to occasionally steala glance at the face of the one passenger who seemed to be in sympathywith him, but who was too far away for easy conversation. It was thehalf-amused, half-perplexed face of a young man who had been forsome time regarding him from a remote corner of the coach with an oddmingling of admiring yet cogitating interest, which, however, had neverextended to any further encouragement than a faint sad smile. Even thisat last faded out in the growing darkness; the powerful coach lamps oneither side that flashed on the wayside objects gave no light to theinterior. Everybody was slowly falling asleep. Suddenly everybody wokeup to find that the coach was apparently standing still! When it hadstopped no one knew! The young editor lowered his window. The coach lampon that side was missing, but nothing was to be seen. In the distancethere appeared to be a faint splashing. "Well, " called out an impatient voice from the box above; "what do youmake it?" It was the authoritative accents of Yuba Bill, the driver, andeverybody listened eagerly for the reply. It came faintly from the distance and the splashing. "Almost four feethere, and deepening as you go. " "Dead water?" "No--back water from the Fork. " There was a general movement towards the doors and windows. Thesplashing came nearer. Then a light flashed on the trees, the windows, and--two feet of yellow water peacefully flowing beneath them! The thinfemale gave a slight scream. "There's no danger, " said the Expressman, now wading towards them withthe coach lamp in his hand. "But we'll have to pull round out of it andgo back to the Springs. There's no getting past this break to-night. " "Why didn't you let us know this before, " said the heavy man indignantlyfrom the window. "Jim, " said the driver with that slow deliberation which instantlyenforced complete attention. "Yes, Bill. " "Have you got a spare copy of that reg'lar bulletin that the StageKempany issoos every ten minutes to each passenger to tell 'em where weare, how far it is to the next place, and wots the state o' the weathergin'rally?" "No!" said the Expressman grimly, as he climbed to the box, "there's notone left. Why?" "Cos the Emperor of Chiny's inside wantin' one! Hoop! Keep your seatsdown there! G'lang!" the whip cracked, there was a desperate splashing, a backward and forward jolting of the coach, the glistening wet flanksand tossing heads of the leaders seen for a moment opposite the windows, a sickening swirl of the whole body of the vehicle as if parting fromits axles, a long straight dragging pull, and--presently the welcomesound of hoofs once more beating the firmer ground. "Hi! Hold up--driver!" It was the editor's quiet friend who was leaning from the window. "Isn't Wilkes's ranch just off here?" "Yes, half a mile along the ridge, I reckon, " returned the drivershortly. "Well, if you're not going on to-night, I'd get off and stop there. " "I reckon your head's level, stranger, " said Bill approvingly; "forthey're about chock full at the Springs' House. " To descend, the passenger was obliged to pass out by the middle seatand before the young editor. As he did so he cast a shy look on him and, leaning over, said hesitatingly, in a lower voice: "I don't think youwill be able to get in at the Springs Hotel. If--if--you care to comewith me to--to--the ranch, I can take care of you. " The young editor--a man of action--paused for an instant only. Thenseizing his bag, he said promptly: "Thank you, " and followed hisnewly-found friend to the ground. The whip cracked, the coach rolledaway. "You know Wilkes?" he said. "Ye-ee-s. He's my father. " "Ah, " said the editor cheerfully, "then you're going home?" "Yes. " It was quite light in the open, and the stranger, after a moment'ssurvey of the prospect, --a survey that, however, seemed to becharacterized by his previous hesitation, --said: "This way, " crossedthe road, and began to follow a quite plain but long disused wagon trackalong the slope. His manner was still so embarrassed that the youngeditor, after gayly repeating his thanks for his companion's thoughtfulcourtesy, followed him in silence. At the end of ten minutes they hadreached some cultivated fields and orchards; the stranger brightened, although still with a preoccupied air, quickened his pace, and thensuddenly stopped. When the editor reached his side he was gazing withapparently still greater perplexity upon the level, half obliterated, and blackened foundations of what had been a large farmhouse. "Why, it's been burnt down!" he said thoughtfully. The editor stared at him! Burnt down it certainly had been, but by nomeans recently. Grasses were already springing up from the charredbeams in the cellar, vines were trailing over the fallen chimneys, excavations, already old, had been made among the ruins. "When were youhere last?" the editor asked abruptly. "Five years ago, " said the stranger abstractedly. "Five years!--and you knew nothing of THIS?" "No. I was in Tahiti, Australia, Japan, and China all the time. " "And you never heard from home?" "No. You see I quo'led with the old man, and ran away. " "And you didn't write to tell them you were coming?" "No. " He hesitated, and then added: "Never thought o' coming till I sawYOU. " "Me!" "Yes; you and--the high water. " "Do you mean to say, " said the young editor sharply, "that you broughtME--an utter stranger to you--out of that coach to claim the hospitalityof a father you had quarreled with--hadn't seen for five years anddidn't know if he would receive you?" "Yes, --you see that's just WHY I did it. You see, I reckoned my chanceswould be better to see him along with a cheerful, chipper fellowlike you. I didn't, of course, kalkilate on this, " he added, pointingdejectedly to the ruins. The editor gasped; then a sudden conception of the unrivaled absurdityof the situation flashed upon him, --of his passively following theamiable idiot at his side in order to contemplate, by the falling rainand lonely night, a heap of sodden ruins, while the coach was speedingto Summit Springs and shelter, and, above all, the reason WHY he wasinvited, --until, putting down his bag, he leaned upon his stick, andlaughed until the tears came to his eyes. At which his companion visibly brightened. "I told you so, " he saidcheerfully; "I knew you'd be able to take it--and the old man--in THATWAY, and that would have fetched him round. " "For Heaven's sake! don't talk any more, " said the editor, wiping hiseyes, "but try to remember if you ever had any neighbors about herewhere we can stay tonight. We can't walk to Summit Springs, and we can'tcamp out on these ruins. " "There didn't use to be anybody nearer than the Springs. " "But that was five years ago, you say, " said the editor impatiently;"and although your father probably moved away after the house burneddown, the country's been thickly settled since then. That field has beenlately planted. There must be another house beyond. Let's follow thetrail a little farther. " They tramped along in silence, this time the editor leading. Presentlyhe stopped. "There's a house--in there--among the trees, " he said, pointing. "Whose is it?" The stranger shook his head dubiously. Although apparently unaffected byany sentimental consideration of his father's misfortune, the spectacleof the blackened ruins of the homestead had evidently shaken hispreconceived plans. "It wasn't there in MY time, " he said musingly. "But it IS there in OUR time, " responded the editor briskly, "and Ipropose to go there. From what you have told me of your father--even ifhis house were still standing--our chances of getting supper and a bedfrom him would be doubtful! I suppose, " he continued as they moved ontogether, "you left him in anger--five years ago?" "Ye-es. " "Did he say anything as you left?" "I don't remember anything particular that he SAID. " "Well, what did he DO?" "Shot at me from the window!" "Ah!" said the young editor softly. Nevertheless they walked on for sometime in silence. Gradually a white picket fence came into view at rightangles with the trail, and a man appeared walking leisurely along whatseemed to be the regularly traveled road, beside it. The editor, who hadtaken matters in his own hands, without speaking to his companion, ranquickly forward and accosted the stranger, briefly stating that he hadleft the stage-coach with a companion, because it was stopped by highwater, and asked, without entering into further details, to be directedto some place where they could pass the night. The man quite as brieflydirected him to the house among the trees, which he said was his own, and then leisurely pursued his way along the road. The young editorran back to his companion, who had halted in the dripping shadow of asycamore, and recounted his good fortune. "I didn't, " he added, "say anything about your father. You can makeinquiries yourself later. " "I reckon there won't be much need of that, " returned his companion. "You didn't take much note o' that man, did you?" "Not much, " said the editor. "Well, THAT'S MY FATHER, and I reckon that new house must be his. " II. The young editor was a little startled. The man he had just quittedcertainly was not dangerous looking, and yet, remembering what hisson had said, there WERE homicidal possibilities. "Look here, " he saidquickly, "he's not there NOW. Why don't you seize the opportunity toslip into the house, make peace with your mother and sisters, and getthem to intercede with your father when he returns?" "Thar ain't any mother; she died afore I left. My sister Almiry's alittle girl--though that's four years ago and mebbee she's growed. My brothers and me didn't pull together much. But I was thinkin' thatmebbee YOU might go in thar for me first, and see how the land lays;then sorter tell 'em 'bout me in your takin', chipper, easy way;make 'em laugh, and when you've squared 'em--I'll be hangin' roundoutside--you kin call ME in. Don't you see?" The young editor DID see. Ridiculous as the proposal would have seemedto him an hour ago, it now appeared practical, and even commended itselfto his taste. His name was well known in the county and his mediationmight be effective. Perhaps his vanity was slightly flattered by hiscompanion's faith in him; perhaps he was not free from a certain humancuriosity to know the rest; perhaps he was more interested than he caredto confess in the helpless home-seeker beside him. "But you must tell me something more of yourself, and your fortune andprospects. They'll be sure to ask questions. " "Mebbee they won't. But you can say I've done well--made my pile overin Australia, and ain't comin' on THEM. Remember--say I 'ain't comin' onthem'!" The editor nodded, and then, as if fearful of letting his presentimpulse cool, ran off towards the house. It was large and respectable looking, and augured well for the presentfortunes of the Wilkes's. The editor had determined to attack thecitadel on its weaker, feminine side, and when the front door was openedto his knock, asked to see Miss Almira Wilkes. The Irish servant showedhim into a comfortable looking sitting-room, and in another moment witha quick rustle of skirts in the passage a very pretty girl impulsivelyentered. From the first flash of her keen blue eyes the editor--a fairstudent of the sex--conceived the idea that she had expected somebodyelse; from the second that she was an arrant flirt, and did not intendto be disappointed. This much was in his favor. Spurred by her provoking eyes and the novel situation, he stated hisbusiness with an airy lightness and humor that seemed to justifyhis late companion's estimate of his powers. But even in his cynicalattitude he was unprepared for the girl's reception of his news. He hadexpected some indignation or even harshness towards this man whom he wasbeginning to consider as a kind of detrimental outcast or prodigal, buthe was astounded at the complete and utter indifference--the frank andheartless unconcern--with which she heard of his return. When she hadfollowed the narrator rather than his story to the end, she languidlycalled her brothers from the adjoining room. "This gentleman, Mr. Grey, of the 'Argus, ' has come across Jim--and Jim is calculating to come hereand see father. " The two brothers stared at Grey, slightly shrugged their shoulders withthe same utter absence of fraternal sympathy or concern which the girlhad shown, and said nothing. "One moment, " said Grey a little warmly; "I have no desire to penetratefamily secrets, but would you mind telling me if there is any gravereason why he should not come. Was there any scandalous conduct, unpardonable offense--let us even say--any criminal act on his partwhich makes his return to this roof impossible?" The three looked at each other with a dull surprise that ended in avacant wondering smile. "No, no, " they said in one voice. "No, only"-- "Only what?" asked Grey impatiently. "Dad just hates him!" "Like pizon, " smiled Almira. The young editor rose with a slight increase of color. "Look here, " saidthe girl, whose dimples had deepened as she keenly surveyed him, asif detecting some amorous artifice under his show of interest for herbrother. "Dad's gone down to the sheepfold and won't be back for anhour. Yo' might bring--YO' FRIEND--in. " "He ain't wantin' anything? Ain't dead broke? nor nothin', eh?"suggested one of the brothers dubiously. Grey hastened to assure them of Jim's absolute solvency, and evenenlarged considerably on his Australian fortune. They looked relievedbut not interested. "Go and fetch him, " said the witch, archly hovering near Grey withdancing eyes; "and mind YO' come back, too!" Grey hesitated a moment and then passed out in the dark porch. Adripping figure emerged from the trees opposite. It was Jim. "Your sister and brothers will see you, " said Grey hastily, to avoidembarrassing details. "HE won't be here for an hour. But I'd advise youto make the most of your time, and get the good-will of your sister. "He would have drawn back to let the prodigal pass in alone, but the manappealingly seized his arm, and Grey was obliged to re-enter with him. He noticed, however, that he breathed hard. They turned slightly towards their relative, but did not offer toshake hands with him, nor did he with them. He sat down sideways on anunoffered chair. "The old house got burnt!" he said, wiping his lips, and then drying his wet hair with his handkerchief. As the remark was addressed to no one in particular it was some secondsbefore the elder brother replied: "Yes. " "Almira's growed. " Again no one felt called upon to answer, and Almira glanced archly atthe young editor as if he might have added: "and improved. " "You've done well?" returned one of the brothers tentatively. "Yes, I'm all right, " said Jim. There was another speechless interval. Even the conversational Grey feltunder some unhallowed spell of silence that he could not break. "I see the old well is there yet, " said Jim, wiping his lips again. "Where dad was once goin' to chuck you down for givin' him back talk, "said the younger brother casually. To Mr. Grey's relief and yet astonishment, Jim burst into a loud laughand rubbed his legs. "That's so--how old times DO come back!" "And, " said the bright-eyed Almira, "there's that old butternut-tree thatyou shinned up one day when we set the hounds on you. Goodness! how youscooted!" Again Jim laughed loudly and nodded. "Yes, the same old butternut. Howyou DO remember, Almira?" This admiringly. "And don't you remember Delia Short?" continued Almira, pleased at theadmiration, and perhaps a little exalted at the singular attention whichthe young editor was giving to those cheerful reminiscences. "She, youknow, you was reg'larly sick after, so that we always allowed she kinderturned yo' brain afore you went away! Well! all the while you werecourtin' her it appears she was secretly married to Jo--yo' friend--JoStacy. Lord! there was a talk about that! and about yo' all alongthinkin' yo' had chances! Yo' friend here, " with an arch glance at Grey, "who's allus puttin' folks in the newspapers, orter get a hold on that!" Jim again laughed louder than the others, and rubbed his lips. Grey, however, offered only the tribute of a peculiar smile and walked to thewindow. "You say your father will return in an hour?" he said, turningto the elder brother. "Yes, unless he kept on to Watson's. " "Where?" said Jim suddenly. It struck Grey that his voice had changed--or rather that he was nowspeaking for the first time in his natural tone. "Watson's, just over the bridge, " explained his brother. "If he wentthere he won't be back till ten. " Jim picked up his India rubber cape and hat, said, "I reckon I'll justtake a turn outside until he gets back, " and walked towards the door. None of his relatives moved nor seemed to offer any opposition. Greyfollowed him quickly. "I'll go with you, " he said. "No, " returned Jim with singular earnestness. "You stay here and keep'em up cheerful like this. They're doing all this for YOU, you know;Almiry's just this chipper only on your account. " Seeing the young man was inflexible, Grey returned grimly to the room, but not until he had noticed, with some surprise, that Jim, immediatelyon leaving the house, darted off at a quick run through the rain anddarkness. Preoccupied with this, and perhaps still influenced by thetone of the previous conversation, he did not respond readily to thefair Almira's conversational advances, and was speedily left to a seatby the fire alone. At the end of ten minutes he regretted he had evercome; when half an hour had passed he wondered if he had not better tryto reach the Summit alone. With the lapse of an hour he began to feeluneasy at Jim's prolonged absence in spite of the cold indifferenceof the household. Suddenly he heard stamping in the porch, a mutteredexclamation, and the voices of the two brothers in the hall. "Why, dad!what's up? Yo' look half drowned!" The door opened upon the sodden, steaming figure of the old man whom hehad met on the road, followed by the two sons. But he was evidentlymore occupied and possessed by some mental passion than by his physicaldiscomfort. Yet strong and dominant over both, he threw off his wet coatand waistcoat as he entered, and marched directly to the fire. Utterlyignoring the presence of a stranger, he suddenly turned and faced hisfamily. "Half drowned. Yes! and I might have been hull drowned for that matter. The back water of the Fork is all over Watson's, and the bridge is gone. I stumbled onto this end of it in the dark, and went off, head first, into twenty feet of water! Tried to fight my way out, but the currentwas agin me. I'd bin down twice, and was going down for the thirdtime, when somebody grabbed me by the scruff o' my neck and under thearm--so!--and swam me to the bank! When I scrambled up I sez: 'I can'tsee your face, ' sez I, 'I don't know who you are, ' sez I, 'but I reckonyou're a white man and clear grit, ' sez I, 'and there's my hand on it!'And he grabs it and sez, 'We're quits, ' and scooted out o' my sight. And, " continued the old man staring at their faces and raising his voicealmost to a scream, "who do you think it was? Why, THAT SNEAKIN' HOUNDOF A BROTHER OF YOURS--JIM! Jim! the scallawag that I booted outer theranch five years ago, crawlin', writhin' back again after all theseyears to insult his old father's gray hairs! And some of you--byGod--once thought that I was hard on him!" ***** The sun was shining brightly the next morning as the young editor haltedthe up coach in the now dried hollow. As he was clambering to a seatbeside the driver, his elbow was jogged at the window. Looking down hesaw the face of Jim. "We had a gay talk last night, remembering old times, didn't we?" saidthe prodigal cheerfully. "Yes, but--where are you going now?" "Back to Australia, I reckon! But it was mighty good to drop in on theold homestead once more!" "Rather, " said the editor, clinging to the window and lingering inmid-air to the manifest impatience of Yuba Bill; "but I say--lookhere!--were you QUITE satisfied?" Jim's hand tightened around the young editor's as he answeredcheerfully, "Yes. " But his face was turned away from the window.