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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Creole Days, by George Washington Cable
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old Creole Days
+
+Author: George Washington Cable
+
+Release Date: November 24, 2003 [EBook #10234]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD CREOLE DAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, L Barber and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+OLD CREOLE DAYS
+
+A STORY OF CREOLE LIFE
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE W. CABLE
+
+1907
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+MADAME DELPHINE
+CAFÉ DES EXILÉS
+BELLES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION
+"POSSON JONE'"
+JEAN-AH POQUELIN
+'TITE POULETTE
+'SIEUR GEORGE
+MADAME DÉLICIEUSE
+
+
+
+
+MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+AN OLD HOUSE.
+
+A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to
+and across Canal Street, the central avenue of the city, and to that
+corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the
+arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant
+merchandise. The crowd--and if it is near the time of the carnival it
+will be great--will follow Canal Street.
+
+But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover of
+Creole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone to
+call the Rue Royale. You will pass a few restaurants, a few
+auction-rooms, a few furniture warehouses, and will hardly realize that
+you have left behind you the activity and clatter of a city of merchants
+before you find yourself in a region of architectural decrepitude, where
+an ancient and foreign-seeming domestic life, in second stories,
+overhangs the ruins of a former commercial prosperity, and upon every
+thing has settled down a long sabbath of decay. The vehicles in the
+street are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores are
+shrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of bright
+mould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many great
+doors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many street
+windows are nailed up; half the balconies are begrimed and rust-eaten,
+and many of the humid arches and alleys which characterize the older
+Franco-Spanish piles of stuccoed brick betray a squalor almost oriental.
+
+Yet beauty lingers here. To say nothing of the picturesque, sometimes
+you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched
+wicket in some _porte-cochère_--red-painted brick pavement, foliage of
+dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming
+parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten
+window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a
+glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and much
+similar rich antiquity.
+
+The faces of the inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the street
+a sad proportion are dingy and shabby; but just when these are putting
+you off your guard, there will pass you a woman--more likely two or
+three--of patrician beauty.
+
+Now, if you will go far enough down this old street, you will see, as
+you approach its intersection with ----. Names in that region elude one
+like ghosts.
+
+However, as you begin to find the way a trifle more open, you will not
+fail to notice on the right-hand side, about midway of the square, a
+small, low, brick house of a story and a half, set out upon the
+sidewalk, as weather-beaten and mute as an aged beggar fallen asleep.
+Its corrugated roof of dull red tiles, sloping down toward you with an
+inward curve, is overgrown with weeds, and in the fall of the year is
+gay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with
+your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten
+shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are
+shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated.
+Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the
+house has the lockjaw. There are two doors, and to each a single chipped
+and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on a line
+with the house, is a garden masked from view by a high, close
+board-fence. You may see the tops of its fruit-trees--pomegranate,
+peach, banana, fig, pear, and particularly one large orange, close by
+the fence, that must be very old.
+
+The residents over the narrow way, who live in a three-story house,
+originally of much pretension, but from whose front door hard times have
+removed almost all vestiges of paint, will tell you: "Yass, de 'ouse is
+in'abit; 'tis live in."
+
+And this is likely to be all the information you get--not that they
+would not tell, but they cannot grasp the idea that you wish to
+know--until, possibly, just as you are turning to depart, your
+informant, in a single word and with the most evident non-appreciation
+of its value, drops the simple key to the whole matter:
+
+"Dey's quadroons."
+
+He may then be aroused to mention the better appearance of the place in
+former years, when the houses of this region generally stood farther
+apart, and that garden comprised the whole square.
+
+Here dwelt, sixty years ago and more, one Delphine Carraze; or, as she
+was commonly designated by the few who knew her, Madame Delphine. That
+she owned her home, and that it had been given her by the then deceased
+companion of her days of beauty, were facts so generally admitted as to
+be, even as far back as that sixty years ago, no longer a subject of
+gossip. She was never pointed out by the denizens of the quarter as a
+character, nor her house as a "feature." It would have passed all Creole
+powers of guessing to divine what you could find worthy of inquiry
+concerning a retired quadroon woman; and not the least puzzled of all
+would have been the timid and restive Madame Delphine herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+During the first quarter of the present century, the free quadroon caste
+of New Orleans was in its golden age. Earlier generations--sprung, upon
+the one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial military
+service which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-American
+frontier life, and, upon the other hand from comely Ethiopians culled
+out of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at the
+ship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still in
+their head-dresses,--these earlier generations, with scars of battle or
+private rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on the
+manumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was to
+result from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devoted
+to the elimination of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperian
+excellence and nymphean grace and beauty. Nor, if we turn to the
+present, is the evidence much stronger which is offered by the _gens de
+couleur_ whom you may see in the quadroon quarter this afternoon, with
+"Ichabod" legible on their murky foreheads through a vain smearing of
+toilet powder, dragging their chairs down to the narrow gateway of their
+close-fenced gardens, and staring shrinkingly at you as you pass, like a
+nest of yellow kittens.
+
+But as the present century was in its second and third decades, the
+_quadroones_ (for we must contrive a feminine spelling to define the
+strict limits of the caste as then established) came forth in splendor.
+Old travellers spare no terms to tell their praises, their faultlessness
+of feature, their perfection of form, their varied styles of
+beauty,--for there were even pure Caucasian blondes among them,--their
+fascinating manners, their sparkling vivacity, their chaste and pretty
+wit, their grace in the dance, their modest propriety, their taste and
+elegance in dress. In the gentlest and most poetic sense they were
+indeed the sirens of this land where it seemed "always afternoon"--a
+momentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, so
+beautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of special
+chapters by writers of the day more original than correct as social
+philosophers.
+
+The balls that were got up for them by the male _sang-pur_ were to that
+day what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the same
+nights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates of
+government,--municipal, state, federal,--those of the army, of the
+learned professions and of the clubs,--in short, the white male
+aristocracy in every thing save the ecclesiastical desk,--were there.
+Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. No
+distinguished stranger was allowed to miss them. They were beautiful!
+They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet, and
+wore, withal, a pathos in their charm that gave them a family likeness
+to innocence.
+
+Madame Delphine, were you not a stranger, could have told you all about
+it; though hardly, I suppose, without tears.
+
+But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendor
+was set, and her husband--let us call him so for her sake--was long
+dead. He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man of
+noble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we can
+do without.
+
+Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine's
+chief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked up
+in-doors. She was an excellent person, the neighbors said,--a very
+worthy person; and they were, maybe, nearer correct then they knew. They
+rarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; a small,
+rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and a gentle
+thoughtfulness of expression which would take long to describe: call it
+a widow's look.
+
+In speaking of Madame Delphine's house, mention should have been made of
+a gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk. It is gone now, and
+was out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron staple
+clasping the cross-bar and driven into the post.
+
+Which leads us to speak of another person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+CAPITAINE LEMAITRE.
+
+He was one of those men that might be any age,--thirty, forty,
+forty-five; there was no telling from his face what was years and what
+was only weather. His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but also
+luminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterward
+remembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of his
+eyes. Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face the
+closest. But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not with
+the oddness that he who had reared him had striven to produce.
+
+He had not been brought up by mother or father. He had lost both in
+infancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa of
+the colonial school, whose unceasing endeavor had been to make "his boy"
+as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as it
+became a pure-blooded French Creole to be who would trace his pedigree
+back to the god Mars.
+
+"Remember, my boy," was the adjuration received by him as regularly as
+his waking cup of black coffee, "that none of your family line ever kept
+the laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he should
+bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from
+the nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of
+gentle, _judicial_ benevolence. The domestics of the old man's house
+used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe.
+His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial
+expression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or of
+large dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come.
+
+And, true enough, at twenty-one (in Ursin Lemaitre), the labors of his
+grandfather were an apparent success. He was not rugged, nor was he
+loud-spoken, as his venerable trainer would have liked to present him to
+society; but he was as serenely terrible as a well-aimed rifle, and the
+old man looked upon his results with pride. He had cultivated him up to
+that pitch where he scorned to practise any vice, or any virtue, that
+did not include the principle of self-assertion. A few touches only were
+wanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old man
+died. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to
+see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride,
+of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.
+
+The two Lafittes were, at the time young Lemaitre reached his majority
+(say 1808 or 1812), only merchant-blacksmiths, so to speak, a term
+intended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands,
+who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, and
+moved in society among its autocrats. But they were full of
+possibilities, men of action, and men, too, of thought, with already a
+pronounced disbelief in the custom-house. In these days of big carnivals
+they would have been patented as the dukes of Little Manchac and
+Barataria.
+
+Young Ursin Lemaitre (in full the name was Lemaitre-Vignevielle) had not
+only the hearty friendship of these good people, but also a natural turn
+for accounts; and as his two friends were looking about them with an
+enterprising eye, it easily resulted that he presently connected himself
+with the blacksmithing profession. Not exactly at the forge in the
+Lafittes' famous smithy, among the African Samsons, who, with their
+shining black bodies bared to the waist, made the Rue St. Pierre ring
+with the stroke of their hammers; but as a--there was no occasion to
+mince the word in those days--smuggler.
+
+Smuggler--patriot--where was the difference? Beyond the ken of a
+community to which the enforcement of the revenue laws had long been
+merely so much out of every man's pocket and dish, into the
+all-devouring treasury of Spain. At this date they had come under a
+kinder yoke, and to a treasury that at least echoed when the customs
+were dropped into it; but the change was still new. What could a man be
+more than Capitaine Lemaitre was--the soul of honor, the pink of
+courtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of the
+elephant; frank--the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: his
+paper was good in Toulouse Street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs he
+was the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimer
+virtues.
+
+Years went by. Events transpired which have their place in history.
+Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted in
+their interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to grow
+disreputable, hazardous, and debased. In certain onslaughts made upon
+them by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. The
+business became unprofitable for a time until the enterprising
+Lafittes--thinkers--bethought them of a corrective--"privateering".
+
+Thereupon the United States Government set a price upon their heads.
+Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offered
+money and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, then
+hovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that they
+had spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of the
+market, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they were
+received as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in the
+battle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--here
+tradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward.
+
+Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was among
+the missing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THREE FRIENDS.
+
+The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans was
+a little man fondly known among his people as Père Jerome. He was a
+Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwelling
+was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall,
+close fence, and reached by a narrow out-door stair from the green
+batten gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated
+behind by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of
+the chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in
+benediction. The name of the street--ah! there is where light is
+wanting. Save the Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of
+record concerning churches at that time, though they were springing up
+here and there. All there is certainty of is that Père Jerome's frame
+chapel was some little new-born "down-town" thing, that may have
+survived the passage of years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory"
+"so as by fire." His parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell
+distinctly there the vow of poverty. His bed-chamber was bare and clean,
+and the bed in it narrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-room
+that would tempt a laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table was
+small, but stout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made of
+fine wood, and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinkling
+pleasantry. His mother's and sister's doing, Père Jerome would explain;
+they would not permit this apartment--or department--to suffer. Therein,
+as well as in the parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort,
+that explained interestingly the Père Jerome's rotundity and rosy smile.
+
+In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes to
+sit with Père Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached--one,
+Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now his brother
+in-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngest manhood, and
+both, like the little priest himself, the regretful rememberers of a
+fourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like Père Jerome, they had
+come, through years, to the thick of life's conflicts,--the priest's
+brother-in-law a physician, the other an attorney, and brother-in-law to
+the lonely wanderer,--yet they loved to huddle around this small board,
+and be boys again in heart while men in mind. Neither one nor another
+was leader. In earlier days they had always yielded to him who no longer
+met with them a certain chieftainship, and they still thought of him and
+talked of him, and, in their conjectures, groped after him, as one of
+whom they continued to expect greater things than of themselves.
+
+They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing,
+speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric way,
+the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of
+the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the
+lawyer, who was half Américain; but running sometimes into English and
+sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.
+
+Père Jerome advanced an idea something like this:
+
+"It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality
+of any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can know
+how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or
+our fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is a
+community of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human since
+Adam--nay, nor Adam himself--ever sinned entirely to himself. And so I
+never am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel my
+conscience pointing at me as one of the accessories."
+
+"In a word," said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, "you think we are
+partly to blame for the omission of many of your Paternosters, eh?"
+
+Father Jerome smiled.
+
+"No; a man cannot plead so in his own defence; our first father tried
+that, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absent
+friend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as
+partners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wiser
+care and with better companions, how different might he not have been!
+How can we speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from
+that name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his
+speech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'Père Jerome, 'ow dat is a
+dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Ain't it?'
+'Ah, madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I 'ope de good God will fo'give
+me an' you fo' dat!'"
+
+Jean Thompson answered quickly:
+
+"You should not have let her say that."
+
+"_Mais_, fo' w'y?"
+
+"Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the more
+to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have said,"--the
+attorney changed to French,--"'He is no pirate; he has merely taken out
+letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the republic of
+Carthagena!'"
+
+"_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his
+brother-in-law, the priest, laughed.
+
+"Why not?" demanded Thompson.
+
+"Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand."
+
+Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else,
+when Père Jerome spoke.
+
+"I will tell you what I could have said, I could have said: 'Madame,
+yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him. He stum'le in de dark; but dat good God
+will mek it a _mo' terrible fo'_ dat man oohever he is, w'at put 'at
+light out!'"
+
+"But how do you know he is a pirate?" demanded Thompson, aggressively.
+
+"How do we know?" said the little priest, returning to French. "Ah!
+there is no other explanation of the ninety-and-nine stories that come
+to us, from every port where ships arrive from the north coast of Cuba,
+of a commander of pirates there who is a marvel of courtesy and
+gentility"--[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See gazettes of the period.]
+
+"And whose name is Lafitte," said the obstinate attorney.
+
+"And who, nevertheless, is not Lafitte," insisted Père Jerome.
+
+"Daz troo, Jean," said Doctor Varrillat. "We hall know daz troo."
+
+Père Jerome leaned forward over the board and spoke, with an air of
+secrecy, in French.
+
+"You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. You
+have heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of the
+ship himself drove them off."
+
+"An incredible story," said Thompson.
+
+"But not so incredible as the truth. I have it from a passenger. There
+was on the ship a young girl who was very beautiful. She came on deck,
+where the corsair stood, about to issue his orders, and, more beautiful
+than ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a small
+missal spread open, and her finger on the Apostles' Creed, commanded him
+to read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stood gazing
+on her face, which did not quail; and then with a low bow, said: 'Give
+me this book and I will do your bidding.' She gave him the book and bade
+him leave the ship, and he left it unmolested."
+
+Père Jerome looked from the physician to the attorney and back again,
+once or twice, with his dimpled smile.
+
+"But he speaks English, they say," said Jean Thompson.
+
+"He has, no doubt, learned it since he left us," said the priest.
+
+"But this ship-master, too, says his men called him Lafitte."
+
+"Lafitte? No. Do you not see? It is your brother-in-law, Jean Thompson!
+It is your wife's brother! Not Lafitte, but" (softly) "Lemaitre!
+Lemaitre! Capitaine Ursin Lemaitre!"
+
+The two guests looked at each other with a growing drollery on either
+face, and presently broke into a laugh.
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor, as the three rose up, "you juz kip dad
+cog-an'-bull fo' yo' negs summon."
+
+Père Jerome's eyes lighted up--
+
+"I goin' to do it!"
+
+"I tell you," said Evariste, turning upon him with sudden gravity, "iv
+dad is troo, I tell you w'ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyare
+nut'n fo' doze creed; _he fall in love!_"
+
+Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to Père
+Jerome:
+
+"But anny'ow you tell it in dad summon dad 'e hyare fo' dad creed."
+
+Père Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter. The remarkable
+effects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently find him
+attributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find for
+some a more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was but
+one of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity and
+incredible eccentricity Père Jerome had a regular correspondent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE CAP FITS.
+
+About two months after the conversation just given, and therefore
+somewhere about the Christmas holidays of the year 1821, Père Jerome
+delighted the congregation of his little chapel with the announcement
+that he had appointed to preach a sermon in French on the following
+sabbath--not there, but in the cathedral.
+
+He was much beloved. Notwithstanding that among the clergy there were
+two or three who shook their heads and raised their eyebrows, and said
+he would be at least as orthodox if he did not make quite so much of the
+Bible and quite so little of the dogmas, yet "the common people heard
+him gladly." When told, one day, of the unfavorable whispers, he smiled
+a little and answered his informant,--whom he knew to be one of the
+whisperers himself,--laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder:
+
+"Father Murphy,"--or whatever the name was,--"your words comfort me."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Because--_'Voe quum benedixerint mihi homines!'_" [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "Woe unto me when all men speak well of me!"]
+
+The appointed morning, when it came, was one of those exquisite days in
+which there is such a universal harmony, that worship rises from the
+heart like a spring.
+
+"Truly," said Père Jerome to the companion who was to assist him in the
+mass, "this is a sabbath day which we do not have to make holy, but only
+to _keep_ so."
+
+Maybe it was one of the secrets of Père Jerome's success as a preacher,
+that he took more thought as to how he should feel, than as to what he
+should say.
+
+The cathedral of those days was called a very plain old pile, boasting
+neither beauty nor riches; but to Père Jerome it was very lovely; and
+before its homely altar, not homely to him, in the performance of those
+solemn offices, symbols of heaven's mightiest truths, in the hearing of
+the organ's harmonies, and the yet more elegant interunion of human
+voices in the choir, in overlooking the worshipping throng which knelt
+under the soft, chromatic lights, and in breathing the sacrificial odors
+of the chancel, he found a deep and solemn joy; and yet I guess the
+finest thought of his the while was one that came thrice and again:
+
+"Be not deceived, Père Jerome, because saintliness of feeling is easy
+here; you are the same priest who overslept this morning, and over-ate
+yesterday, and will, in some way, easily go wrong to-morrow and the day
+after."
+
+He took it with him when--the _Veni Creator_ sung--he went into the
+pulpit. Of the sermon he preached, tradition has preserved for us only a
+few brief sayings, but they are strong and sweet.
+
+"My friends," he said,--this was near the beginning,--"the angry words
+of God's book are very merciful--they are meant to drive us home; but
+the tender words, my friends, they are sometimes terrible! Notice these,
+the tenderest words of the tenderest prayer that ever came from the lips
+of a blessed martyr--the dying words of the holy Saint Stephen, 'Lord,
+lay not this sin to their charge.' Is there nothing dreadful in that?
+Read it thus: 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' Not to the
+charge of them who stoned him? To whose charge then? Go ask the holy
+Saint Paul. Three years afterward, praying in the temple at Jerusalem,
+he answered that question: 'I stood by and consented.' He answered for
+himself only; but the Day must come when all that wicked council that
+sent Saint Stephen away to be stoned, and all that city of Jerusalem,
+must hold up the hand and say: 'We, also, Lord--we stood by.' Ah!
+friends, under the simpler meaning of that dying saint's prayer for the
+pardon of his murderers is hidden the terrible truth that we all have a
+share in one another's sins."
+
+Thus Père Jerome touched his key-note. All that time has spared us
+beside may be given in a few sentences.
+
+"Ah!" he cried once, "if it were merely my own sins that I had to answer
+for, I might hold up my head before the rest of mankind; but no, no, my
+friends--we cannot look each other in the face, for each has helped the
+other to sin. Oh, where is there any room, in this world of common
+disgrace, for pride? Even if we had no common hope, a common despair
+ought to bind us together and forever silence the voice of scorn!"
+
+And again, this:
+
+"Even in the promise to Noë, not again to destroy the race with a flood,
+there is a whisper of solemn warning. The moral account of the
+antediluvians was closed off, and the balance brought down in the year
+of the deluge; but the account of those who come after runs on and on,
+and the blessed bow of promise itself warns us that God will not stop it
+till the Judgment Day! O God, I thank thee that that day must come at
+last, when thou wilt destroy the world, and stop the interest on my
+account!"
+
+It was about at this point that Père Jerome noticed, more particularly
+than he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, a
+small, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, who
+gave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress,
+seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck were
+scrupulously concealed by a heavy veil, and her hands, which were small,
+by gloves.
+
+"Quadroones," thought he, with a stir of deep pity.
+
+Once, as he uttered some stirring word, he saw the mother and daughter
+(if such they were), while they still bent their gaze upon him, clasp
+each other's hand fervently in the daughter's lap. It was at these
+words:
+
+"My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleans
+to whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the _nots_
+rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling to
+purgatory for leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go who
+strew it with thorns and briers!"
+
+The movement of the pair was only seen because he watched for it. He
+glanced that way again as he said:
+
+"O God, be very gentle with those children who would be nearer heaven
+this day had they never had a father and mother, but had got their
+religious training from such a sky and earth as we have in Louisiana
+this holy morning! Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"
+
+The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged
+the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full
+of tears.
+
+"I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side
+aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other,
+"who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single only
+principle of life: defiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even
+gain; but defiance: defiance to God, defiance to man, defiance to
+nature, defiance to reason; defiance and defiance and defiance."
+
+"He is going to tell it!" murmured Evariste to Jean.
+
+"This man," continued Père Jerome, "became a smuggler and at last a
+pirate in the Gulf of Mexico. Lord, lay not that sin to his charge
+alone! But a strange thing followed. Being in command of men of a sort
+that to control required to be kept at the austerest distance, he now
+found himself separated from the human world and thrown into the solemn
+companionship with the sea, with the air, with the storm, the calm the
+heavens by day, the heavens by night. My friends, that was the first
+time in his life that he ever found himself in really good company.
+
+"Now, this man had a great aptness for accounts. He had kept them--had
+rendered them. There was beauty, to him, in a correct, balanced, and
+closed account. An account unsatisfied was a deformity. The result is
+plain. That man, looking out night after night upon the grand and holy
+spectacle of the starry deep above and the watery deep below, was sure
+to find himself, sooner or later, mastered by the conviction that the
+great Author of this majestic creation keeps account of it; and one
+night there came to him, like a spirit walking on the sea, the awful,
+silent question: 'My account with God--how does it stand?' Ah! friends,
+that is a question which the book of nature does not answer.
+
+"Did I say the book of nature is a catechism? Yes. But, after it answers
+the first question with 'God,' nothing but questions follow; and so, one
+day, this man gave a ship full of merchandise for one little book which
+answered those questions. God help him to understand it! and God help
+you, monsieur, and you, madame, sitting here in your _smuggled clothes_,
+to beat upon the breast with me and cry, 'I, too, Lord--I, too, stood by
+and consented.'"
+
+Père Jerome had not intended these for his closing words; but just
+there, straight away before his sight and almost at the farthest door, a
+man rose slowly from his seat and regarded him steadily with a kind,
+bronzed, sedate face, and the sermon, as if by a sign of command, was
+ended. While the Credo was being chanted he was still there; but when, a
+moment after its close, the eye of Père Jerome returned in that
+direction, his place was empty.
+
+As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, was
+turning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, he
+just had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing him
+to overtake them, when the one nearer him spoke in the Creole _patois,_
+saying, with some timid haste:
+
+"Good-morning, Père--Père Jerome; Père Jerome, we thank the good God for
+that sermon."
+
+"Then, so do I," said the little man. They were the same two that he had
+noticed when he was preaching. The younger one bowed silently; she was a
+beautiful figure, but the slight effort of Père Jerome's kind eyes to
+see through the veil was vain. He would presently have passed on, but
+the one who had spoken before said:
+
+"I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines."
+
+"Yes; but I am going this way to see a sick person."
+
+The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and
+timidity.
+
+"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good
+God," she said.
+
+Père Jerome smiled:
+
+"God does not need me to look after his sick; but he allows me to do it,
+just as you let your little boy in frocks carry in chips." He might have
+added that he loved to do it, quite as much.
+
+It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to get
+courage to ask it.
+
+"You have a little boy?" asked the priest.
+
+"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side. Then
+she began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousness
+asked:
+
+"Père Jerome, what was the name of that man?"
+
+"His name?" said the priest. "You wish to know his name?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur" (or _Miché_, as she spoke it); "it was such a beautiful
+story." The speaker's companion looked another way.
+
+"His name," said Father Jerome,--"some say one name and some another.
+Some think it was Jean Lafitte, the famous; you have heard of him? And
+do you go to my church, Madame----?"
+
+"No, Miché; not in the past; but from this time, yes. My name"--she
+choked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer this
+mark of confidence--"is Madame Delphine--Delphine Carraze."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+A CRY OF DISTRESS.
+
+Père Jerome's smile and exclamation, as some days later he entered his
+parlor in response to the announcement of a visitor, were indicative of
+hearty greeting rather than surprise.
+
+"Madame Delphine!"
+
+Yet surprise could hardly have been altogether absent, for though
+another Sunday had not yet come around, the slim, smallish figure
+sitting in a corner, looking very much alone, and clad in dark attire,
+which seemed to have been washed a trifle too often, was Delphine
+Carraze on her second visit. And this, he was confident, was over and
+above an attendance in the confessional, where he was sure he had
+recognized her voice.
+
+She rose bashfully and gave her hand, then looked to the floor, and
+began a faltering speech, with a swallowing motion in the throat, smiled
+weakly and commenced again, speaking, as before, in a gentle, low note,
+frequently lifting up and casting down her eyes while shadows of anxiety
+and smiles of apology chased each other rapidly across her face. She was
+trying to ask his advice.
+
+"Sit down," said he; and when they had taken seats she resumed, with
+downcast eyes:
+
+"You know,--probably I should have said this in the confessional, but"--
+
+"No matter, Madame Delphine; I understand; you did not want an oracle,
+perhaps; you want a friend."
+
+She lifted her eyes, shining with tears, and dropped them again.
+
+"I"--she ceased. "I have done a"--she dropped her head and shook it
+despondingly--"a cruel thing." The tears rolled from her eyes as she
+turned away her face.
+
+Père Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with the
+evident intention of speaking at length.
+
+"It began nineteen years ago--by"--her eyes, which she had lifted, fell
+lower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and she
+murmured--"I fell in love."
+
+She said no more, and by and by Père Jerome replied:
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine, to love is the right of every soul. I believe in
+love. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardian
+smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to
+answer for, and yet I think God may have said 'She is a quadroone; all
+the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to
+her--almost compulsory,--charge it to account of whom it may concern.'"
+
+"No, no!" said Madame Delphine, looking up quickly, "some of it might
+fall upon"--Her eyes fell, and she commenced biting her lips and
+nervously pinching little folds in her skirt. "He was good--as good as
+the law would let him be--better, indeed, for he left me property, which
+really the strict law does not allow. He loved our little daughter very
+much. He wrote to his mother and sisters, owning all his error and
+asking them to take the child and bring her up. I sent her to them when
+he died, which was soon after, and did not see my child for sixteen
+years. But we wrote to each other all the time, and she loved me. And
+then--at last"--Madame Delphine ceased speaking, but went on diligently
+with her agitated fingers, turning down foolish hems lengthwise of her
+lap.
+
+"At last your mother-heart conquered," said Père Jerome.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"The sisters married, the mother died; I saw that even where she was she
+did not escape the reproach of her birth and blood, and when she asked
+me to let her come"--The speaker's brimming eyes rose an instant. "I
+know it was wicked, but--I said, come."
+
+The tears dripped through her hands upon her dress.
+
+"Was it she who was with you last Sunday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And now you do not know what to do with her?"
+
+"_Ah! c'est ça oui_!--that is it."
+
+"Does she look like you, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Oh, thank God", no! you would never believe she was my daughter, she is
+white and beautiful!"
+
+"You thank God for that which is your main difficulty, Madame Delphine."
+
+"Alas! yes."
+
+Père Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed
+out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.
+
+"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame
+Delphine, without changing his attitude.
+
+Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.
+
+"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest,
+speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had
+dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness
+which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His
+happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They
+cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally--which they
+have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.
+
+"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once
+to the worst.
+
+The woman made a quick gesture, and buried her head in her handkerchief,
+with the stifled cry:
+
+"Oh, Olive, my daughter!"
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine," said Père Jerome, more buoyantly, "one thing is
+sure: we _must_ find a way out of this trouble."
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, looking heavenward, "if it might be!"
+
+"But it must be!" said the priest.
+
+"But how shall it be?" asked the desponding woman.
+
+"Ah!" said Père Jerome, with a shrug, "God knows."
+
+"Yes," said the quadroone, with a quick sparkle in her gentle eye; "and
+I know, if God would tell anybody, He would tell you!"
+
+The priest smiled and rose.
+
+"Do you think so? Well, leave me to think of it. I will ask Him."
+
+"And He will tell you!" she replied. "And He will bless you!" She rose
+and gave her hand. As she withdrew it she smiled. "I had such a strange
+dream," she said, backing toward the door.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes. I got my troubles all mixed up with your sermon. I dreamed I made
+that pirate the guardian of my daughter."
+
+Père Jerome smiled also, and shrugged.
+
+"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in this
+country, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I think
+that one is, without doubt, the best."
+
+"Without doubt," echoed Madame Delphine, wearily, still withdrawing
+backward. Père Jerome stepped forward and opened the door.
+
+The shadow of some one approaching it from without fell upon the
+threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting
+from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair
+where the hat had covered it, and dark below, gently stroking back his
+very soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while
+Père Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger
+hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine's
+eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor
+were of white duck.
+
+"Well, Père Jerome," she said, in a hurried undertone, "I am just going
+to say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!"
+
+"Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze. Good-day, Madame
+Carraze."
+
+And as she departed, the priest turned to the newcomer and extended both
+hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had been
+addressing the quadroone:
+
+"Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!"
+
+They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playing
+with the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, often
+mentioning Evariste and often Jean.
+
+Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to Père
+Jerome's. His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar. She
+passed through the one and with downcast eyes was standing at the other,
+her hand lifted to knock, when the door was drawn open and the white
+duck shoes passed out. She saw, besides, this time the blue cottonade
+suit.
+
+"Yes," the voice of Père Jerome was saying, as his face appeared in the
+door--"Ah! Madame"--
+
+"I lef' my para_sol_," said Madame Delphine, in English.
+
+There was this quiet evidence of a defiant spirit hidden somewhere down
+under her general timidity, that, against a fierce conventional
+prohibition, she wore a bonnet instead of the turban of her caste, and
+carried a parasol.
+
+Père Jerome turned and brought it.
+
+He made a motion in the direction in which the late visitor had
+disappeared.
+
+"Madame Delphine, you saw dat man?"
+
+"Not his face."
+
+"You couldn' billieve me iv I tell you w'at dat man purpose to do!"
+
+"Is dad so, Père Jerome?"
+
+"He's goin' to hopen a bank!"
+
+"Ah!" said Madame Delphine, seeing she was expected to be astonished.
+
+Père Jerome evidently longed to tell something that was best kept
+secret; he repressed the impulse, but his heart had to say something. He
+threw forward one hand and looking pleasantly at Madame Delphine, with
+his lips dropped apart, clenched his extended hand and thrusting it
+toward the ground, said in a solemn undertone:
+
+"He is God's own banker, Madame Delphine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+MICHÉ VIGNEVIELLE.
+
+Madame Delphine sold one of the corner lots of her property. She had
+almost no revenue, and now and then a piece had to go. As a consequence
+of the sale, she had a few large bank-notes sewed up in her petticoat,
+and one day--maybe a fortnight after her tearful interview with Père
+Jerome--she found it necessary to get one of these changed into small
+money. She was in the Rue Toulouse, looking from one side to the other
+for a bank which was not in that street at all, when she noticed a small
+sign hanging above a door, bearing the name "Vignevielle." She looked
+in. Père Jerome had told her (when she had gone to him to ask where she
+should apply for change) that if she could only wait a few days, there
+would be a new concern opened in Toulouse Street,--it really seemed as
+if Vignevielle was the name, if she could judge; it looked to be, and it
+was, a private banker's,--"U.L. Vignevielle's," according to a larger
+inscription which met her eyes as she ventured in. Behind the counter,
+exchanging some last words with a busy-mannered man outside, who, in
+withdrawing, seemed bent on running over Madame Delphine, stood the man
+in blue cottonade, whom she had met in Père Jerome's doorway. Now, for
+the first time, she saw his face, its strong, grave, human kindness
+shining softly on each and every bronzed feature. The recognition was
+mutual. He took pains to speak first, saying, in a re-assuring tone, and
+in the language he had last heard her use: "'Ow I kin serve you,
+Madame?"
+
+"Iv you pliz, to mague dad bill change, Miché."
+
+She pulled from her pocket a wad of dark cotton handkerchief, from which
+she began to untie the imprisoned note. Madame Delphine had an
+uncommonly sweet voice, and it seemed so to strike Monsieur Vignevielle.
+He spoke to her once or twice more, as he waited on her, each time in
+English, as though he enjoyed the humble melody of its tone, and
+presently, as she turned to go, he said:
+
+"Madame Carraze!"
+
+She started a little, but bethought herself instantly that he had heard
+her name in Père Jerome's parlor. The good father might even have said a
+few words about her after her first departure; he had such an
+overflowing heart. "Madame Carraze," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "doze
+kine of note wad you '_an_' me juz now is bein' contrefit. You muz tek
+kyah from doze kine of note. You see"--He drew from his cash-drawer a
+note resembling the one he had just changed for her, and proceeded to
+point out certain tests of genuineness. The counterfeit, he said, was so
+and so.
+
+"Bud," she exclaimed, with much dismay, "dad was de manner of my bill!
+Id muz be--led me see dad bill wad I give you,--if you pliz, Miché."
+
+Monsieur Vigneville turned to engage in conversation with an employé and
+a new visitor, and gave no sign of hearing Madame Delphine's voice. She
+asked a second time, with like result, lingered timidly, and as he
+turned to give his attention to a third visitor, reiterated:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle, I wizh you pliz led"--
+
+"Madame Carraze," he said, turning so suddenly as to make the frightened
+little woman start, but extending his palm with a show of frankness, and
+assuming a look of benignant patience, "'ow I kin fine doze note now,
+mongs' all de rez? Iv you p'iz nod to mague me doze troub'."
+
+The dimmest shadow of a smile seemed only to give his words a more
+kindly authoritative import, and as he turned away again with a manner
+suggestive of finality, Madame Delphine found no choice but to depart.
+But she went away loving the ground beneath the feet of Monsieur U.L.
+Vignevielle.
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome!" she exclaimed in the corrupt French of her caste,
+meeting the little father on the street a few days later, "you told the
+truth that day in your parlor. _Mo conné li à c't heure_. I know him
+now; he is just what you called him."
+
+"Why do you not make him _your_ banker, also, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I have done so this very day!" she replied, with more happiness in her
+eyes than Père Jerome had ever before seen there.
+
+"Madame Delphine," he said, his own eyes sparkling, "make _him_ your
+daughter's guardian; for myself, being a priest, it would not be best;
+but ask him; I believe he will not refuse you."
+
+Madame Delphine's face grew still brighter as he spoke.
+
+"It was in my mind," she said.
+
+Yet to the timorous Madame Delphine many trifles became, one after
+another, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weeks
+elapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But at
+length, one day in May, 1822, in a small private office behind Monsieur
+Vignevielle's banking-room,--he sitting beside a table, and she, more
+timid and demure than ever, having just taken a chair by the door,--she
+said, trying, with a little bashful laugh, to make the matter seem
+unimportant, and yet with some tremor of voice:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle, I bin maguing my will." (Having commenced their
+acquaintance in English, they spoke nothing else.)
+
+"'Tis a good idy," responded the banker.
+
+"I kin mague you de troub' to kib dad will fo' me Miché Vignevielle?"
+
+"Yez."
+
+She looked up with grateful re-assurance; but her eyes dropped again as
+she said:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle"--Here she choked, and began her peculiar motion of
+laying folds in the skirt of her dress, with trembling fingers. She
+lifted her eyes, and as they met the look of deep and placid kindness
+that was in his face, some courage returned, and she said:
+
+"Miché."
+
+"Wad you wand?" asked he, gently.
+
+"If it arrive to me to die"--
+
+"Yez?"
+
+Her words were scarcely audible:
+
+"I wand you teg kyah my lill' girl."
+
+"You 'ave one lill' gal, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She nodded with her face down.
+
+"An' you godd some mo' chillen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I nevva know dad, Madame Carraze. She's a lill small gal?"
+
+Mothers forget their daughters' stature. Madame Delphine said:
+
+"Yez."  For a few moments neither spoke, and then Monsieur Vignevielle
+said:
+
+"I will do dad."
+
+"Lag she been you' h-own?" asked the mother, suffering from her own
+boldness.
+
+"She's a good lill' chile, eh?"
+
+"Miché, she's a lill' hangel!" exclaimed Madame Delphine, with a look of
+distress.
+
+"Yez; I teg kyah 'v 'er, lag my h-own. I mague you dad promise."
+
+"But"--There was something still in the way, Madame Delphine seemed to
+think.
+
+The banker waited in silence.
+
+"I suppose you will want to see my lill' girl?"
+
+He smiled; for she looked at him as if she would implore him to decline.
+
+"Oh, I tek you' word fo' hall dad, Madame Carraze. It mague no differend
+wad she loog lag; I don' wan' see 'er."
+
+Madame Delphine's parting smile--she went very shortly--was gratitude
+beyond speech.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle returned to the seat he had left, and resumed a
+newspaper,--the _Louisiana Gazette_ in all probability,--which he had
+laid down upon Madame Delphine's entrance. His eyes fell upon a
+paragraph which had previously escaped his notice. There they rested.
+Either he read it over and over unwearyingly, or he was lost in thought.
+Jean Thompson entered.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Thompson, in a suppressed tone bending a little across
+the table, and laying one palm upon a package of papers which lay in the
+other, "it is completed. You could retire, from your business any day
+inside of six hours without loss to anybody." (Both here and elsewhere,
+let it be understood that where good English is given the words were
+spoken in good French.)
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle raised his eyes and extended the newspaper to the
+attorney, who received it and read the paragraph. Its substance was that
+a certain vessel of the navy had returned from a cruise in the Gulf of
+Mexico and Straits of Florida, where she had done valuable service
+against the pirates--having, for instance, destroyed in one fortnight in
+January last twelve pirate vessels afloat, two on the stocks, and three
+establishments ashore.
+
+"United States brig _Porpoise_" repeated Jean Thompson. "Do you know
+her?"
+
+"We are acquainted," said Monsieur Vignevielle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+SHE.
+
+A quiet footstep, a grave new presence on financial sidewalks, a neat
+garb slightly out of date, a gently strong and kindly pensive face, a
+silent bow, a new sign in the Rue Toulouse, a lone figure with a cane,
+walking in meditation in the evening light under the willows of Canal
+Marigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the Rue Conti--these were
+all; a fall of dew would scarce have been more quiet than was the return
+of Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle to the precincts of his birth and early
+life.
+
+But we hardly give the event its right name. It was Capitaine Lemaìtre
+who had disappeared; it was Monsieur Vignevielle who had come back. The
+pleasures, the haunts, the companions, that had once held out their
+charms to the impetuous youth, offered no enticements to Madame
+Delphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride his
+grandfather had taught him, that it had always hald him above low
+indulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knaves
+through all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done it
+loftily; but now he maintained a peaceful estrangement from all.
+Evariste and Jean, themselves, found him only by seeking.
+
+"It is the right way," he said to Père Jerome, the day we saw him there.
+"Ursin Lemaìtre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. I am his
+executor."
+
+"He is crazy," said his lawyer brother-in-law, impatiently.
+
+"On the contr-y," replied the little priest, "'e 'as come ad hisse'f."
+
+Evariste spoke.
+
+"Look at his face, Jean. Men with that kind of face are the last to go
+crazy."
+
+"You have not proved that," replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy.
+"You should have heard him talk the other day about that newspaper
+paragraph I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; I
+claim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship.' He is
+crazy."
+
+Of course Jean Thompson did not believe what he said; but he said it,
+and, in his vexation, repeated it, on the _banquettes_ and at the clubs;
+and presently it took the shape of a sly rumor, that the returned rover
+was a trifle snarled in his top-hamper.
+
+This whisper was helped into circulation by many trivial eccentricities
+of manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some of his transactions
+in business.
+
+"My dear sir!" cried his astounded lawyer, one day, "you are not running
+a charitable institution!"
+
+"How do you know?" said Monsieur Vignevielle. There the conversation
+ceased.
+
+"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once," asked the
+attorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit of
+it?"
+
+"And make the end worse than the beginning,' said the banker, with a
+gentle smile, turning away to a desk of books.
+
+"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went he
+seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those
+who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but
+those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or
+gate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, you
+might see him give it a gentle push with his hand or cane It was very
+singular.
+
+He walked much alone after dark. The _gurchinangoes_ (garroters, we
+might say), at those times the city's particular terror by night, never
+crossed his path. He was one of those men for whom danger appears to
+stand aside.
+
+One beautiful summer night, when all nature seemed hushed in ecstasy,
+the last blush gone that told of the sun's parting, Monsieur
+Vignevielle, in the course of one of those contemplative, uncompanioned
+walks which it was his habit to take, came slowly along the more open
+portion of the Rue Royale, with a step which was soft without intention,
+occasionally touching the end of his stout cane gently to the ground and
+looking upward among his old acquaintances, the stars.
+
+It was one of those southern nights under whose spell all the sterner
+energies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in bivouac, and the
+fancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, slip their fetters and
+escape, beckoned away from behind every flowering bush and
+sweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, by
+the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was still
+again, as if the breezes lifted their expectant pinions and lowered them
+once more, awaiting the rising of the moon in a silence which fell upon
+the fields, the roads, the gardens, the walls, and the suburban and
+half-suburban streets, like a pause in worship. And anon she rose.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle's steps were bent toward the more central part of
+the town, and he was presently passing along a high, close, board-fence,
+on the right hand side of the way, when, just within this enclosure,
+and almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a
+mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. It
+may have been only the nearness of the songster that attracted the
+passer's attention, but he paused and looked up.
+
+And then he remarked something more,--that the air where he had stopped
+was filled with the overpowering sweetness of the night-jasmine. He
+looked around; it could only be inside the fence. There was a gate just
+there. Would he push it, as his wont was? The grass was growing about it
+in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. An
+iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the
+gate-post. But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithing
+business--an eye which had later received high training as an eye for
+fastenings--fell upon that staple, and saw at a glance that the wood had
+shrunk from it, and it had sprung from its hold, though without falling
+out. The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large hand upon the
+cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate was drawn
+partly open.
+
+At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door or
+gate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image of
+whose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it had
+met him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way of
+destruction.
+
+The bird ceased. The cause of the interruption, standing within the
+opening, saw before him, much obscured by its own numerous shadows, a
+broad, ill-kept, many-flowered garden, among whose untrimmed rose-trees
+and tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell,
+the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weeds
+stood up in bloom. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There,
+very near by, was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had tempted
+him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned from him
+in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the right, and
+escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely a door of
+the house might open upon it. While he still looked, there fell upon his
+ear, from around that curve, a light footstep on the broken shells--one
+only, and then all was for a moment still again. Had he mistaken? No.
+The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a pale glimpse of robes came
+through the tangle, and then, plainly to view, appeared an outline--a
+presence--a form--a spirit--a girl!
+
+From throat to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the
+medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich
+waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two
+heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees,
+a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and her
+temples,--her arms, half hid in a snowy mist of sleeve, let down to
+guide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of the
+grass,--straight down the path she came!
+
+Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the
+deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and
+vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms,
+the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon
+tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? _Can it be_? Is this
+his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to Monsieur Vignevielle the
+unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is
+now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will
+shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to do
+that. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neck
+and throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mockingbird cannot
+withhold; he breaks into song--she turns--she turns her face--it is she,
+it is she! Madame Delphine's daughter is the girl he met on the ship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+OLIVE
+
+She was just passing seventeen--that beautiful year when the heart of
+the maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion,
+while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation of
+womanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair were
+fair without paleness, and meek without languor. She had the soft,
+lack-lustre beauty of the South; no ruddiness of coral, no waxen white,
+no pink of shell; no heavenly blue in the glance; but a face that
+seemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for the
+large, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingled
+dreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We say no color of
+shell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency, that which took its
+place being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory.
+
+This side doorway which led from Madame Delphine's house into her garden
+was over-arched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice, and
+partly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaned a
+rustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when the
+twilights were balmy or the moon was bright.
+
+"_Chérie_," said Madame Delphine on one of those evenings, "why do you
+dream so much?"
+
+She spoke in the _patois_ most natural to her, and which her daughter
+had easily learned.
+
+The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped her
+glance to the hands in her own lap; which were listlessly handling the
+end of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Her
+dress was white again; this was but one night since that in which
+Monsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He had
+not been discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leaving
+it as he had found it.
+
+Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in the
+moonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chaste
+drapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion was
+again laying aside to re-assume the medaeval bondage of the staylace;
+for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphine
+and her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue,
+of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside her
+hands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentle
+admiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden.
+
+Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, and
+on that account repeated her question:
+
+"What are you thinking about?"
+
+The dreamer took the hand that was laid upon hers between her own palms,
+bowed her head, and gave them a soft kiss.
+
+The mother submitted. Wherefore, in the silence which followed, a
+daughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, and
+Olive presently said, as the pair sat looking up into the sky:
+
+"I was thinking of Père Jerome's sermon."
+
+Madame Delphine had feared so. Olive had lived on it ever since the day
+it was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having ever
+afforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become of
+secondary value to her daughter; she fed upon the sermon.
+
+Olive felt her mother's thought and knew that her mother knew her own;
+but now that she had confessed, she would ask a question:
+
+"Do you think, _maman_, that Père Jerome knows it was I who gave that
+missal?"
+
+"No," said Madame Delphine, "I am sure he does not."
+
+Another question came more timidly:
+
+"Do--do you think he knows _him_?"
+
+"Yes, I do. He said in his sermon he did."
+
+Both remained for a long time very still, watching the moon gliding in
+and through among the small dark-and-white clouds. At last the daughter
+spoke again.
+
+"I wish I was Père--I wish I was as good as Père Jerome."
+
+"My child," said Madame Delphine, her tone betraying a painful summoning
+of strength to say what she had lacked the courage to utter,--"my child,
+I pray the good God you will not let your heart go after one whom you
+may never see in this world!"
+
+The maiden turned her glance, and their eyes met. She cast her arms
+about her mother's neck, laid her cheek upon it for a moment, and then,
+feeling the maternal tear, lifted her lips, and, kissing her, said:
+
+"I will not! I will not!"
+
+But the voice was one, not of willing consent, but of desperate
+resolution.
+
+"It would be useless, anyhow," said the mother, laying her arm around
+her daughter's waist.
+
+Olive repeated the kiss, prolonging it passionately.
+
+"I have nobody but you," murmured the girl; "I am a poor quadroone!"
+
+She threw back her plaited hair for a third embrace, when a sound in the
+shrubbery startled them.
+
+"_Qui ci pa?_" called Madame Delphine, in a frightened voice, as the
+two stood up, holding to each other.
+
+No answer.
+
+"It was only the dropping of a twig," she whispered, after a long
+holding of the breath. But they went into the house and barred it
+everywhere.
+
+It was no longer pleasant to sit up. They retired, and in course of
+time, but not soon, they fell asleep, holding each other very tight, and
+fearing, even in their dreams, to hear another twig fall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+BIRDS.
+
+Monsieur Vigneville looked in at no more doors or windows; but if the
+disappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came to
+notice which were especially bad,--for instance, wakefulness. At
+well-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared not
+patrol singly, would meet him on his slow, unmolested, sky-gazing walk.
+
+"Seems to enjoy it," said Jean Thompson; "the worst sort of evidence. If
+he showed distress of mind, it would not be so bad; but his
+calmness,--ugly feature."
+
+The attorney had held his ground so long that he began really to believe
+it was tenable.
+
+By day, it is true, Monsieur Vignevielle was at his post in his quiet
+"bank." Yet here, day by day, he was the source of more and more vivid
+astonishment to those who held preconceived notions of a banker's
+calling. As a banker, at least, he was certainly out of balance; while
+as a promenader, it seemed to those who watched him that his ruling idea
+had now veered about, and that of late he was ever on the quiet alert,
+not to find, but to evade, somebody.
+
+"Olive, my child," whispered Madame Delphine one morning, as the pair
+were kneeling side by side on the tiled floor of the church, "yonder is
+Miché Vignevielle! If you will only look at once--he is just passing a
+little in--Ah, much too slow again; he stepped out by the side door."
+
+The mother thought it a strange providence that Monsieur Vignevielle
+should always be disappearing whenever Olive was with her.
+
+One early dawn, Madame Delphine, with a small empty basket on her arm,
+stepped out upon the _banquette_ in front of her house, shut and
+fastened the door very softly, and stole out in the direction whence you
+could faintly catch, in the stillness of the daybreak, the songs of the
+Gascon butchers and the pounding of their meat-axes on the stalls of the
+distant market-house. She was going to see if she could find some birds
+for Olive,--the child's appetite was so poor; and, as she was out, she
+would drop an early prayer at the cathedral. Faith and works.
+
+"One must venture something, sometimes, in the cause of religion,"
+thought she, as she started timorously on her way. But she had not gone
+a dozen steps before she repented her temerity. There was some one
+behind her.
+
+There should not be any thing terrible in a footstep merely because it
+is masculine; but Madame Delphine's mind was not prepared to consider
+that. A terrible secret was haunting her. Yesterday morning she had
+found a shoe-track in the garden. She had not disclosed the discovery to
+Olive, but she had hardly closed her eyes the whole night.
+
+The step behind her now might be the fall of that very shoe. She
+quickened her pace, but did not leave the sound behind. She hurried
+forward almost at a run; yet it was still there--no farther, no nearer.
+Two frights were upon her at once--one for herself, another for Olive,
+left alone in the house; but she had but the one prayer--"God protect my
+child!" After a fearful time she reached a place of safety, the
+cathedral. There, panting, she knelt long enough to know the pursuit
+was, at least, suspended, and then arose, hoping and praying all the
+saints that she might find the way clear for her return in all haste to
+Olive.
+
+She approached a different door from that by which she had entered, her
+eyes in all directions and her heart in her throat.
+
+"Madame Carraze."
+
+She started wildly and almost screamed, though the voice was soft and
+mild. Monsieur Vignevielle came slowly forward from the shade of the
+wall. They met beside a bench, upon which she dropped her basket.
+
+"Ah, Miché Vignevielle, I thang de good God to mid you!"
+
+"Is dad so, Madame Carraze? Fo' w'y dad is?"
+
+"A man was chase me all dad way since my 'ouse!"
+
+"Yes, Madame, I sawed him."
+
+"You sawed 'im? Oo it was?"
+
+"'Twas only one man wad is a foolizh. De people say he's crezzie.
+_Mais_, he don' goin' to meg you no 'arm."
+
+"But I was scare' fo' my lill' girl."
+
+"Noboddie don' goin' trouble you' lill' gal, Madame Carraze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked up into the speaker's strangely kind and patient
+eyes, and drew sweet reassurance from them.
+
+"Madame," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "wad pud you bout so hearly dis
+morning?"
+
+She told him her errand. She asked if he thought she would find any
+thing.
+
+"Yez," he said, "it was possible--a few lill' _bécassines-de-mer_, ou
+somezin' ligue. But fo' w'y you lill' gal lose doze hapetide?"
+
+"Ah, Miché,"--Madame Delphine might have tried a thousand times again
+without ever succeeding half so well in lifting the curtain upon the
+whole, sweet, tender, old, old-fashioned truth,--"Ah, Miché, she wone
+tell me!"
+
+"Bud, anny'ow, Madame, wad you thing?"
+
+"Miché," she replied, looking up again with a tear standing in either
+eye, and then looking down once more as she began to speak, "I thing--I
+thing she's lonesome."
+
+"You thing?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Ah! Madame Carraze," he said, partly extending his hand, "you see? 'Tis
+impossible to mague you' owze shud so tighd to priv-en dad. Madame, I
+med one mizteg."
+
+"Ah, _non_, Miché!"
+
+"Yez. There har nod one poss'bil'ty fo' me to be dad guardian of you'
+daughteh!"
+
+Madame Delphine started with surprise and alarm.
+
+"There is ondly one wad can be," he continued.
+
+"But oo, Miché?"
+
+"God."
+
+"Ah, Miché Vignevielle"--She looked at him appealingly.
+
+"I don' goin' to dizzerd you, Madame Carraze," he said.
+
+She lifted her eyes. They filled. She shook her head, a tear fell, she
+bit her lip, smiled, and suddenly dropped her face into both hands, sat
+down upon the bench and wept until she shook.
+
+"You dunno wad I mean, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She did not know.
+
+"I mean dad guardian of you' daughteh godd to fine 'er now one 'uzban';
+an' noboddie are hable to do dad egceb de good God 'imsev. But, Madame,
+I tell you wad I do."
+
+She rose up. He continued:
+
+"Go h-open you' owze; I fin' you' daughteh dad uzban'."
+
+Madame Delphine was a helpless, timid thing; but her eyes showed she was
+about to resent this offer. Monsieur Vignevielle put forth his hand--it
+touched her shoulder--and said, kindly still, and without eagerness:
+
+"One w'ite man, Madame: 'tis prattycabble. I know 'tis prattycabble. One
+w'ite jantleman, Madame. You can truz me. I goin' fedge 'im. H-ondly you
+go h-open you' owze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked down, twining her handkerchief among her fingers.
+
+He repeated his proposition.
+
+"You will come firz by you'se'f?" she asked.
+
+"Iv you wand."
+
+She lifted up once more her eye of faith. That was her answer.
+
+"Come," he said, gently, "I wan' sen' some bird ad you' lill' gal."
+
+And they went away, Madame Delphine's spirit grown so exaltedly bold
+that she said as they went, though a violent blush followed her words:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle, I thing Père Jerome mighd be ab'e to tell you
+someboddie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+FACE TO FACE.
+
+Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.
+
+"_Ah! ma, piti sans popa_! Ah I my little fatherless one!" Her faded
+bonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, and
+her dropped basket, with its "few lill' _bécassines-de-mer_" dangling
+from the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "_Ma
+piti_! kiss!--kiss!--kiss!"
+
+"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth or
+fifth time.
+
+"_Dieu sait, ma cère; mo pas conné!_"--God knows, my darling; I cannot
+tell!
+
+The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, and
+burst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and wept
+afresh.
+
+"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn,
+fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother's
+bonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"
+
+"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing--I am such a fool."
+
+The girl's eyes filled. The mother looked up into her face and said:
+
+"No, it is nothing, nothing, only that"--turning her head from side to
+side with a slow, emotional emphasis, "Miché Vignevielle is the
+best--_best_ man on the good Lord's earth!"
+
+Olive drew a chair close to her mother, sat down and took the little
+yellow hands into her own white lap, and looked tenderly into her eyes.
+Madame Delphine felt herself yielding; she must make a show of telling
+something:
+
+"He sent you those birds!"
+
+The girl drew her face back a little. The little woman turned away,
+trying in vain to hide her tearful smile, and they laughed together,
+Olive mingling a daughter's fond kiss with her laughter.
+
+"There is something else," she said, "and you shall tell me."
+
+"Yes," replied Madame Delphine, "only let me get composed."
+
+But she did not get so. Later in the morning she came to Olive with the
+timid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could to
+brighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified and
+troubled, but consented, and thereupon the mother's spirits rose.
+
+The work began, and presently ensued all the thumping, the trundling,
+the lifting and letting down, the raising and swallowing of dust, and
+the smells of turpentine, brass, pumice and woollen rags that go to
+characterize a housekeeper's _émeute_; and still, as the work
+progressed, Madame Delphine's heart grew light, and her little black
+eyes sparkled.
+
+"We like a clean parlor, my daughter, even though no one is ever coming
+to see us, eh?" she said, as entering the apartment she at last sat
+down, late in the afternoon. She had put on her best attire.
+
+Olive was not there to reply. The mother called but got no answer. She
+rose with an uneasy heart, and met her a few steps beyond the door that
+opened into the garden, in a path which came up from an old latticed
+bower. Olive was approaching slowly, her face pale and wild. There was
+an agony of hostile dismay in the look, and the trembling and appealing
+tone with which, taking the frightened mother's cheeks between her
+palms, she said:
+
+"_Ah! ma mère, qui vini 'ci ce soir_?"--Who is coming here this evening?
+
+"Why, my dear child, I was just saying, we like a clean"--
+
+But the daughter was desperate:
+
+"Oh, tell me, my mother, _who_ is coming?"
+
+"My darling, it is our blessed friend, Miché Vignevielle!"
+
+"To see me?" cried the girl.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, my mother, what have you done?"
+
+"Why, Olive, my child," exclaimed the little mother, bursting into
+tears, "do you forget it is Miché Vignevielle who has promised to
+protect you when I die?"
+
+The daughter had turned away, and entered the door; but she faced around
+again, and extending her arms toward her mother, cried:
+
+"How can--he is a white man--I am a poor"--
+
+"Ah! _chérie_," replied Madame Delphine, seizing the outstretched hands,
+"it is there--it is there that he shows himself the best man alive! He
+sees that difficulty; he proposes to meet it; he says he will find you a
+suitor!"
+
+Olive freed her hands violently, motioned her mother back, and stood
+proudly drawn up, flashing an indignation too great for speech; but the
+next moment she had uttered a cry, and was sobbing on the floor.
+
+The mother knelt beside her and threw an arm about her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, my sweet daughter, you must not cry! I did not want to tell you at
+all! I did not want to tell you! It isn't fair for you to cry so hard.
+Miché Vignevielle says you shall have the one you wish, or none at all,
+Olive, or none at all."
+
+"None at all! none at all! None, none, none!"
+
+"No, no, Olive," said the mother, "none at all. He brings none with him
+to-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter."
+
+Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went alone
+to their chamber in the half-story.
+
+Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window to
+door, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemed
+dismal beyond degree. There was a great Argand lamp in one corner. How
+she had labored that day to prepare it for evening illumination! A
+little beyond it, on the wall, hung a crucifix. She knelt under it, with
+her eyes fixed upon it, and thus silently remained until its outline was
+indistinguishable in the deepening shadows of evening.
+
+She arose. A few minutes later, as she was trying to light the lamp, an
+approaching step on the sidewalk seemed to pause. Her heart stood still.
+She softly laid the phosphorus-box out of her hands. A shoe grated
+softly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beating in
+great thuds, without waiting for a knock, opened the door, bowed low,
+and exclaimed in a soft perturbed voice:
+
+"Miché Vignevielle!"
+
+He entered, hat in hand, and with that almost noiseless tread which we
+have noticed. She gave him a chair and closed the door; then hastened,
+with words of apology, back to her task of lighting the lamp. But her
+hands paused in their work again,--Olive's step was on the stairs; then
+it came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there was
+the whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowy
+figure in the door. She was dressed for the evening.
+
+"Maman?"
+
+Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at that
+moment it responded with a tiny bead of light.
+
+"I am here, my daughter."
+
+She hastened to the door, and Olive, all unaware of a third presence,
+lifted her white arms, laid them about her mother's neck, and, ignoring
+her effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips. The crystal
+of the lamp sent out a faint gleam; it grew; it spread on every side;
+the ceiling, the walls lighted up; the crucifix, the furniture of the
+room came back into shape.
+
+"Maman!" cried Olive, with a tremor of consternation.
+
+"It is Miché Vignevielle, my daughter"--
+
+The gloom melted swiftly away before the eyes of the startled maiden, a
+dark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expanding
+to the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face of
+Capitaine Lemaitre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE MOTHER BIRD.
+
+One afternoon, some three weeks after Capitaine Lemaitre had called on
+Madame Delphine, the priest started to make a pastoral call and had
+hardly left the gate of his cottage, when a person, overtaking him,
+plucked his gown:
+
+"Père Jerome"--
+
+He turned.
+
+The face that met his was so changed with excitement and distress that
+for an instant he did not recognize it.
+
+"Why, Madame Delphine"--
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome! I wan' see you so bad, so bad! _Mo oulé dit
+quiç'ose_,--I godd some' to tell you."
+
+The two languages might be more successful than one, she seemed to
+think.
+
+"We had better go back to my parlor," said the priest, in their native
+tongue.
+
+They returned
+
+Madame Delphine's very step was altered,--nervous and inelastic. She
+swung one arm as she walked, and brandished a turkey-tail fan.
+
+"I was glad, yass, to kedge you," she said, as they mounted the front,
+outdoor stair; following her speech with a slight, unmusical laugh, and
+fanning herself with unconscious fury.
+
+"_Fé chaud_," she remarked again, taking the chair he offered and
+continuing to ply the fan.
+
+Père Jerome laid his hat upon a chest of drawers, sat down opposite her,
+and said, as he wiped his kindly face:
+
+"Well, Madame Carraze?"
+
+Gentle as the tone was, she started, ceased fanning, lowered the fan to
+her knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.
+
+"Père Jerome"--She gnawed her lip and shook her head.
+
+"Well?"
+
+She burst into tears.
+
+The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did it
+slowly--as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her face
+with sudden energy, and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twas
+me! 'Twas me!"
+
+The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumbly
+turned away her face. Père Jerome waited a little before replying; then
+he said, very gently:
+
+"I suppose dad muss 'ave been by accyden', Madame Delphine?"
+
+The little father felt a wish--one which he often had when weeping women
+were before him--that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough to
+press the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God would
+not let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments more
+to pass, and then asked:
+
+"_N'est-ce-pas_, Madame Delphine? Daz ze way, ain't it?'
+
+"No, Père Jerome, no. My daughter--oh, Père Jerome, I bethroath my lill'
+girl--to a w'ite man!" And immediately Madame Delphine commenced
+savagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one trembling
+hand, while she drove the fan with the other. "Dey goin' git marry."
+
+On the priest's face came a look of pained surprise. He slowly said:
+
+"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again,
+"Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yaas, 'tis tru'."
+
+He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the
+Creole dialect:
+
+"Is he a good man--without doubt?"
+
+"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous
+smile.
+
+"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are being
+deceived by somebody."
+
+There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and
+smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:
+
+"Ah-h, no-o-o, Miché! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"
+
+Père Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his
+back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.
+
+"He _is_ a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At
+length he halted before the woman "Madame Delphine"--
+
+The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was
+lifted to his eyes.
+
+"Suppose dad should be true w'at doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."
+
+"_Qui ci ca_? What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan.
+
+"Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie."
+
+"Ah, Père Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, and
+putting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm,
+suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God--_I
+wizh to God_--de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank,
+trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," she continued, shaking her
+head, "'tis not Miché Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with
+sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad _law_! Dad _law_ is crezzie! Dad law is a
+fool!"
+
+A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is--the
+law; but Père Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this very
+response. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:
+
+"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can I
+help you?"
+
+A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained a
+piteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:
+
+"_Mais, pou'quoi yé, fé cette méchanique là?_"--What business had they
+to make that contraption?
+
+His answer was a shrug with his palms extended and a short, disclamatory
+"Ah." He started to resume his walk, but turned to her again and said:
+"Why did they make that law? Well, they made it to keep the two races
+separate."
+
+Madame Delphine startled the speaker with a loud, harsh, angry laugh.
+Fire came from her eyes and her lip curled with scorn.
+
+"Then they made a lie, Père Jerome! Separate! No-o-o! They do not
+want to keep us separated; no, no! But they _do_ want to keep us
+despised!" She laid her hand on her heart, and frowned upward with
+physical pain. "But, very well! from which race do they want to
+keep my daughter separate? She is seven parts white! The law did
+not stop her from being that; and now, when she wants to be a white
+man's good and honest wife, shall that law stop her? Oh, no!" She
+rose up. "No; I will tell you what that law is made for. It is made
+to--punish--my--child--for--not--choosing--her--father! Père Jerome--my
+God, what a law!" She dropped back into her seat. The tears came in a
+flood, which she made no attempt to restrain.
+
+"No," she began again--and here she broke into English--"fo' me I don'
+kyare; but, Père Jerome,--'tis fo' dat I came to tell you,--dey _shall
+not_ punizh my daughter!" She was on her feet again, smiting her heaving
+bosom with the fan. "She shall marrie oo she want!"
+
+Père Jerome had heard her out, not interrupting by so much as a motion
+of the hand. Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly with
+the ends of his fingers.
+
+"Madame Delphine, I want you to go at 'ome Go at 'ome."
+
+"Wad you goin' mague?" she asked.
+
+"Nottin'. But go at 'ome. Kip quite; don put you'se'f sig. I goin' see
+Ursin. We trah to figs dat aw fo' you."
+
+"You kin figs dad!" she cried, with a gleam of joy.
+
+"We goin' to try, Madame Delphine. Adieu!"
+
+He offered his hand. She seized and kissed it thrice, covering it with
+tears, at the same time lifting up her eyes to his and murmuring:
+
+"De bez man God evva mague!"
+
+At the door she turned to offer a more conventional good-by; but he was
+following her out, bareheaded. At the gate they paused an instant, and
+then parted with a simple adieu, she going home and he returning for his
+hat, and starting again upon his interrupted business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before he came back to his own house, he stopped at the lodgings of
+Monsieur Vignevielle, but did not find him in.
+
+"Indeed," the servant at the door said, "he said he might not return for
+some days or weeks."
+
+So Père Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward the
+residence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employés.
+
+"Yes," said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, as
+far as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Every thing is in
+another name." And then he whispered:
+
+"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from some
+of the prisoners taken months ago by the United States brig _Porpoise_.
+But"--a still softer whisper--"have no fear; they will never find him:
+Jean Thompson and Evariste Varrillat have hid him away too well for
+that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+TRIBULATION.
+
+The Saturday following was a very beautiful day. In the morning a light
+fall of rain had passed across the town, and all the afternoon you could
+see signs, here and there upon the horizon, of other showers. The ground
+was dry again, while the breeze was cool and sweet, smelling of wet
+foliage and bringing sunshine and shade in frequent and very pleasing
+alternation.
+
+There was a walk in Père Jerome's little garden, of which we have not
+spoken, off on the right side of the cottage, with his chamber window at
+one end, a few old and twisted, but blossom-laden, crape-myrtles on
+either hand, now and then a rose of some unpretending variety and some
+bunches of rue, and at the other end a shrine, in whose blue niche stood
+a small figure of Mary, with folded hands and uplifted eyes. No other
+window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often a great
+comfort to Père Jerome.
+
+Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priest
+was walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sitting
+in the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He was
+thinking of Ursin. The officers of the Government had not found him, nor
+had Père Jerome seen him; yet he believed they had, in a certain
+indirect way, devised a simple project by which they could at any time
+"figs dad law," providing only that these Government officials would
+give over their search; for, though he had not seen the fugitive, Madame
+Delphine had seen him, and had been the vehicle of communication between
+them. There was an orange-tree, where a mocking-bird was wont to sing
+and a girl in white to walk, that the detectives wot not of. The law was
+to be "figs" by the departure of the three frequenters of the
+jasmine-scented garden in one ship to France, where the law offered no
+obstacles.
+
+It seemed moderately certain to those in search of Monsieur Vignevielle
+(and it was true) that Jean and Evariste were his harborers; but for all
+that the hunt, even for clews, was vain. The little banking
+establishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told the
+searchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor as
+well, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if the
+same relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts for his
+personal discovery.
+
+Père Jerome was walking to and fro, with his hands behind him, pondering
+these matters. He had paused a moment at the end of the walk farthest
+from his window, and was looking around upon the sky, when, turning, he
+beheld a closely veiled female figure standing at the other end, and
+knew instantly that it was Olive.
+
+She came forward quickly and with evident eagerness.
+
+"I came to confession," she said, breathing hurriedly, the excitement in
+her eyes shining through her veil, "but I find I am too late."
+
+"There is no too late or too early for that; I am always ready," said
+the priest. "But how is your mother?"
+
+"Ah!"--
+
+Her voice failed.
+
+"More trouble?"
+
+"Ah, sir, I have made trouble. Oh, Père Jerome, I am bringing so much
+trouble upon my poor mother!"
+
+Père Jerome moved slowly toward the house, with his eyes cast down, the
+veiled girl at his side.
+
+"It is not your fault," he presently said. And after another pause: "I
+thought it was all arranged."
+
+He looked up and could see, even through the veil, her crimson blush.
+
+"Oh, no," she replied, in a low, despairing voice, dropping her face.
+
+"What is the difficulty?" asked the priest, stopping in the angle of the
+path, where it turned toward the front of the house.
+
+She averted her face, and began picking the thin scales of bark from a
+crape-myrtle.
+
+"Madame Thompson and her husband were at our house this morning. _He_
+had told Monsieur Thompson all about it. They were very kind to me at
+first, but they tried"--She was weeping.
+
+"What did they try to do?" asked the priest.
+
+"They tried to make me believe he is insane."
+
+She succeeded in passing her handkerchief up under her veil.
+
+"And I suppose then your poor mother grew angry, eh?"
+
+"Yes; and they became much more so, and said if we did not write, or
+send a writing, to _him_, within twenty-four hours, breaking the"--
+
+"Engagement," said Père Jerome.
+
+"They would give him up to the Government. Oh, Père Jerome, what shall I
+do? It is killing my mother!"
+
+She bowed her head and sobbed.
+
+"Where is your mother now?"
+
+"She has gone to see Monsieur Jean Thompson. She says she has a plan
+that will match them all. I do not know what it is. I begged her not to
+go; but oh, sir, _she is_ crazy,--and I am no better."
+
+"My poor child," said Père Jerome, "what you seem to want is not
+absolution, but relief from persecution."
+
+"Oh, father, I have committed mortal sin,--I am guilty of pride and
+anger."
+
+"Nevertheless," said the priest, starting toward his front gate, "we
+will put off your confession. Let it go until to-morrow morning; you
+will find me in my box just before mass; I will hear you then. My child,
+I know that in your heart, now, you begrudge the time it would take; and
+that is right. There are moments when we are not in place even on
+penitential knees. It is so with you now. We must find your mother Go
+you at once to your house; if she is there, comfort her as best you can,
+and _keep her in, if possible_, until I come. If she is not there, stay;
+leave me to find her; one of you, at least, must be where I can get word
+to you promptly. God comfort and uphold you. I hope you may find her at
+home; tell her, for me, not to fear,"--he lifted the gate-latch,--"that
+she and her daughter are of more value than many sparrows; that God's
+priest sends her that word from Him. Tell her to fix her trust in the
+great Husband of the Church and she shall yet see her child receiving
+the grace-giving sacrament of matrimony. Go; I shall, in a few minutes,
+be on my way to Jean Thompson's, and shall find her, either there or
+wherever she is. Go; they shall not oppress you. Adieu!"
+
+A moment or two later he was in the street himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+BY AN OATH.
+
+Père Jerome, pausing on a street-corner in the last hour of sunlight,
+had wiped his brow and taken his cane down from under his arm to start
+again, when somebody, coming noiselessly from he knew not where, asked,
+so suddenly as to startle him:
+
+"_Miché, commin yé pellé la rie ici_?--how do they call this street
+here?"
+
+It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than
+by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized
+the woman to whom he replied in her own _patois_:
+
+"It is the Rue Burgundy. Where are you going, Madame Delphine?"
+
+She almost leaped from the ground.
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome! _mo pas conné_,--I dunno. You know w'ere's dad 'ouse
+of Miché Jean Tomkin? _Mo courri 'ci, mo courri là,--mo pas capabe li
+trouvé_. I go (run) here--there--I cannot find it," she gesticulated.
+
+"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean
+Thompson, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I _'blige'_ to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away,
+one foot planted forward with an air of excited pre-occupation; "I godd
+some' to tell 'im wad I _'blige'_ to tell 'im!"
+
+"Madame Delphine"--
+
+"Oh! Père Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de
+'ouse of Jean Tomkin!"
+
+Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.
+
+"What are you going to tell him?" asked the priest.
+
+"Oh, Père Jerome,"--in the Creole _patois_ again,--"I am going to put an
+end to all this trouble--only I pray you do not ask me about it now;
+every minute is precious!"
+
+He could not withstand her look of entreaty.
+
+"Come," he said, and they went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jean Thompson and Doctor Varrillat lived opposite each other on the
+Bayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed. Each
+had his large, white-columned, four-sided house among the magnolias,
+--his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darkly shaded
+garden, his broad, brick walk leading down to the tall, brick-pillared
+gate, his square of bright, red pavement on the turf-covered sidewalk,
+and his railed platform spanning the draining-ditch, with a pair of
+green benches, one on each edge, facing each other crosswise of the
+gutter. There, any sunset hour, you were sure to find the householder
+sitting beside his cool-robed matron, two or three slave nurses in white
+turbans standing at hand, and an excited throng of fair children, nearly
+all of a size.
+
+Sometimes, at a beckon or call, the parents on one side of the way would
+join those on the other, and the children and nurses of both families
+would be given the liberty of the opposite platform and an ice-cream
+fund! Generally the parents chose the Thompson platform, its outlook
+being more toward the sunset.
+
+Such happened to be the arrangement this afternoon. The two husbands sat
+on one bench and their wives on the other, both pairs very quiet,
+waiting respectfully for the day to die, and exchanging only occasional
+comments on matters of light moment as they passed through the memory.
+During one term of silence Madame Varrillat, a pale, thin-faced, but
+cheerful-looking lady, touched Madame Thompson, a person of two and a
+half times her weight, on her extensive and snowy bare elbow, directing
+her attention obliquely up and across the road.
+
+About a hundred yards distant, in the direction of the river, was a
+long, pleasantly shaded green strip of turf, destined in time for a
+sidewalk. It had a deep ditch on the nearer side, and a fence of rough
+cypress palisades on the farther, and these were overhung, on the one
+hand, by a row of bitter-orange-trees inside the enclosure, and, on the
+other, by a line of slanting china-trees along the outer edge of the
+ditch. Down this cool avenue two figures were approaching side by side.
+They had first attracted Madame Varrillat's notice by the bright play of
+sunbeams which, as they walked, fell upon them in soft, golden flashes
+through the chinks between the palisades.
+
+Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction from
+her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoitring
+general.
+
+"_Père Jerome et cette milatraise_."
+
+All eyes were bent toward them.
+
+"She walks like a man," said Madame Varrillat, in the language with
+which the conversation had opened.
+
+"No," said the physician, "like a woman in a state of high nervous
+excitement."
+
+Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said:
+
+"She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State of
+Louisiana,"--as near as the pun can be translated. The company laughed.
+Jean Thompson looked at his wife, whose applause he prized, and she
+answered by an asseverative toss of the head, leaning back and
+contriving, with some effort, to get her arms folded. Her laugh was
+musical and low, but enough to make the folded arms shake gently up and
+down.
+
+"Père Jerome is talking to her," said one. The priest was at that moment
+endeavoring, in the interest of peace, to say a good word for the four
+people who sat watching his approach. It was in the old strain:
+
+"Blame them one part, Madame Delphine, and their fathers, mothers,
+brothers, and fellow-citizens the other ninety-nine."
+
+But to every thing she had the one amiable answer which Père Jerome
+ignored:
+
+"I am going to arrange it to satisfy everybody, all together. _Tout à
+fait_."
+
+"They are coming here," said Madame Varrillat, half articulately.
+
+"Well, of course," murmured another; and the four rose up, smiling
+courteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands with
+the priest.
+
+No--Père Jerome thanked them--he could not sit down.
+
+"This, I believe you know, Jean, is Madame Delphine"--
+
+The quadroone courtesied.
+
+"A friend of mine," he added, smiling kindly upon her, and turning, with
+something imperative in his eye, to the group. "She says she has an
+important private matter to communicate."
+
+"To me?" asked Jean Thompson.
+
+"To all of you; so I will--Good-evening." He responded nothing to the
+expressions of regret, but turned to Madame Delphine. She murmured
+something.
+
+"Ah! yes, certainly." He addressed the company "She wishes me to speak
+for her veracity; it is unimpeachable. Well, good-evening." He shook
+hands and departed.
+
+The four resumed their seats, and turned their eyes upon the standing
+figure.
+
+"Have you something to say to us?" asked Jean Thompson, frowning at her
+law-defying bonnet.
+
+"Oui," replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold of one
+of the benches, "_mo oulé di' tou' ç'ose_"--I want to tell every thing.
+"_Miché Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune_"--the best man in the
+world; "_mo pas capabe li fé tracas_"--I cannot give him trouble. "_Mo
+pas capable, non; m'olé di' tous ç'ose_." She attempted to fan herself,
+her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes rested on the
+ground.
+
+"Take a seat," said Doctor Varrillat, with some suddenness, starting
+from his place and gently guiding her sinking form into the corner of
+the bench. The ladies rose up; somebody had to stand; the two races
+could not both sit down at once--at least not in that public manner.
+
+"Your salts," said the physician to his wife. She handed the vial.
+Madame Delphine stood up again.
+
+"We will all go inside," said Madame Thompson, and they passed through
+the gate and up the walk, mounted the steps, and entered the deep, cool
+drawing-room.
+
+
+Madame Thompson herself bade the quadroone be seated.
+
+"Well?" said Jean Thompson, as the rest took chairs.
+
+"_C'est drole_"--it's funny--said Madame Delphine, with a piteous effort
+to smile, "that nobody thought of it. It is so plain. You have only to
+look and see. I mean about Olive." She loosed a button in the front of
+her dress and passed her hand into her bosom. "And yet, Olive herself
+never thought of it. She does not know a word."
+
+The hand came out holding a miniature. Madame Varrillat passed it to
+Jean Thompson.
+
+"_Ouala so popa_," said Madame Delphine. "That is her father."
+
+It went from one to another, exciting admiration and murmured praise.
+
+"She is the image of him," said Madame Thompson, in an austere
+undertone, returning it to her husband.
+
+Doctor Varrillat was watching Madame Delphine. She was very pale. She
+had passed a trembling hand into a pocket of her skirt, and now drew out
+another picture, in a case the counterpart of the first. He reached out
+for it, and she handed it to him. He looked at it a moment, when his
+eyes suddenly lighted up and he passed it to the attorney.
+
+"_Et là_"--Madame Delphine's utterance failed--"_et là ouala sa moman_.
+That is her mother."
+
+The three others instantly gathered around Jean Thompson's chair. They
+were much impressed.
+
+"It is true beyond a doubt!" muttered Madame Thompson.
+
+Madame Varrillat looked at her with astonishment.
+
+"The proof is right there in the faces," said Madame Thompson.
+
+"Yes! yes!" said Madame Delphine, excitedly; "the proof is there! You do
+not want any better! I am willing to swear to it! But you want no better
+proof! That is all anybody could want! My God! you cannot help but see
+it!"
+
+Her manner was wild.
+
+Jean Thompson looked at her sternly.
+
+"Nevertheless you say you are willing to take your solemn oath to this."
+
+"Certainly"--
+
+"You will have to do it."
+
+"Certainly, Miché Thompson, _of course_ I shall; you will make out the
+paper and I will swear before God that it is true! Only"--turning to the
+ladies--"do not tell Olive; she will never believe it. It will break her
+heart! It"--
+
+A servant came and spoke privately to Madame Thompson, who rose quickly
+and went to the hall Madame Delphine continued, rising unconsciously:
+
+"You see, I have had her with me from a baby. She knows no better. He
+brought her to me only two months old. Her mother had died in the ship,
+coming out here. He did not come straight from home here. His people
+never knew he was married!"
+
+The speaker looked around suddenly with a startled glance. There was a
+noise of excited speaking in the hall.
+
+"It is not true, Madame Thompson!" cried a girl's voice.
+
+Madame Delphine's look became one of wildest distress and alarm, and she
+opened her lips in a vain attempt to utter some request, when Olive
+appeared a moment in the door, and then flew into her arms.
+
+"My mother! my mother! my mother!"
+
+Madame Thompson, with tears in her eyes, tenderly drew them apart and
+let Madame Delphine down into her chair, while Olive threw herself upon
+her knees, continuing to cry:
+
+"Oh, my mother! Say you are my mother!"
+
+Madame Delphine looked an instant into the upturned face, and then
+turned her own away, with a long, low cry of pain, looked again, and
+laying both hands upon the suppliant's head, said:
+
+"_Oh, chère piti à moin, to pa' ma fie_!"--Oh, my darling little one,
+you are not my daughter!--Her eyes closed, and her head sank back; the
+two gentlemen sprang to her assistance, and laid her upon a sofa
+unconscious.
+
+When they brought her to herself, Olive was kneeling at her head
+silently weeping.
+
+"_Maman, chère maman_!" said the girl softly, kissing her lips.
+
+"_Ma courri c'ez moin_"--I will go home--said the mother, drearily.
+
+"You will go home with me," said Madame Varrillat, with great kindness
+of manner--"just across the street here; I will take care of you till
+you feel better. And Olive will stay here with Madame Thompson. You will
+be only the width of the street apart."
+
+But Madame Delphine would go nowhere but to her home. Olive she would
+not allow to go with her. Then they wanted to send a servant or two to
+sleep in the house with her for aid and protection; but all she would
+accept was the transient service of a messenger to invite two of her
+kinspeople--man and wife--to come and make their dwelling with her.
+
+In course of time these two--a poor, timid, helpless pair--fell heir to
+the premises. Their children had it after them; but, whether in those
+hands or these, the house had its habits and continued in them; and to
+this day the neighbors, as has already been said, rightly explain its
+close-sealed, uninhabited look by the all-sufficient statement that the
+inmates "is quadroons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+KYRIE ELEISON.
+
+The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp
+burning before the tabernacle in Père Jerome's little church might have
+hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.
+Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more
+completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended
+in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,
+with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door
+which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the
+confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and
+rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one
+entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band
+of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence
+that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,
+would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing
+and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.
+
+The day had been long and fatiguing. First, early mass; a hasty meal;
+then a business call upon the archbishop in the interest of some
+projected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-house
+of "Vignevielle," in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, and
+re-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. The
+search was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they would
+tell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge and
+belief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of an
+unexceptionable eye-witness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)
+Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding
+in the little church. Its scenes lingered before Père Jerome's vision
+now--the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of
+man, strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and
+feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome
+eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots
+of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean
+Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his
+tightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing one
+expression of amiable consent; and last--yet first--one small, shrinking
+female figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. She
+sat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in the
+small, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wasted
+face, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither the
+recollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind,
+nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tired
+priest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words of
+invitation to her, given as the company left the church--"Come to
+confession this afternoon."
+
+By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or any
+glancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress from
+station to station of some one over on the right who was noiselessly
+going the way of the cross. Yet Père Jerome tarried.
+
+"She will surely come," he said to himself; "she promised she would
+come."
+
+A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught a
+subtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent knelt
+noiselessly at the window of his box, and the whisper came tremblingly,
+in the voice he had waited to hear:
+
+"_Bénissez-moin, mo' Père, pa'ce que mo péché._" (Bless me, father, for
+I have sinned.)
+
+He gave his blessing.
+
+"Ainsi soit-il--Amen," murmured the penitent, and then, in the soft
+accents of the Creole _patois_, continued:
+
+"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to
+blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
+Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned
+exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, _through my fault, through my
+fault, through my most grievous fault._' I confessed on Saturday, three
+weeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penance
+enjoined. Since then"--There she stopped.
+
+There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if she
+rose up again, and in a moment she said:
+
+"Olive _is_ my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is the
+half-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. She
+is the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh, Olive, my
+own daughter!"
+
+She ceased, and was still. Père Jerome waited, but no sound came. He
+looked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead resting
+on her arms--motionless.
+
+He repeated the words of absolution. Still she did not stir.
+
+"My daughter," he said, "go to thy home in peace." But she did not move.
+
+He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, and
+called her by name:
+
+"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant there
+was life in the eyes--it glimmered--it vanished, and tears gushed from
+his own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up to
+heaven and cried:
+
+"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CAFÉ DES EXILÉS.
+
+
+That which in 1835--I think he said thirty-five--was a reality in the
+Rue Burgundy--I think he said Burgundy--is now but a reminiscence. Yet
+so vividly was its story told me, that at this moment the old Café des
+Exilés appears before my eye, floating in the clouds of revery, and I
+doubt not I see it just as it was in the old times.
+
+An antiquated story-and-a-half Creole cottage sitting right down on the
+banquette, as do the Choctaw squaws who sell bay and sassafras and
+life-everlasting, with a high, close board-fence shutting out of view
+the diminutive garden on the southern side. An ancient willow droops
+over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored stucco,
+which keeps dropping off into the garden as though the old café was
+stripping for the plunge into oblivion--disrobing for its execution. I
+see, well up in the angle of the broad side gable, shaded by its rude
+awning of clapboards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her
+wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh for the image of the maiden,
+were it but for one moment, leaning out of the casement to hang her
+mocking-bird and looking down into the garden,--where, above the barrier
+of old boards, I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of
+bananas, the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two
+orange-trees holding up their bands toward the window, heavy with the
+promises of autumn; the broad, crimson mass of the many-stemmed
+oleander, and the crisp boughs of the pomegranate loaded with freckled
+apples, and with here and there a lingering scarlet blossom.
+
+The Café des Exilés, to use a figure, flowered, bore fruit, and dropped
+it long ago--or rather Time and Fate, like some uncursed Adam and Eve,
+came side by side and cut away its clusters, as we sever the golden
+burden of the banana from its stem; then, like a banana which has borne
+its fruit, it was razed to the ground and made way for a newer, brighter
+growth. I believe it would set every tooth on edge should I go by there
+now,--now that I have heard the story,--and see the old site covered by
+the "Shoo-fly Coffee-house." Pleasanter far to close my eyes and call to
+view the unpretentious portals of the old café, with her children--for
+such those exiles seem to me--dragging their rocking-chairs out, and
+sitting in their wonted group under the long, out-reaching eaves which
+shaded the banquette of the Rue Burgundy.
+
+It was in 1835 that the Café des Exilés was, as one might say, in full
+blossom. Old M. D'Hemecourt, father of Pauline and host of the café,
+himself a refugee from San Domingo, was the cause--at least the human
+cause--of its opening. As its white-curtained, glazed doors expanded,
+emitting a little puff of his own cigarette smoke, it was like the
+bursting of catalpa blossoms, and the exiles came like bees, pushing
+into the tiny room to sip its rich variety of tropical sirups, its
+lemonades, its orangeades, its orgeats, its barley-waters, and its
+outlandish wines, while they talked of dear home--that is to say, of
+Barbadoes, of Martinique, of San Domingo, and of Cuba.
+
+There were Pedro and Benigno, and Fernandez and Francisco, and Benito.
+Benito was a tall, swarthy man, with immense gray moustachios, and hair
+as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes. When he could spare his
+cigarette from his lips, he would tell you in a cavernous voice, and
+with a wrinkled smile that he was "a-t-thorty-seveng."
+
+There was Martinez of San Domingo, yellow as a canary, always sitting
+with one leg curled under him and holding the back of his head in his
+knitted fingers against the back of his rocking-chair. Father, mother,
+brother, sisters, all, had been massacred in the struggle of '21 and
+'22; he alone was left to tell the tale, and told it often, with that
+strange, infantile insensibility to the solemnity of his bereavement so
+peculiar to Latin people.
+
+But, besides these, and many who need no mention, there were two in
+particular, around whom all the story of the Café des Exilés, of old M.
+D'Hemecourt and of Pauline, turns as on a double centre. First, Manuel
+Mazaro, whose small, restless eyes were as black and bright as those of
+a mouse, whose light talk became his dark girlish face, and whose
+redundant locks curled so prettily and so wonderfully black under the
+fine white brim of his jaunty Panama. He had the hands of a woman, save
+that the nails were stained with the smoke of cigarettes. He could play
+the guitar delightfully, and wore his knife down behind his coat-collar.
+
+The second was "Major" Galahad Shaughnessy. I imagine I can see him, in
+his white duck, brass-buttoned roundabout, with his sabreless belt
+peeping out beneath, all his boyishness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning
+lightly against the door-post of the Café des Exilés as a child leans
+against his mother, running his fingers over a basketful of fragrant
+limes, and watching his chance to strike some solemn Creole under the
+fifth rib with a good old Irish joke.
+
+Old D'Hemecourt drew him close to his bosom. The Spanish Creoles were,
+as the old man termed it, both cold and hot, but never warm. Major
+Shaughnessy was warm, and it was no uncommon thing to find those two
+apart from the others, talking in an undertone, and playing at
+confidantes like two schoolgirls. The kind old man was at this time
+drifting close up to his sixtieth year. There was much he could tell of
+San Domingo, whither he had been carried from Martinique in his
+childhood, whence he had become a refugee to Cuba, and thence to New
+Orleans in the flight of 1809.
+
+It fell one day to Manuel Mazaro's lot to discover, by sauntering within
+earshot, that to Galahad Shaughnessy only, of all the children of the
+Café des Exilés, the good host spoke long and confidentially concerning
+his daughter. The words, half heard and magnified like objects seem in a
+fog, meaning Manuel Mazaro knew not what, but made portentous by his
+suspicious nature, were but the old man's recital of the grinding he had
+got between the millstones of his poverty and his pride, in trying so
+long to sustain, for little Pauline's sake, that attitude before society
+which earns respect from a surface-viewing world. It was while he was
+telling this that Manuel Mazaro drew near; the old man paused in an
+embarrassed way; the Major, sitting sidewise in his chair, lifted his
+cheek from its resting-place on his elbow; and Mazaro, after standing an
+awkward moment, turned away with such an inward feeling as one may guess
+would arise in a heart full of Cuban blood, not unmixed with Indian.
+
+As he moved off, M. D'Hemecourt resumed: that in a last extremity he had
+opened, partly from dire want, partly for very love to homeless souls,
+the Café des Exilés. He had hoped that, as strong drink and high words
+were to be alike unknown to it, it might not prejudice sensible people;
+but it had. He had no doubt they said among themselves, "She is an
+excellent and beautiful girl and deserving all respect;" and respect
+they accorded, but their _respects_ they never came to pay.
+
+"A café is a café," said the old gentleman. "It is nod possib' to ezcape
+him, aldough de Café des Exilés is differen from de rez."
+
+"It's different from the Café des Réfugiés," suggested the Irishman.
+
+"Differen' as possib'," replied M. D'Hemecourt He looked about upon the
+walls. The shelves were luscious with ranks of cooling sirups which he
+alone knew how to make. The expression of his face changed from sadness
+to a gentle pride, which spoke without words, saying--and let our story
+pause a moment to hear it say:
+
+"If any poor exile, from any island where guavas or mangoes or plantains
+grow, wants a draught which will make him see his home among the
+cocoa-palms, behold the Café des Exilés ready to take the poor child up
+and give him the breast! And if gold or silver he has them not, why
+Heaven and Santa Maria, and Saint Christopher bless him! It makes no
+difference. Here is a rocking-chair, here a cigarette, and here a light
+from the host's own tinder. He will pay when he can."
+
+As this easily pardoned pride said, so it often occurred; and if the
+newly come exile said his father was a Spaniard--"Come!" old M.
+D'Hemecourt would cry; "another glass; it is an innocent drink; my
+mother was a Castilian." But, if the exile said his mother was a
+Frenchwoman, the glasses would be forthcoming all the same, for "My
+father," the old man would say, "was a Frenchman of Martinique, with
+blood as pure as that wine and a heart as sweet as this honey; come, a
+glass of orgeat;" and he would bring it himself in a quart tumbler.
+
+Now, there are jealousies and jealousies. There are people who rise up
+quickly and kill, and there are others who turn their hot thoughts over
+silently in their minds as a brooding bird turns her eggs in the nest.
+Thus did Manuel Mazaro, and took it ill that Galahad should see a vision
+in the temple while he and all the brethren tarried without. Pauline had
+been to the Café des Exilés in some degree what the image of the Virgin
+was to their churches at home; and for her father to whisper her name to
+one and not to another was, it seemed to Mazaro, as if the old man, were
+he a sacristan, should say to some single worshiper, "Here, you may have
+this madonna; I make it a present to you." Or, if such was not the
+handsome young Cuban's feeling, such, at least, was the disguise his
+jealousy put on. If Pauline was to be handed down from her niche, why,
+then, farewell Café des Exilés. She was its preserving influence, she
+made the place holy; she was the burning candles on the altar. Surely
+the reader will pardon the pen that lingers in the mention of her.
+
+And yet I know not how to describe the forbearing, unspoken tenderness
+with which all these exiles regarded the maiden. In the balmy
+afternoons, as I have said, they gathered about their mother's knee,
+that is to say, upon the banquette outside the door. There, lolling back
+in their rocking-chairs, they would pass the evening hours with
+oft-repeated tales of home; and the moon would come out and glide among
+the clouds like a silver barge among islands wrapped in mist, and they
+loved the silently gliding orb with a sort of worship, because from her
+soaring height she looked down at the same moment upon them and upon
+their homes in the far Antilles. It was somewhat thus that they looked
+upon Pauline as she seemed to them held up half way to heaven, they knew
+not how. Ah, those who have been pilgrims; who have wandered out beyond
+harbor and light; whom fate hath led in lonely paths strewn with thorns
+and briers not of their own sowing; who, homeless in a land of homes,
+see windows gleaming and doors ajar, but not for them,--it is they who
+well understand what the worship is that cries to any daughter of our
+dear mother Eve whose footsteps chance may draw across the path, the
+silent, beseeching cry, "Stay a little instant that I may look upon you.
+Oh, woman, beautifier of the earth! Stay till I recall the face of my
+sister; stay yet a moment while I look from afar, with helpless-hanging
+hands, upon the softness of thy cheek, upon the folded coils of thy
+shining hair; and my spirit shall fall down and say those prayers which
+I may never again--God knoweth--say at home."
+
+She was seldom seen; but sometimes, when the lounging exiles would be
+sitting in their afternoon circle under the eaves, and some old man
+would tell his tale of fire and blood and capture and escape, and the
+heads would lean forward from the chair-backs and a great stillness
+would follow the ending of the story, old M. D'Hemecourt would all at
+once speak up and say, laying his hands upon the narrator's knee,
+"Comrade, your throat is dry, here are fresh limes; let my dear child
+herself come and mix you a lemonade." Then the neighbors over the way,
+sitting about their doors, would by and by softly say, "See, see! there
+is Pauline!" and all the exiles would rise from their rocking-chairs,
+take off their hats and stand as men stand in church, while Pauline came
+out like the moon from a cloud, descended the three steps of the café
+door, and stood with waiter and glass, a new Rebecca with her pitcher,
+before the swarthy wanderer.
+
+What tales that would have been tear-compelling, nay, heart-rending, had
+they not been palpable inventions, the pretty, womanish Mazaro from time
+to time poured forth, in the ever ungratified hope that the goddess
+might come down with a draught of nectar for him, it profiteth not to
+recount; but I should fail to show a family feature of the Café des
+Exilés did I omit to say that these make-believe adventures were heard
+with every mark of respect and credence; while, on the other hand, they
+were never attempted in the presence of the Irishman. He would have
+moved an eyebrow, or made some barely audible sound, or dropped some
+seemingly innocent word, and the whole company, spite of themselves,
+would have smiled. Wherefore, it may be doubted whether at any time the
+curly-haired young Cuban had that playful affection for his Celtic
+comrade, which a habit of giving little velvet taps to Galahad's cheek
+made a show of.
+
+Such was the Café des Exilés, such its inmates, such its guests, when
+certain apparently trivial events began to fall around it as germs of
+blight fall upon corn, and to bring about that end which cometh to all
+things.
+
+The little seed of jealousy, dropped into the heart of Manuel Mazaro, we
+have already taken into account.
+
+Galahad Shaughnessy began to be specially active in organizing a society
+of Spanish Americans, the design of which, as set forth in its
+manuscript constitution, was to provide proper funeral honors to such of
+their membership as might be overtaken by death; and, whenever it was
+practicable, to send their ashes to their native land. Next to Galahad
+in this movement was an elegant old Mexican physician, Dr.--,--his name
+escapes me--whom the Café des Exilés sometimes took upon her lap--that
+is to say door-step--but whose favorite resort was the old Café des
+Réfugiés in the Rue Royale (Royal Street, as it was beginning to be
+called). Manuel Mazaro was made secretary.
+
+It was for some reason thought judicious for the society to hold its
+meetings in various places, now here, now there; but the most frequent
+rendezvous was the Café des Exilés; it was quiet; those Spanish Creoles,
+however they may afterward cackle, like to lay their plans noiselessly,
+like a hen in a barn. There was a very general confidence in this old
+institution, a kind of inward assurance that "mother wouldn't tell;"
+though, after all, what great secrets could there be connected with a
+mere burial society?
+
+Before the hour of meeting, the Café des Exilés always sent away her
+children and closed her door. Presently they would commence returning,
+one by one, as a flock of wild fowl will do, that has been startled up
+from its accustomed haunt. Frequenters of the Café des Réfugiés also
+would appear. A small gate in the close garden-fence let them into a
+room behind the café proper, and by and by the apartment would be full
+of dark-visaged men conversing in the low, courteous tone common to
+their race. The shutters of doors and windows were closed and the chinks
+stopped with cotton; some people are so jealous of observation.
+
+On a certain night after one of these meetings had dispersed in its
+peculiar way, the members retiring two by two at intervals, Manuel
+Mazaro and M. D'Hemecourt were left alone, sitting close together in the
+dimly lighted room, the former speaking, the other, with no pleasant
+countenance, attending. It seemed to the young Cuban a proper
+precaution--he was made of precautions--to speak in English. His voice
+was barely audible.
+
+"---- sayce to me, 'Manuel, she t-theeng I want-n to marry hore.' Senor,
+you shouth 'ave see' him laugh!"
+
+M. D'Hemecourt lifted up his head, and laid his hand upon the young
+man's arm.
+
+"Manuel Mazaro," he began, "iv dad w'ad you say is nod"--
+
+The Cuban interrupted.
+
+"If is no' t-thrue you will keel Manuel Mazaro?--a' r-r-right-a!"
+
+"No," said the tender old man, "no, bud h-I am positeef dad de Madjor
+will shood you."
+
+Mazaro nodded, and lifted one finger for attention.
+
+"---- sayce to me, 'Manuel, you goin' tell-a Senor D'Hemecourt, I fin'-a
+you some nigh' an' cut-a you' heart ou'. An' I sayce to heem-a, 'Boat-a
+if Senor D'Hemecourt he fin'-in' ou' frone Pauline'"--
+
+"_Silence!_" fiercely cried the old man. "My God! 'Sieur Mazaro, neider
+you, neider somebody helse s'all h'use de nem of me daughter. It is nod
+possib' dad you s'all spick him! I cannot pearmid thad."
+
+While the old man was speaking these vehement words, the Cuban was
+emphatically nodding approval.
+
+"Co-rect-a, co-rect-a, Senor," he replied. "Senor, you' r-r-right-a;
+escuse-a me, Senor, escuse-a me. Senor D'Hemecourt, Mayor Shanghness',
+when he talkin' wi' me he usin' hore-a name o the t-thime-a!"
+
+"My fren'," said M. D'Hemecourt, rising and speaking with labored
+control, "I muz tell you good nighd. You 'ave sooprise me a verry gred
+deal. I s'all _in_vestigade doze ting; an', Manuel Mazaro, h-I am a hole
+man; bud I will requez you, iv dad wad you say is nod de true, my God!
+not to h-ever ritturn again ad de Café des Exilés."
+
+Mazaro smiled and nodded. His host opened the door into the garden, and,
+as the young man stepped out, noticed even then how handsome was his
+face and figure, and how the odor of the night jasmine was filling the
+air with an almost insupportable sweetness. The Cuban paused a moment,
+as if to speak, but checked himself, lifted his girlish face, and looked
+up to where the daggers of the palmetto-tree were crossed upon the face
+of the moon, dropped his glance, touched his Panama, and silently
+followed by the bare-headed old man, drew open the little garden-gate,
+looked cautiously out, said good-night, and stepped into the street.
+
+As M. D'Hemecourt returned to the door through which he had come, he
+uttered an ejaculation of astonishment. Pauline stood before him. She
+spoke hurriedly in French.
+
+"Papa, papa, it is not true."
+
+"No, my child," he responded, "I am sure it is not true: I am sure it is
+all false; but why do I find you out of bed so late, little bird? The
+night is nearly gone."
+
+He laid his hand upon her cheek.
+
+"Ah, papa, I cannot deceive you. I thought Manuel would tell you
+something of this kind, and I listened."
+
+The father's face immediately betrayed a new and deeper distress.
+
+"Pauline, my child," he said with tremulous voice, "if Manuel's story is
+all false, in the name of Heaven how could you think he was going to
+tell it?"
+
+He unconsciously clasped his hands. The good child had one trait which
+she could not have inherited from her father; she was quick-witted and
+discerning; yet now she stood confounded.
+
+"Speak, my child," cried the alarmed old man; "speak! let me live, and
+not die."
+
+"Oh, papa," she cried, "I do not know!"
+
+The old man groaned.
+
+"Papa, papa," she cried again, "I felt it; I know not how; something
+told me."
+
+"Alas!" exclaimed the old man, "if it was your conscience!"
+
+"No, no, no, papa," cried Pauline, "but I was afraid of Manuel Mazaro,
+and I think he hates him--and I think he will hurt him in any way he
+can--and I _know_ he will even try to kill him. Oh! my God!"
+
+She struck her hands together above her head, and burst into a flood of
+tears. Her father looked upon her with such sad sternness as his tender
+nature was capable of. He laid hold of one of her arms to draw a hand
+from the face whither both hands had gone.
+
+"You know something else," he said; "you know that the Major loves you,
+or you think so: is it not true?"
+
+She dropped both hands, and, lifting her streaming eyes that had nothing
+to hide straight to his, suddenly said:
+
+"I would give worlds to think so!" and sunk upon the floor.
+
+He was melted and convinced in one instant.
+
+"Oh, my child, my child," he cried, trying to lift her. "Oh, my poor
+little Pauline, your papa is not angry. Rise, my little one; so; kiss
+me; Heaven bless thee. Pauline, treasure, what shall I do with thee?
+Where shall I hide thee?"
+
+"You have my counsel already, papa."
+
+"Yes, my child, and you were right. The Café des Exilés never should
+have been opened. It is no place for you; no place at all."
+
+"Let us leave it," said Pauline.
+
+"Ah! Pauline, I would close it to-morrow if I could, but now it is too
+late; I cannot."
+
+"Why?" asked Pauline, pleadingly.
+
+She had cast an arm about his neck. Her tears sparkled with a smile.
+
+"My daughter, I cannot tell you; you must go now to bed; good-night--or
+good-morning; God keep you!"
+
+"Well, then, papa," she said, "have no fear; you need not hide me; I
+have my prayer-book, and my altar, and my garden, and my window; my
+garden is my fenced city, and my window my watch-tower; do you see?"
+
+"Ah! Pauline," responded the father, "but I have been letting the enemy
+in and out at pleasure."
+
+"Good-night," she answered, and kissed him three times on either cheek;
+"the blessed Virgin will take care of us; good-night; _he_ never said
+those things; not he; good-night."
+
+The next evening Galahad Shaughnessy and Manuel Mazaro met at that "very
+different" place, the Café des Réfugiés. There was much free talk going
+on about Texan annexation, about chances of war with Mexico, about San
+Domingan affairs, about Cuba and many et-ceteras. Galahad was in his
+usual gay mood. He strode about among a mixed company of Louisianais,
+Cubans, and Américains, keeping them in a great laugh with his account
+of one of Ole Bull's concerts, and how he had there extorted an
+invitation from M. and Mme. Devoti to attend one of their famous
+children's fancy dress balls.
+
+"Halloo!" said he as Mazaro approached, "heer's the etheerial Angelica
+herself. Look-ut heer, sissy, why ar'n't ye in the maternal arms of the
+Café des Exilés?"
+
+Mazaro smiled amiably and sat down. A moment after, the Irishman,
+stepping away from his companions, stood before the young Cuban, and
+asked with a quiet business air:
+
+"D'ye want to see me, Mazaro?"
+
+The Cuban nodded, and they went aside. Mazaro, in a few quick words,
+looking at his pretty foot the while, told the other on no account to go
+near the Café des Exilés, as there were two men hanging about there,
+evidently watching for him, and--
+
+"Wut's the use o' that?" asked Galahad; "I say, wut's the use o' that?"
+
+Major Shaughnessy's habit of repeating part of his words arose from
+another, of interrupting any person who might be speaking.
+
+"They must know--I say they must know that whenever I'm nowhurs else I'm
+heer. What do they want?"
+
+Mazaro made a gesture, signifying caution and secrecy, and smiled, as if
+to say, "You ought to know."
+
+"Aha!" said the Irishman softly. "Why don't they come here?"
+
+"Z-afrai'," said Mazaro; "d'they frai' to do an'teen een d-these-a
+crowth."
+
+"That's so," said the Irishman; "I say, that's so. If I don't feel very
+much like go-un, I'll not go; I say, I'll not go. We've no business
+to-night, eh Mazaro?"
+
+"No, Senor."
+
+A second evening was much the same, Mazaro repeating his warning. But
+when, on the third evening, the Irishman again repeated his willingness
+to stay away from the Café des Exilés unless he should feel strongly
+impelled to go, it was with the mental reservation that he did feel very
+much in that humor, and, unknown to Mazaro, should thither repair, if
+only to see whether some of those deep old fellows were not contriving a
+practical joke.
+
+"Mazaro," said he, "I'm go-un around the caurnur a bit; I want ye to
+wait heer till I come back. I say I want ye to wait heer till I come
+back; I'll be gone about three-quarters of an hour."
+
+Mazaro assented. He saw with satisfaction the Irishman start in a
+direction opposite that in which lay the Café des Exilés, tarried
+fifteen or twenty minutes, and then, thinking he could step around to
+the Café des Exilés and return before the expiration of the allotted
+time, hurried out.
+
+Meanwhile that peaceful habitation sat in the moonlight with her
+children about her feet. The company outside the door was somewhat
+thinner than common. M. D'Hemecourt was not among them, but was sitting
+in the room behind the café. The long table which the burial society
+used at their meetings extended across the apartment, and a lamp had
+been placed upon it. M. D'Hemecourt sat by the lamp. Opposite him was a
+chair, which seemed awaiting an expected occupant. Beside the old man
+sat Pauline. They were talking in cautious undertones, and in French.
+
+"No," she seemed to insist; "we do not know that he refuses to come. We
+only know that Manuel says so."
+
+The father shook his head sadly. "When has he ever staid away three
+nights together before?" he asked. "No, my child; it is intentional.
+Manuel urges him to come, but he only sends poor excuses."
+
+"But," said the girl, shading her face from the lamp and speaking with
+some suddenness, "why have you not sent word to him by some other
+person?"
+
+M. D'Hemecourt looked up at his daughter a moment, and then smiled at
+his own simplicity.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "Certainly; and that is what I will--run away, Pauline.
+There is Manuel, now, ahead of time!"
+
+A step was heard inside the café. The maiden, though she knew the step
+was not Mazaro's, rose hastily, opened the nearest door, and
+disappeared. She had barely closed it behind her when Galahad
+Shaughnessy entered the apartment.
+
+M'Hemecourt rose up, both surprised and confused.
+
+"Good-evening, Munsher D'Himecourt," said the Irishman. "Munsher
+D'Himecourt, I know it's against rules--I say, I know it's against rules
+to come in here, but"--smiling,--"I want to have a private wurd with ye.
+I say, I want to have a private wurd with ye."
+
+In the closet of bottles the maiden smiled triumphantly. She also wiped
+the dew from her forehead, for the place was very close and warm.
+
+With her father was no triumph. In him sadness and doubt were so mingled
+with anger that he dared not lift his eyes, but gazed at the knot in the
+wood of the table, which looked like a caterpillar curled up.
+
+Mazaro, he concluded, had really asked the Major to come.
+
+"Mazaro tol' you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," answered the Irishman. "Mazaro told me I was watched, and
+asked"--
+
+"Madjor," unluckily interrupted the old man, suddenly looking up and
+speaking with subdued fervor, "for w'y--iv Mazaro tol' you--for w'y you
+din come more sooner? Dad is one 'eavy charge again' you."
+
+"Didn't Mazaro tell ye why I didn't come?" asked the other, beginning to
+be puzzled at his host's meaning.
+
+"Yez," replied M. D'Hemecourt, "bud one brev zhenteman should not be
+afraid of"--
+
+The young man stopped him with a quiet laugh, "Munsher D'Himecourt,"
+said he, "I'm nor afraid of any two men living--I say I'm nor afraid of
+any two men living, and certainly not of the two that's bean a-watchin'
+me lately, if they're the two I think they are."
+
+M. D'Hemecourt flushed in a way quite incomprehensible to the speaker,
+who nevertheless continued:
+
+"It was the charges," he said, with some slyness in his smile. "They
+_are_ heavy, as ye say, and that's the very reason--I say that's the
+very reason why I staid away, ye see, eh? I say that's the very reason I
+staid away."
+
+Then, indeed, there was a dew for the maiden to wipe from her brow,
+unconscious that every word that was being said bore a different
+significance in the mind of each of the three. The old man was agitated.
+"Bud, sir," he began, shaking his head and lifting his hand.
+
+"Bless yer soul, Munsher D'Himecourt," interrupted the Irishman. "Wut's
+the use o' grapplin' two cut-throats, when"--
+
+"Madjor Shaughnessy!" cried M. D'Hemecourt, losing all self-control.
+"H-I am nod a cud-troad, Madjor Shaughnessy, h-an I 'ave a r-r-righd to
+wadge you."
+
+The Major rose from his chair.
+
+"What d'ye mean?" he asked vacantly, and then: "Look-ut here, Munsher
+D'Himecourt, one of uz is crazy. I say one"--
+
+"No, sar-r-r!" cried the other, rising and clenching his trembling fist.
+"H-I am not crezzy. I 'ave de righd to wadge dad man wad mague rimark
+aboud me dotter."
+
+"I never did no such a thing."
+
+"You did."
+
+"I never did no such a thing."
+
+"Bud you 'ave jus hacknowledge'--"
+
+"I never did no such a _thing_, I tell ye, and the man that's told ye so
+is a liur!"
+
+"Ah-h-h-h!" said the old man, wagging his finger "Ah-h-h-h! You call
+Manuel Mazaro one liar?"
+
+The Irishman laughed out.
+
+"Well, I should say so!"
+
+He motioned the old man into his chair, and both sat down again.
+
+"Why, Munsher D'Himecourt, Mazaro's been keepin' me away from heer with
+a yarn about two Spaniards watchin' for me. That's what I came in to ask
+ye about. My dear sur, do ye s'pose I wud talk about the goddess--I
+mean, yer daughter--to the likes o' Mazaro--I say to the likes o'
+Mazaro?"
+
+To say the old man was at sea would be too feeble an expression--he was
+in the trough of the sea, with a hurricane of doubts and fears whirling
+around him. Somebody had told a lie, and he, having struck upon its
+sunken surface, was dazed and stunned. He opened his lips to say he knew
+not what, when his ear caught the voice of Manuel Mazaro, replying to
+the greeting of some of his comrades outside the front door.
+
+"He is comin'!" cried the old man. "Mague you'sev hide, Madjor; do not
+led 'im kedge you, Mon Dieu!"
+
+The Irishman smiled.
+
+"The little yellow wretch!" said he quietly, his blue eyes dancing. "I'm
+goin' to catch _him_."
+
+A certain hidden hearer instantly made up her mind to rush out between
+the two young men and be a heroine.
+
+"_Non, non!_" exclaimed M. D'Hemecourt excitedly. "Nod in de Café des
+Exilés--nod now, Madjor. Go in dad door, hif you pliz, Madjor. You will
+heer 'im w'at he 'ave to say. Mague you'sev de troub'. Nod dad door--diz
+one."
+
+The Major laughed again and started toward the door indicated, but in an
+instant stopped.
+
+"I can't go in theyre," he said. "That's yer daughter's room."
+
+"_Oui, oui, mais!_" cried the other softly, but Mazaro's step was near.
+
+"I'll just slip in heer," and the amused Shaughnessy tripped lightly to
+the closet door, drew it open in spite of a momentary resistance from
+within which he had no time to notice, stepped into a small recess full
+of shelves and bottles, shut the door, and stood face to face--the broad
+moonlight shining upon her through a small, high-grated opening on one
+side--with Pauline. At the same instant the voice of the young Cuban
+sounded in the room.
+
+Pauline was in a great tremor. She made as if she would have opened the
+door and fled, but the Irishman gave a gesture of earnest protest and
+re-assurance. The re-opened door might make the back parlor of the Café
+des Exilés a scene of blood. Thinking of this, what could she do? She
+staid.
+
+"You goth a heap-a thro-vle, Senor," said Manuel Mazaro, taking the seat
+so lately vacated. He had patted M. D'Hemecourt tenderly on the back and
+the old gentleman had flinched; hence the remark, to which there was no
+reply.
+
+"Was a bee crowth a' the _Café the Réfugiés_," continued the young man.
+
+"Bud, w'ere dad Madjor Shaughnessy?" demanded M. D'Hemecourt, with the
+little sternness he could command.
+
+"Mayor Shaughness'--yez-a; was there; boat-a," with a disparaging smile
+and shake of the head, "_he_ woon-a come-a to you. Senor, oh' no."
+
+The old man smiled bitterly.
+
+"_Non?_" he asked.
+
+"Oh, no, Senor!" Mazaro drew his chair closer. "Senor;" he paused,--"eez
+a-vary bath-a fore-a you thaughter, eh?"
+
+"W'at?" asked the host, snapping like a tormented dog.
+
+"D-theze talkin' 'bou'," answered the young man; "d-theze coffee-howces
+noth a goo' plaze-a fore hore, eh?"
+
+The Irishman and the maiden looked into each other's eyes an instant, as
+people will do when listening; but Pauline's immediately fell, and when
+Mazaro's words were understood, her blushes became visible even by
+moonlight.
+
+"He's r-right!" emphatically whispered Galahad.
+
+She attempted to draw back a step, but found herself against the
+shelves. M. D'Hemecourt had not answered. Mazaro spoke again.
+
+"Boat-a you canno' help-a, eh? I know, 'out-a she gettin' marry, eh?"
+
+Pauline trembled. Her father summoned all his force and rose as if to
+ask his questioner to leave him; but the handsome Cuban motioned him
+down with a gesture that seemed to beg for only a moment more.
+
+"Senor, if a-was one man whath lo-va you' thaughter, all is possiblee to
+lo-va."
+
+Pauline, nervously braiding some bits of wire which she had
+unconsciously taken from a shelf, glanced up--against her will,--into
+the eyes of Galahad. They were looking so steadily down upon her that
+with a great leap of the heart for joy she closed her own and half
+turned away. But Mazaro had not ceased.
+
+"All is possiblee to lo-va, Senor, you shouth-a let marry hore an' tak'n
+'way frone d'these plaze, Senor."
+
+"Manuel Mazaro," said M. D'Hemecourt, again rising, "you 'ave say
+enough."
+
+"No, no, Senor; no, no; I want tell-a you--is a-one man--_whath lo-va_
+you' thaughter; an' I _knowce_ him!"
+
+Was there no cause for quarrel, after all? Could it be that Mazaro was
+about to speak for Galahad? The old man asked in his simplicity:
+
+"Madjor Shaughnessy?"
+
+Mazaro smiled mockingly.
+
+"Mayor Shaughness'," he said; "oh, no; not Mayor Shaughness'!"
+
+Pauline could stay no longer; escape she must, though it be in Manuel
+Mazaro's very face. Turning again and looking up into Galahad's face in
+a great fright, she opened her lips to speak, but--
+
+"Mayor Shaughness'," continued the Cuban; "_he_ nev'r-a lo-va you'
+thaughter."
+
+Galahad was putting the maiden back from the door with his hand.
+
+"Pauline," he said, "it's a lie!"
+
+"An', Senor," pursued the Cuban, "if a was possiblee you' thaughter to
+lo-va heem, a-wouth-a be worse-a kine in worlt; but, Senor, _I_"--
+
+M. D'Hemecourt made a majestic sign for silence. He had resumed his
+chair, but be rose up once more, took the Cuban's hat from the table and
+tendered it to him.
+
+"Manuel Mazaro, you 'ave"--
+
+"Senor, I goin' tell you"--
+
+"Manuel Mazaro, you"--
+
+"Boat-a Senor"--
+
+"Bud, Manuel Maz"--
+
+"Senor, escuse-a me"--
+
+"Huzh!" cried the old man. "Manuel Mazaro, you ave deceive' me! You 'ave
+_mocque_ me, Manu"--
+
+"Senor," cried Mazaro, "I swear-a to you that all-a what I sayin'
+ees-a"--
+
+He stopped aghast. Galahad and Pauline stood before him.
+
+"Is what?" asked the blue-eyed man, with a look of quiet delight on his
+face, such as Mazaro instantly remembered to have seen on it one night
+when Galahad was being shot at in the Sucking Calf Restaurant in St.
+Peter Street.
+
+The table was between them, but Mazaro's hand went upward toward the
+back of his coat-collar.
+
+"Ah, ah!" cried the Irishman, shaking his head with a broader smile and
+thrusting his hand threateningly into his breast; "don't ye do that!
+just finish yer speech."
+
+"Was-a notthin'," said the Cuban, trying to smile back.
+
+"Yer a liur," said Galahad.
+
+"No," said Mazaro, still endeavoring to smile through his agony; "z-was
+on'y tellin' Senor D'Hemecourt someteen z-was t-thrue."
+
+"And I tell ye," said Galahad, "ye'r a liur, and to be so kind an' get
+yersel' to the front stoop, as I'm desiruz o' kickin' ye before the
+crowd."
+
+"Madjor!" cried D'Hemecourt--
+
+"Go," said Galahad, advancing a step toward the Cuban.
+
+Had Manuel Mazaro wished to personate the prince of darkness, his
+beautiful face had the correct expression for it. He slowly turned,
+opened the door into the café, sent one glowering look behind, and
+disappeared.
+
+Pauline laid her hand upon her lover's arm.
+
+"Madjor," began her father.
+
+"Oh, Madjor and Madjor," said the Irishman; "Munsher D'Hemecourt, just
+say 'Madjor, heer's a gude wife fur ye,' and I'll let the little serpent
+go."
+
+Thereupon, sure enough, both M. D'Hemecourt and his daughter, rushing
+together, did what I have been hoping all along, for the reader's sake,
+they would have dispensed with; they burst into tears; whereupon the
+Major, with his Irish appreciation of the ludicrous, turned away to hide
+his smirk and began good-humoredly to scratch himself first on the
+temple and then on the thigh.
+
+Mazaro passed silently through the group about the door-steps, and not
+many minutes afterward, Galahad Shaughnessy, having taken a place among
+the exiles, rose with the remark that the old gentleman would doubtless
+be willing to tell them good-night. Good-night was accordingly said, the
+Café des Exilés closed her windows, then her doors, winked a moment or
+two through the cracks in the shutters and then went fast asleep.
+
+The Mexican physician, at Galahad's request, told Mazaro that at the
+next meeting of the burial society he might and must occupy his
+accustomed seat without fear of molestation; and he did so.
+
+The meeting took place some seven days after the affair in the back
+parlor, and on the same ground. Business being finished, Galahad, who
+presided, stood up, looking, in his white duck suit among his
+darkly-clad companions, like a white sheep among black ones, and begged
+leave to order "dlasses" from the front room. I say among black sheep;
+yet, I suppose, than that double row of languid, effeminate faces, one
+would have been taxed to find a more harmless-looking company. The
+glasses were brought and filled.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Galahad, "comrades, this may be the last time we ever
+meet together an unbroken body."
+
+Martinez of San Domingo, he of the horrible experience, nodded with a
+lurking smile, curled a leg under him and clasped his fingers behind his
+head.
+
+"Who knows," continued the speaker, "but Senor Benito, though strong and
+sound and har'ly thirty-seven"--here all smiled--"may be taken ill
+tomorrow?"
+
+Martinez smiled across to the tall, gray Benito on Galahad's left, and
+he, in turn, smilingly showed to the company a thin, white line of teeth
+between his moustachios like distant reefs.
+
+"Who knows," the young Irishman proceeded to inquire, "I say, who knows
+but Pedro, theyre, may be struck wid a fever?"
+
+Pedro, a short, compact man of thoroughly mixed blood, and with an
+eyebrow cut away, whose surname no one knew, smiled his acknowledgments.
+
+"Who knows?" resumed Galahad, when those who understood English had
+explained in Spanish to those who did not, "but they may soon need the
+services not only of our good doctor heer, but of our society; and that
+Fernandez and Benigno, and Gonzalez and Dominguez, may not be chosen to
+see, on that very schooner lying at the Picayune Tier just now, their
+beloved remains and so forth safely delivered into the hands and lands
+of their people. I say, who knows bur it may be so!"
+
+The company bowed graciously as who should say, "Well-turned phrases,
+Senor--well-turned."
+
+"And _amigos_, if so be that such is their approoching fate, I will
+say:"
+
+He lifted his glass, and the rest did the same.
+
+"I say, I will say to them, Creoles, countrymen, and lovers, boun
+voyadge an' good luck to ye's."
+
+For several moments there was much translating, bowing, and murmured
+acknowledgments; Mazaro said: "_Bueno!_" and all around among the long
+double rank of moustachioed lips amiable teeth were gleaming, some
+white, some brown, some yellow, like bones in the grass.
+
+"And now, gentlemen," Galahad recommenced, "fellow-exiles, once more.
+Munsher D'Himecourt, it was yer practice, until lately, to reward a good
+talker with a dlass from the hands o' yer daughter." (_Si, si!_) "I'm
+bur a poor speaker." (_Si, si, Senor, z-a-fine-a kin'-a can be; si!_)
+"However, I'll ask ye, not knowun bur it may be the last time we all
+meet together, if ye will not let the goddess of the Café des Exilés
+grace our company with her presence for just about one minute?" (_Yez-a,
+Senor; si; yez-a; oui._)
+
+Every head was turned toward the old man, nodding the echoed request.
+
+"Ye see, friends," said Galahad in a true Irish whisper, as M.
+D'Hemecourt left the apartment, "her poseetion has been a-growin' more
+and more embarrassin' daily, and the operaytions of our society were
+likely to make it wurse in the future; wherefore I have lately taken
+steps--I say I tuke steps this morn to relieve the old gentleman's
+distresses and his daughter's"--
+
+He paused. M. D'Hemecourt entered with Pauline, and the exiles all rose
+up. Ah!--but why say again she was lovely?
+
+Galahad stepped forward to meet her, took her hand, led her to the head
+of the board, and turning to the company, said:
+
+"Friends and fellow-patriots, Misthress Shaughnessy."
+
+There was no outburst of astonishment--only the same old bowing,
+smiling, and murmuring of compliment. Galahad turned with a puzzled look
+to M. D'Hemecourt, and guessed the truth. In the joy of an old man's
+heart he had already that afternoon told the truth to each and every man
+separately, as a secret too deep for them to reveal, but too sweet for
+him to keep. The Major and Pauline were man and wife.
+
+The last laugh that was ever heard in the Café des Exilés sounded softly
+through the room.
+
+"Lads," said the Irishman. "Fill yer dlasses. Here's to the Café des
+Exilés, God bless her!"
+
+And the meeting slowly adjourned.
+
+Two days later, signs and rumors of sickness began to find place about
+the Café des Réfugiés, and the Mexican physician made three calls in one
+day. It was said by the people around that the tall Cuban gentleman
+named Benito was very sick in one of the back rooms. A similar frequency
+of the same physician's calls was noticed about the Café des Exilés.
+
+"The man with one eyebrow," said the neighbors, "is sick. Pauline left
+the house yesterday to make room for him."
+
+"Ah! is it possible?"
+
+"Yes, it is really true; she and her husband. She took her mocking-bird
+with her; he carried it; he came back alone."
+
+On the next afternoon the children about the Café des Réfugiés enjoyed
+the spectacle of the invalid Cuban moved on a trestle to the Café des
+Exilés, although he did not look so deathly sick as they could have
+liked to see him, and on the fourth morning the doors of the Café des
+Exilés remained closed. A black-bordered funeral notice, veiled with
+crape, announced that the great Caller-home of exiles had served his
+summons upon Don Pedro Hernandez (surname borrowed for the occasion),
+and Don Carlos Mendez y Benito.
+
+The hour for the funeral was fixed at four P.M. It never took place.
+Down at the Picayune Tier on the river bank there was, about two o'clock
+that same day, a slight commotion, and those who stood aimlessly about a
+small, neat schooner, said she was "seized." At four there suddenly
+appeared before the Café des Exilés a squad of men with silver crescents
+on their breasts--police officers. The old cottage sat silent with
+closed doors, the crape hanging heavily over the funeral notice like a
+widow's veil, the little unseen garden sending up odors from its hidden
+censers, and the old weeping-willow bending over all.
+
+"Nobody here?" asks the leader.
+
+The crowd which has gathered stares without answering.
+
+As quietly and peaceably as possible the officers pry open the door.
+They enter, and the crowd pushes in after. There are the two coffins,
+looking very heavy and solid, lying in state but unguarded.
+
+The crowd draws a breath of astonishment. "Are they going to wrench the
+tops off with hatchet and chisel?"
+
+Bap, rap, rap; wrench, rap, wrench. Ah! the cases come open.
+
+"Well kept?" asks the leader flippantly.
+
+"Oh, yes," is the reply. And then all laugh.
+
+One of the lookers-on pushes up and gets a glimpse within.
+
+"What is it?" ask the other idlers.
+
+He tells one quietly.
+
+"What did he say?" ask the rest, one of another.
+
+"He says they are not dead men, but new muskets"--
+
+"Here, clear out!" cries an officer, and the loiterers fall back and by
+and by straggle off.
+
+The exiles? What became of them, do you ask? Why, nothing; they were not
+troubled, but they never all came together again. Said a chief-of-police
+to Major Shaughnessy years afterward:
+
+"Major, there was only one thing that kept your expedition from
+succeeding--you were too sly about it. Had you come out flat and said
+what you were doing, we'd never a-said a word to you. But that little
+fellow gave us the wink, and then we had to stop you."
+
+And was no one punished? Alas! one was. Poor, pretty, curly-headed
+traitorous Mazaro! He was drawn out of Carondelet Canal--cold, dead! And
+when his wounds were counted--they were just the number of the Café des
+Exilés' children, less Galahad. But the mother--that is, the old
+café--did not see it; she had gone up the night before in a chariot of
+fire.
+
+In the files of the old "Picayune" and "Price-Current" of 1837 may be
+seen the mention of Galahad Shaughnessy among the merchants--"our
+enterprising and accomplished fellow-townsman," and all that. But old M.
+D'Hemecourt's name is cut in marble, and his citizenship is in "a city
+whose maker and builder is God."
+
+Only yesterday I dined with the Shaughnessys--fine old couple and
+handsome. Their children sat about them and entertained me most
+pleasantly. But there isn't one can tell a tale as their father
+can--'twas he told me this one, though here and there my enthusiasm may
+have taken liberties. He knows the history of every old house in the
+French Quarter; or, if he happens not to know a true one, he can make
+one up as he goes along.
+
+
+
+
+BELLES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION.
+
+
+The original grantee was Count----, assume the name to be De Charleu;
+the old Creoles never forgive a public mention. He was the French king's
+commissary. One day, called to France to explain the lucky accident of
+the commissariat having burned down with his account-books inside, he
+left his wife, a Choctaw Comptesse, behind.
+
+Arrived at court, his excuses were accepted, and that tract granted him
+where afterwards stood Belles Demoiselles Plantation. A man cannot
+remember every thing! In a fit of forgetfulness he married a French
+gentlewoman, rich and beautiful, and "brought her out." However, "All's
+well that ends well;" a famine had been in the colony, and the Choctaw
+Comptesse had starved, leaving nought but a half-caste orphan family
+lurking on the edge of the settlement, bearing our French gentlewoman's
+own new name, and being mentioned in Monsieur's will.
+
+And the new Comptesse--she tarried but a twelvemonth, left Monsieur a
+lovely son, and departed, led out of this vain world by the swamp-fever.
+
+From this son sprang the proud Creole family of De Charleu. It rose
+straight up, up, up, generation after generation, tall, branchless,
+slender, palm-like; and finally, in the time of which I am to tell,
+flowered with all the rare beauty of a century-plant, in Artemise,
+Innocente, Felicité, the twins Marie and Martha, Leontine and little
+Septima; the seven beautiful daughters for whom their home had been
+fitly named Belles Demoiselles.
+
+The Count's grant had once been a long Pointe, round which the
+Mississippi used to whirl, and seethe, and foam, that it was horrid to
+behold. Big whirlpools would open and wheel about in the savage eddies
+under the low bank, and close up again, and others open, and spin, and
+disappear. Great circles of muddy surface would boil up from hundreds of
+feet below, and gloss over, and seem to float away,--sink, come back
+again under water, and with only a soft hiss surge up again, and again
+drift off, and vanish. Every few minutes the loamy bank would tip down a
+great load of earth upon its besieger, and fall back a foot,--sometimes
+a yard,--and the writhing river would press after, until at last the
+Pointe was quite swallowed up, and the great river glided by in a
+majestic curve, and asked no more; the bank stood fast, the "caving"
+became a forgotten misfortune, and the diminished grant was a long,
+sweeping, willowy bend, rustling with miles of sugar-cane.
+
+Coming up the Mississippi in the sailing craft of those early days,
+about the time one first could descry the white spires of the old St.
+Louis Cathedral, you would be pretty sure to spy, just over to your
+right under the levee, Belles Demoiselles Mansion, with its broad
+veranda and red painted cypress roof, peering over the embankment, like
+a bird in the nest, half hid by the avenue of willows which one of the
+departed De Charleus,--he that married a Marot,--had planted on the
+levee's crown.
+
+The house stood unusually near the river, facing eastward, and standing
+four-square, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight of
+steps in front spreading broadly downward, as we open arms to a child.
+From the veranda nine miles of river were seen; and in their compass,
+near at hand, the shady garden full of rare and beautiful flowers;
+farther away broad fields of cane and rice, and the distant quarters of
+the slaves, and on the horizon everywhere a dark belt of cypress forest.
+
+The master was old Colonel De Charleu,--Jean Albert Henri Joseph De
+Charleu-Marot, and "Colonel" by the grace of the first American
+governor. Monsieur,--he would not speak to any one who called him
+"Colonel,"--was a hoary-headed patriarch. His step was firm, his form
+erect, his intellect strong and clear, his countenance classic, serene,
+dignified, commanding, his manners courtly, his voice musical,
+--fascinating. He had had his vices,--all his life; but had borne them,
+as his race do, with a serenity of conscience and a cleanness of mouth
+that left no outward blemish on the surface of the gentleman. He had
+gambled in Royal Street, drunk hard in Orleans Street, run his adversary
+through in the duelling-ground at Slaughter-house Point, and danced and
+quarrelled at the St. Philippe-street-theatre quadroon balls. Even now,
+with all his courtesy and bounty, and a hospitality which seemed to be
+entertaining angels, he was bitter-proud and penurious, and deep down in
+his hard-finished heart loved nothing but himself, his name, and his
+motherless children. But these!--their ravishing beauty was all but
+excuse enough for the unbounded idolatry of their father. Against these
+seven goddesses he never rebelled. Had they even required him to defraud
+old De Carlos--
+
+I can hardly say.
+
+Old De Carlos was his extremely distant relative on the Choctaw side.
+With this single exception, the narrow thread-like line of descent from
+the Indian wife, diminished to a mere strand by injudicious alliances,
+and deaths in the gutters of old New Orleans, was extinct. The name, by
+Spanish contact, had become De Carlos; but this one surviving bearer of
+it was known to all, and known only, as Injin Charlie.
+
+One thing I never knew a Creole to do. He will not utterly go back on
+the ties of blood, no matter what sort of knots those ties may be. For
+one reason, he is never ashamed of his or his father's sins; and for
+another,--he will tell you--he is "all heart!"
+
+So the different heirs of the De Charleu estate had always strictly
+regarded the rights and interests of the De Carloses, especially their
+ownership of a block of dilapidated buildings in a part of the city,
+which had once been very poor property, but was beginning to be
+valuable. This block had much more than maintained the last De Carlos
+through a long and lazy lifetime, and, as his household consisted only
+of himself, and an aged and crippled negress, the inference was
+irresistible that he "had money." Old Charlie, though by _alias_ an
+"Injin," was plainly a dark white man, about as old as Colonel De
+Charleu, sunk in the bliss of deep ignorance, shrewd, deaf, and, by
+repute at least, unmerciful.
+
+The Colonel and he always conversed in English. This rare
+accomplishment, which the former had learned from his Scotch wife,--the
+latter from up-river traders,--they found an admirable medium of
+communication, answering, better than French could, a similar purpose to
+that of the stick which we fasten to the bit of one horse and
+breast-gear of another, whereby each keeps his distance. Once in a
+while, too, by way of jest, English found its way among the ladies of
+Belles Demoiselles, always signifying that their sire was about to have
+business with old Charlie.
+
+Now a long-standing wish to buy out Charlie troubled the Colonel. He had
+no desire to oust him unfairly; he was proud of being always fair; yet
+he did long to engross the whole estate under one title. Out of his
+luxurious idleness he had conceived this desire, and thought little of
+so slight an obstacle as being already somewhat in debt to old Charlie
+for money borrowed, and for which Belles Demoiselles was, of course,
+good, ten times over. Lots, buildings, rents, all, might as well be his,
+he thought, to give, keep, or destroy. "Had he but the old man's
+heritage. Ah! he might bring that into existence which his _belles
+demoiselles_ had been begging for, 'since many years;' a home,--and such
+a home,--in the gay city. Here he should tear down this row of cottages,
+and make his garden wall; there that long rope-walk should give place to
+vine-covered ardors; the bakery yonder should make way for a costly
+conservatory; that wine warehouse should come down, and the mansion go
+up. It should be the finest in the State. Men should never pass it, but
+they should say--'the palace of the De Charleus; a family of grand
+descent, a people of elegance and bounty, a line as old as France, a
+fine old man, and seven daughters as beautiful as happy; whoever dare
+attempt to marry there must leave his own name behind him!'
+
+"The house should be of stones fitly set, brought down in ships from the
+land of 'les Yankees,' and it should have an airy belvedere, with a
+gilded image tiptoeing and shining on its peak, and from it you should
+see, far across the gleaming folds of the river, the red roof of Belles
+Demoiselles, the country-seat. At the big stone gate there should be a
+porter's lodge, and it should be a privilege even to see the ground."
+
+Truly they were a family fine enough, and fancy-free enough to have fine
+wishes, yet happy enough where they were, to have had no wish but to
+live there always.
+
+To those, who, by whatever fortune, wandered into the garden of Belles
+Demoiselles some summer afternoon as the sky was reddening towards
+evening, it was lovely to see the family gathered out upon the tiled
+pavement at the foot of the broad front steps, gayly chatting and
+jesting, with that ripple of laughter that comes so pleasingly from a
+bevy of girls. The father would be found seated in their midst, the
+centre of attention and compliment, witness, arbiter, umpire, critic, by
+his beautiful children's unanimous appointment, but the single vassal,
+too, of seven absolute sovereigns.
+
+Now they would draw their chairs near together in eager discussion of
+some new step in the dance, or the adjustment of some rich adornment.
+Now they would start about him with excited comments to see the eldest
+fix a bunch of violets in his button-hole. Now the twins would move down
+a walk after some unusual flower, and be greeted on their return with
+the high pitched notes of delighted feminine surprise.
+
+As evening came on they would draw more quietly about their paternal
+centre. Often their chairs were forsaken, and they grouped themselves on
+the lower steps, one above another, and surrendered themselves to the
+tender influences of the approaching night. At such an hour the passer
+on the river, already attracted by the dark figures of the broad-roofed
+mansion, and its woody garden standing against the glowing sunset, would
+hear the voices of the hidden group rise from the spot in the soft
+harmonies of an evening song; swelling clearer and clearer as the thrill
+of music warmed them into feeling, and presently joined by the deeper
+tones of the father's voice; then, as the daylight passed quite away,
+all would be still, and he would know that the beautiful home had
+gathered its nestlings under its wings.
+
+And yet, for mere vagary, it pleased them not to be pleased.
+
+"Arti!" called one sister to another in the broad hall, one
+morning,--mock amazement hi her distended eyes,--"something is goin' to
+took place!"
+
+"_Comm-e-n-t?_"--long-drawn perplexity.
+
+"Papa is goin' to town!"
+
+The news passed up stairs.
+
+"Inno!"--one to another meeting in a doorway,--"something is goin' to
+took place!"
+
+"_Qu'est-ce-que c'est!_"--vain attempt at gruffness.
+
+"Papa is goin' to town!"
+
+The unusual tidings were true. It was afternoon of the same day that the
+Colonel tossed his horse's bridle to his groom, and stepped up to old
+Charlie, who was sitting on his bench under a China-tree, his head as
+was his fashion, bound in a Madras handkerchief The "old man" was
+plainly under the effect of spirits and smiled a deferential salutation
+without trusting himself to his feet.
+
+"Eh, well Charlie!"--the Colonel raised his voice to suit his kinsman's
+deafness,--"how is those times with my friend Charlie?"
+
+"Eh?" said Charlie, distractedly.
+
+"Is that goin' well with my friend Charlie?"
+
+"In de house,--call her,"--making a pretence of rising.
+
+"_Non, non!_ I don't want,"--the speaker paused to breathe--"ow is
+collection?"
+
+"Oh!" said Charlie, "every day he make me more poorer!"
+
+"What do you hask for it?" asked the planter indifferently, designating
+the house by a wave of his whip.
+
+"Ask for w'at?" said Injin Charlie.
+
+"De _house!_ What you ask for it?"
+
+"I don't believe," said Charlie.
+
+"What you would _take_ for it!" cried the planter.
+
+"Wait for w'at?"
+
+"What you would _take_ for the whole block?"
+
+"I don't want to sell him!"
+
+"I'll give you _ten thousand dollah_ for it."
+
+"Ten t'ousand dollah for dis house? Oh, no, dat is no price. He is blame
+good old house,--dat old house." (Old Charlie and the Colonel never
+swore in presence of each other.) "Forty years dat old house didn't had
+to be paint! I easy can get fifty t'ousand dollah for dat old house."
+
+"Fifty thousand picayunes; yes," said the Colonel.
+
+"She's a good house. Can make plenty money," pursued the deaf man.
+
+"That's what make you so rich, eh, Charlie?"
+
+"_Non_, I don't make nothing. Too blame clever, me, dat's de troub'.
+She's a good house,--make money fast like a steamboat,--make a barrel
+full in a week! Me, I lose money all de days. Too blame clever."
+
+"Charlie!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Tell me what you'll take."
+
+"Make? I don't make _nothing_. Too blame clever."
+
+"What will you _take?_"
+
+"Oh! I got enough already,--half drunk now."
+
+"What will you take for the 'ouse?"
+
+"You want to buy her?"
+
+"I don't know,"--(shrug),--"may_be_,--if you sell it cheap."
+
+"She's a bully old house."
+
+There was a long silence. By and by old Charlies commenced--
+
+"Old Injin Charlie is a low-down dog."
+
+"_C'est vrai, oui!_" retorted the Colonel in an undertone.
+
+"He's got Injin blood in him."
+
+"But he's got some blame good blood, too, ain't it?"
+
+The Colonel nodded impatiently.
+
+"_Bien!_ Old Charlie's Injin blood says, 'sell de house, Charlie, you
+blame old fool!' _Mais_, old Charlie's good blood says, 'Charlie! if you
+sell dat old house, Charlie, you low-down old dog, Charlie, what de
+Compte De Charleu make for you grace-gran'muzzer, de dev' can eat you,
+Charlie, I don't care.'"
+
+"No!" And the _no_ rumbled off in muttered oaths like thunder out on the
+Gulf. The incensed old Colonel wheeled and started off.
+
+"Curl!" (Colonel) said Charlie, standing up unsteadily.
+
+The planter turned with an inquiring frown.
+
+"I'll trade with you!" said Charlie.
+
+The Colonel was tempted. "'Ow'l you trade?" he asked.
+
+"My house for yours!"
+
+The old Colonel turned pale with anger. He walked very quickly back, and
+came close up to his kinsman.
+
+"Charlie!" he said.
+
+"Injin Charlie,"--with a tipsy nod.
+
+But by this time self-control was returning. "Sell Belles Demoiselles to
+you?" he said in a high key, and then laughed "Ho, ho, ho!" and rode
+away.
+
+A cloud, but not a dark one, overshadowed the spirits of Belles
+Demoiselles' plantation. The old master, whose beaming presence had
+always made him a shining Saturn, spinning and sparkling within the
+bright circle of his daughters, fell into musing fits, started out of
+frowning reveries, walked often by himself, and heard business from his
+overseer fretfully.
+
+No wonder. The daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to
+it his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,--so to call
+them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew,
+it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to
+drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper
+was a burden. _Ennui_ was turned into capital; every headache was
+interpreted a premonition of ague; and when the native exuberance of a
+flock of ladies without a want or a care burst out in laughter in the
+father's face, they spread their French eyes, rolled up their little
+hands, and with rigid wrists and mock vehmence vowed and vowed again
+that they only laughed at their misery, and should pine to death unless
+they could move to the sweet city. "Oh! the theatre! Oh! Orleans Street!
+Oh! the masquerade! the Place d'Armes! the ball!" and they would call
+upon Heaven with French irreverence, and fall into each other's arms,
+and whirl down the hall singing a waltz, end with a grand collision and
+fall, and, their eyes streaming merriment, lay the blame on the slippery
+floor, that would some day be the death of the whole seven.
+
+Three times more the fond father, thus goaded, managed, by
+accident,--business accident,--to see old Charlie and increase his
+offer; but in vain. He finally went to him formally.
+
+"Eh?" said the deaf and distant relative. "For what you want him, eh?
+Why you don't stay where you halways be 'appy? Dis is a blame old
+rat-hole,--good for old Injin Charlie,--da's all. Why you don't stay
+where you be halways 'appy? Why you don't buy somewheres else?"
+
+"That's none of yonr business," snapped the planter. Truth was, his
+reasons were unsatisfactory even to himself.
+
+A sullen silence followed. Then Charlie spoke:
+
+"Well, now, look here; I sell you old Charlie's house."
+
+"_Bien!_ and the whole block," said the Colonel.
+
+"Hold on," said Charlie. "I sell you de 'ouse and de block. Den I go and
+git drunk, and go to sleep de dev' comes along and says, 'Charlie! old
+Charlie, you blame low-down old dog, wake up! What you doin' here?
+Where's de 'ouse what Monsieur le Compte give your grace-gran-muzzer?
+Don't you see dat fine gentyman, De Charleu, done gone and tore him down
+and make him over new, you blame old fool, Charlie, you low-down old
+Injin dog!'"
+
+"I'll give you forty thousand dollars," said the Colonel.
+
+"For de 'ouse?"
+
+"For all."
+
+The deaf man shook his head.
+
+"Forty-five!" said the Colonel.
+
+"What a lie? For what you tell me 'What a lie?' I don't tell you no
+lie."
+
+"_Non, non!_ I give you _forty-five!_" shouted the Colonel.
+
+Charlie shook his head again.
+
+"Fifty!"
+
+He shook it again.
+
+The figures rose and rose to--
+
+"Seventy-five!"
+
+The answer was an invitation to go away and let the owner alone, as he
+was, in certain specified respects, the vilest of living creatures, and
+no company for a fine gentyman.
+
+The "fine gentyman" longed to blaspheme--but before old Charlie!--in the
+name of pride, how could he? He mounted and started away.
+
+"Tell you what I'll make wid you," said Charlie.
+
+The other, guessing aright, turned back without dismounting, smiling.
+
+"How much Belles Demoiselles hoes me now?" asked the deaf one.
+
+"One hundred and eighty thousand dollars," said the Colonel, firmly.
+
+"Yass," said Charlie. "I don't want Belle Demoiselles."
+
+The old Colonel's quiet laugh intimated it made no difference either
+way.
+
+"But me," continued Charlie, "me,--I'm got le Compte De Charleu's blood
+in me, any'ow,--a litt' bit, any'ow, ain't it?"
+
+The Colonel nodded that it was.
+
+"_Bien!_ If I go out of dis place and don't go to Belles Demoiselles, de
+peoples will say,--dey will say, 'Old Charlie he been all doze time tell
+a blame _lie!_ He ain't no kin to his old grace-gran-muzzer, not a blame
+bit! He don't got nary drop of De Charleu blood to save his blame
+low-down old Injin soul!' No, sare! What I want wid money, den? No,
+sare! My place for yours!"
+
+He turned to go into the house, just too soon to see the Colonel make an
+ugly whisk at him with his riding-whip. Then the Colonel, too, moved
+off.
+
+Two or three times over, as he ambled homeward, laughter broke through
+his annoyance, as he recalled old Charlie's family pride and the
+presumption of his offer. Yet each time he could but think better
+of--not the offer to swap, but the preposterous ancestral loyalty. It
+was so much better than he could have expected from his "low-down"
+relative, and not unlike his own whim withal--the proposition which went
+with it was forgiven.
+
+This last defeat bore so harshly on the master of Belles Demoiselles,
+that the daughters, reading chagrin in his face, began to repent. They
+loved their father as daughters can, and when they saw their pretended
+dejection harassing him seriously they restrained their complaints,
+displayed more than ordinary tenderness, and heroically and
+ostentatiously concluded there was no place like Belles Demoiselles. But
+the new mood touched him more than the old, and only refined his
+discontent. Here was a man, rich without the care of riches, free from
+any real trouble, happiness as native to his house as perfume to his
+garden, deliberately, as it were with premeditated malice, taking joy by
+the shoulder and bidding her be gone to town, whither he might easily
+have followed, only that the very same ancestral nonsense that kept
+Injin Charlie from selling the old place for twice its value prevented
+him from choosing any other spot for a city home.
+
+But by and by the charm of nature and the merry hearts around him
+prevailed; the fit of exalted sulks passed off, and after a while the
+year flared up at Christmas, flickered, and went out.
+
+New Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles put
+on its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to rose;
+the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the rich
+sunlight of family affection, and on the common memory the only scar of
+last year's wound was old Charlie's sheer impertinence in crossing the
+caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with the
+filling of the river.
+
+How high that river was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled and
+spun along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift,--and how near
+shore it came! Men were out day and night, watching the levee. On windy
+nights even the old Colonel took part, and grew light-hearted with
+occupation and excitement, as every minute the river threw a white arm
+over the levee's top, as though it would vault over. But all held fast,
+and, as the summer drifted in, the water sunk down into its banks and
+looked quite incapable of harm.
+
+On a summer afternoon of uncommon mildness, old Colonel Jean Albert
+Henri Joseph De Charleu-Marot, being in a mood for revery, slipped the
+custody of his feminine rulers and sought the crown of the levee, where
+it was his wont to promenade. Presently he sat upon a stone bench,--a
+favorite seat. Before him lay his broad-spread fields; near by, his
+lordly mansion; and being still,--perhaps by female contact,--somewhat
+sentimental, he fell to musing on his past. It was hardly worthy to be
+proud of. All its morning was reddened with mad frolic, and far toward
+the meridian it was marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept him
+well-nigh useless, and despised the honors won by valor; gaming had
+dimmed prosperity; death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous ease
+had mortgaged his lands; and yet his house still stood, his
+sweet-smelling fields were still fruitful, his name was fame enough; and
+yonder and yonder, among the trees and flowers, like angels walking in
+Eden, were the seven goddesses of his only worship.
+
+Just then a slight sound behind him brought him to his feet. He cast his
+eyes anxiously to the outer edge of the little strip of bank between the
+levee's base and the river. There was nothing visible. He paused, with
+his ear toward the water, his face full of frightened expectation. Ha!
+There came a single plashing sound, like some great beast slipping into
+the river, and little waves in a wide semi-circle came out from under
+the bank and spread over the water!
+
+"My God!"
+
+He plunged down the levee and bounded through the low weeds to the edge
+of the bank. It was sheer, and the water about four feet below. He did
+not stand quite on the edge, but fell upon his knees a couple of yards
+away, wringing his hands, moaning and weeping, and staring through his
+watery eyes at a fine, long crevice just discernible under the matted
+grass, and curving outward on either hand toward the river.
+
+"My God!" he sobbed aloud; "my God!" and even while he called, his God
+answered: the tough Bermuda grass stretched and snapped, the crevice
+slowly became a gape, and softly, gradually, with no sound but the
+closing of the water at last, a ton or more of earth settled into the
+boiling eddy and disappeared.
+
+At the same instant a pulse of the breeze brought from the garden
+behind, the joyous, thoughtless laughter of the fair mistresses of
+Belles Demoiselles.
+
+The old Colonel sprang up and clambered over the levee. Then forcing
+himself to a more composed movement he hastened into the house and
+ordered his horse.
+
+"Tell my children to make merry while I am gone," he left word. "I shall
+be back to-night," and the horse's hoofs clattered down a by-road
+leading to the city.
+
+"Charlie," said the planter, riding up to a window, from which the old
+man's nightcap was thrust out, "what you say, Charlie,--my house for
+yours, eh, Charlie--what you say?"
+
+"Ello!" said Charlie; "from where you come from dis time of to-night?"
+
+"I come from the Exchange in St. Louis Street." (A small fraction of the
+truth.)
+
+"What you want?" said matter-of-fact Charlie.
+
+"I come to trade."
+
+The low-down relative drew the worsted off his ears. "Oh! yass," he said
+with an uncertain air.
+
+"Well, old man Charlie, what you say: my house for yours,--like you
+said,--eh, Charlie?"
+
+"I dunno," said Charlie; "it's nearly mine now. Why you don't stay dare
+youse'f?"
+
+"_Because I don't want!_" said the Colonel savagely. "Is dat reason
+enough for you? You better take me in de notion, old man, I tell
+you,--yes!"
+
+Charlie never winced; but how his answer delighted the Colonel! Quoth
+Charlie:
+
+"I don't care--I take him!--_mais_, possession give right off."
+
+"Not the whole plantation, Charlie; only"--
+
+"I don't care," said Charlie; "we easy can fix dat _Mais_, what for you
+don't want to keep him? I don't want him. You better keep him."
+
+"Don't you try to make no fool of me, old man," cried the planter.
+
+"Oh, no!" said the other. "Oh, no! but you make a fool of yourself,
+ain't it?"
+
+The dumbfounded Colonel stared; Charlie went on:
+
+"Yass! Belles Demoiselles is more wort' dan tree block like dis one. I
+pass by dare since two weeks. Oh, pritty Belles Demoiselles! De cane was
+wave in de wind, de garden smell like a bouquet, de white-cap was jump
+up and down on de river; seven _belles demoiselles_ was ridin' on
+horses. 'Pritty, pritty, pritty!' says old Charlie. Ah! _Monsieur le
+Père_, 'ow 'appy, 'appy, 'appy!"
+
+"Yass!" he continued--the Colonel still staring--"le Compte De Charleu
+have two familie. One was low-down Choctaw, one was high up _noblesse_.
+He gave the low-down Choctaw dis old rat-hole; he give Belles
+Demoiselles to you gran-fozzer; and now you don't be _satisfait_. What
+I'll do wid Belles Demoiselles? She'll break me in two years, yass. And
+what you'll do wid old Charlie's house, eh? You'll tear her down and
+make you'se'f a blame old fool. I rather wouldn't trade!"
+
+The planter caught a big breathful of anger, but Charlie went straight
+on:
+
+"I rather wouldn't, _mais_ I will do it for you;--just the same, like
+Monsieur le Compte would say, 'Charlie, you old fool, I want to shange
+houses wid you.'"
+
+So long as the Colonel suspected irony he was angry, but as Charlie
+seemed, after all, to be certainly in earnest, he began to feel
+conscience-stricken. He was by no means a tender man, but his
+lately-discovered misfortune had unhinged him, and this strange,
+undeserved, disinterested family fealty on the part of Charlie touched
+his heart. And should he still try to lead him into the pitfall he had
+dug? He hesitated;--no, he would show him the place by broad daylight,
+and if he chose to overlook the "caving bank," it would be his own
+fault;--a trade's a trade.
+
+"Come," said the planter, "come at my house to-night; to-morrow we look
+at the place before breakfast, and finish the trade."
+
+"For what?" said Charlie.
+
+"Oh, because I got to come in town in the morning."
+
+"I don't want," said Charlie. "How I'm goin' to come dere?"
+
+"I git you a horse at the liberty stable."
+
+"Well--anyhow--I don't care--I'll go." And they went.
+
+When they had ridden a long time, and were on the road darkened by
+hedges of Cherokee rose, the Colonel called behind him to the "low-down"
+scion:
+
+"Keep the road, old man."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Keep the road."
+
+"Oh, yes; all right; I keep my word; we don't goin' to play no tricks,
+eh?"
+
+But the Colonel seemed not to hear. His ungenerous design was beginning
+to be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie's unprovoked goodness was
+prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of
+an intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, the
+caving of the bank, at its present fearful speed, would let the house
+into the river within three months; but were it not better to lose it
+so, than sell his birthright? Again,--coming back to the first
+thought,--to betray his own blood! It was only Injin Charlie; but had
+not the De Charleu blood just spoken out in him? Unconsciously he
+groaned.
+
+After a time they struck a path approaching the plantation in the rear,
+and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they came
+in sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining through its dark
+grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant of
+luxury and gayety, that the poor master, from an overflowing heart,
+groaned again.
+
+"What?" asked Charlie.
+
+The Colonel only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically,
+contemplated the sight before him. The high, arched doors and windows
+were thrown wide to the summer air; from every opening the bright light
+of numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of magnolia
+and bay, and here and there in the spacious verandas a colored lantern
+swayed in the gentle breeze. A sound of revel fell on the ear, the music
+of harps; and across one window, brighter than the rest, flitted, once
+or twice, the shadows of dancers. But oh! the shadows flitting across
+the heart of the fair mansion's master!
+
+"Old Charlie," said he, gazing fondly at his house, "You and me is both
+old, eh?"
+
+"Yaas," said the stolid Charlie.
+
+"And we has both been bad enough in our times eh, Charlie?"
+
+Charlie, surprised at the tender tone, repeated "Yaas."
+
+"And you and me is mighty close?"
+
+"Blame close, yaas."
+
+"But you never know me to cheat, old man!"
+
+"No,"--impassively.
+
+"And do you think I would cheat you now?"
+
+"I dunno," said Charlie. "I don't believe."
+
+"Well, old man, old man,"--his voice began to quiver,--"I sha'n't cheat
+you now. My God!--old man, I tell you--you better not make the trade!"
+
+"Because for what?" asked Charlie in plain anger; but both looked
+quickly toward the house! The Colonel tossed his hands wildly in the
+air, rushed forward a step or two, and giving one fearful scream of
+agony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charlie
+stood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maiden
+beauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremor
+and glow of pleasure, suddenly sunk, with one short, wild wail of
+terror--sunk, sunk, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomable
+flood of the Mississippi.
+
+Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father;
+when they were only half gone, he took his bed; and every day, and every
+night, old Charlie, the "low-down," the "fool," watched him tenderly,
+tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his misfortunes, and his
+broken heart. No woman's step crossed the floor of the sick-chamber,
+whose western dormer-windows overpeered the dingy architecture of old
+Charlie's block; Charlie and a skilled physician, the one all interest,
+the other all gentleness, hope, and patience--these only entered by the
+door; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine,
+transplanted from the caving bank of Belles Demoiselles. It caught the
+rays of sunset in its flowery net and let then softly in upon the sick
+man's bed; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight, and
+often wakened the sleeper to look, with his mindless eyes, upon their
+pretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor.
+
+By and by there seemed--there was--a twinkling dawn of returning reason.
+Slowly, peacefully, with an increase unseen from day to day, the light
+of reason came into the eyes, and speech became coherent; but withal
+there came a failing of the wrecked body, and the doctor said that
+monsieur was both better and worse.
+
+One evening, as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his fireless
+pipe in his hand, the old Colonel's eyes fell full upon his own, and
+rested there.
+
+"Charl--," he said with an effort, and his delighted nurse hastened to
+the bedside and bowed his best ear. There was an unsuccessful effort or
+two, and then he whispered, smiling with sweet sadness,--
+
+"We didn't trade."
+
+The truth, in this case, was a secondary matter to Charlie; the main
+point was to give a pleasing answer. So he nodded his head decidedly, as
+who should say--"Oh yes, we did, it was a bona-fide swap!" but when he
+saw the smile vanish, he tried the other expedient and shook his head
+with still more vigor, to signify that they had not so much as
+approached a bargain; and the smile returned.
+
+Charlie wanted to see the vine recognized. He stepped backward to the
+window with a broad smile, shook the foliage, nodded and looked smart.
+
+"I know," said the Colonel, with beaming eyes,"--many weeks."
+
+The next day--
+
+"Charl--"
+
+The best ear went down.
+
+"Send for a priest."
+
+The priest came, and was alone with him a whole afternoon. When he left,
+the patient was very haggard and exhausted, but smiled and would not
+suffer the crucifix to be removed from his breast.
+
+One more morning came. Just before dawn Charlie, lying on a pallet in
+the room, thought he was called, and came to the bedside.
+
+"Old man," whispered the failing invalid, "is it caving yet?"
+
+Charlie nodded.
+
+"It won't pay you out."
+
+"Oh, dat makes not'ing," said Charlie. Two big tears rolled down his
+brown face. "Dat makes not'in."
+
+The Colonel whispered once more:
+
+"_Mes belles demoiselles!_ in paradise;--in the garden--I shall be with
+them at sunrise;" and so it was.
+
+
+
+
+
+"POSSON JONE'." [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Published in Appletons' Journal. Republished by
+permission.]
+
+
+
+To Jules St.-Ange--elegant little heathen--there yet remained at manhood
+a remembrance of having been to school, and of having been taught by a
+stony-headed Capuchin that the world is round--for example, like a
+cheese. This round world is a cheese to be eaten through, and Jules had
+nibbled quite into his cheese-world already at twenty-two.
+
+He realized this as he idled about one Sunday morning where the
+intersection of Royal and Conti Streets some seventy years ago formed a
+central corner of New Orleans. Yes, yes, the trouble was he had been
+wasteful and honest. He discussed the matter with that faithful friend
+and confidant, Baptiste, his yellow body-servant. They concluded that,
+papa's patience and _tante's_ pin-money having been gnawed away quite to
+the rind, there were left open only these few easily-enumerated resorts:
+to go to work--they shuddered; to join Major Innerarity's filibustering
+expedition; or else--why not?--to try some games of confidence. At
+twenty-two one must begin to be something. Nothing else tempted; could
+that avail? One could but try. It is noble to try; and, besides, they
+were hungry. If one could "make the friendship" of some person from the
+country, for instance, with money, not expert at cards or dice, but, as
+one would say, willing to learn, one might find cause to say some "Hail
+Marys."
+
+The sun broke through a clearing sky, and Baptiste pronounced it good
+for luck. There had been a hurricane in the night. The weed-grown
+tile-roofs were still dripping, and from lofty brick and low adobe walls
+a rising steam responded to the summer sunlight. Up-street, and across
+the Rue du Canal, one could get glimpses of the gardens in Faubourg
+Ste.-Marie standing in silent wretchedness, so many tearful Lucretias,
+tattered victims of the storm. Short remnants of the wind now and then
+came down the narrow street in erratic puffs heavily laden with odors of
+broken boughs and torn flowers, skimmed the little pools of rain-water
+in the deep ruts of the unpaved street, and suddenly went away to
+nothing, like a juggler's butterflies or a young man's money.
+
+It was very picturesque, the Rue Royale. The rich and poor met together.
+The locksmith's swinging key creaked next door to the bank; across the
+way, crouching, mendicant-like, in the shadow of a great
+importing-house, was the mud laboratory of the mender of broken combs.
+Light balconies overhung the rows of showy shops and stores open for
+trade this Sunday morning, and pretty Latin faces of the higher class
+glanced over their savagely-pronged railings upon the passers below. At
+some windows hung lace certains, flannel duds at some, and at others
+only the scraping and sighing one-hinged shutter groaning toward Paris
+after its neglectful master.
+
+M. St.-Ange stood looking up and down the street for nearly an hour. But
+few ladies, only the inveterate mass-goers, were out. About the entrance
+of the frequent _cafés_ the masculine gentility stood leaning on canes,
+with which now one and now another beckoned to Jules, some even adding
+pantomimic hints of the social cup.
+
+M. St.-Ange remarked to his servant without turning his head that
+somehow he felt sure he should soon return those _bons_ that the mulatto
+had lent him.
+
+"What will you do with them?"
+
+"Me!" said Baptiste, quickly; "I will go and see the bull-fight in the
+Place Congo."
+
+"There is to be a bull-fight? But where is M. Cayetano?"
+
+"Ah, got all his affairs wet in the tornado. Instead of his circus, they
+are to have a bull-fight--not an ordinary bull-fight with sick horses,
+but a buffalo-and-tiger fight. I would not miss it"--
+
+Two or three persons ran to the opposite corner, and commenced striking
+at something with their canes. Others followed. Can M. St.-Ange and
+servant, who hasten forward--can the Creoles, Cubans, Spaniards, San
+Domingo refugees, and other loungers--can they hope it is a fight? They
+hurry forward. Is a man in a fit? The crowd pours in from the
+side-streets. Have they killed a so-long snake? Bareheaded shopmen leave
+their wives, who stand upon chairs. The crowd huddles and packs. Those
+on the outside make little leaps into the air, trying to be tall.
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"Have they caught a real live rat?"
+
+"Who is hurt?" asks some one in English.
+
+"_Personne_," replies a shopkeeper; "a man's hat blow' in the gutter;
+but he has it now. Jules pick' it. See, that is the man, head and
+shoulders on top the res'."
+
+"He in the homespun?" asks a second shopkeeper. "Humph! an
+_Américain_--a West-Floridian; bah!"
+
+"But wait; 'st! he is speaking; listen!"
+
+"To who is he speak----?"
+
+"Sh-sh-sh! to Jules."
+
+"Jules who?"
+
+"Silence, you! To Jules St.-Ange, what howe me a bill since long time.
+Sh-sh-sh!"
+
+Then the voice was heard.
+
+Its owner was a man of giant stature, with a slight stoop in his
+shoulders, as if he was making a constant, good-natured attempt to
+accommodate himself to ordinary doors and ceilings. His bones were those
+of an ox. His face was marked more by weather than age, and his narrow
+brow was bald and smooth. He had instantaneously formed an opinion of
+Jules St.-Ange, and the multitude of words, most of them lingual
+curiosities, with which he was rasping the wide-open ears of his
+listeners, signified, in short, that, as sure as his name was Parson
+Jones, the little Creole was a "plum gentleman."
+
+M. St.-Ange bowed and smiled, and was about to call attention, by both
+gesture and speech, to a singular object on top of the still uncovered
+head, when the nervous motion of the _Américain_ anticipated him, as,
+throwing up an immense hand, he drew down a large roll of bank-notes.
+The crowd laughed, the West-Floridian joining, and began to disperse.
+
+"Why, that money belongs to Smyrny Church," said the giant.
+
+"You are very dengerous to make your money expose like that, Misty
+Posson Jone'," said St.-Ange, counting it with his eyes.
+
+The countryman gave a start and smile of surprise.
+
+"How d'dyou know my name was Jones?" he asked; but, without pausing for
+the Creole's answer, furnished in his reckless way some further
+specimens of West-Floridian English; and the conciseness with which he
+presented full intelligence of his home, family, calling, lodging-house,
+and present and future plans, might have passed for consummate art, had
+it not been the most run-wild nature. "And I've done been to Mobile, you
+know, on busi_ness_ for Bethesdy Church. It's the on'yest time I ever
+been from home; now you wouldn't of believed that, would you? But I
+admire to have saw you, that's so. You've got to come and eat with me.
+Me and my boy ain't been fed yit. What might one call yo' name? Jools?
+Come on, Jools. Come on, Colossus. That's my niggah--his name's Colossus
+of Rhodes. Is that yo' yallah boy, Jools? Fetch him along, Colossus. It
+seems like a special provi_dence_.--Jools, do you believe in a special
+provi_dence?_"
+
+Jules said he did.
+
+The new-made friends moved briskly off, followed by Baptiste and a
+short, square, old negro, very black and grotesque, who had introduced
+himself to the mulatto, with many glittering and cavernous smiles, as
+"d'body-sarvant of d'Rev'n' Mr. Jones."
+
+Both pairs enlivened their walk with conversation. Parson Jones
+descanted upon the doctrine he had mentioned, as illustrated in the
+perplexities of cotton-growing, and concluded that there would always be
+"a special provi_dence_ again' cotton untell folks quits a-pressin' of
+it and haulin' of it on Sundays!"
+
+"_Je dis_," said St.-Ange, in response, "I thing you is juz right. I
+believe, me, strong-strong in the improvidence, yes. You know my papa he
+hown a sugah-plantation, you know. 'Jules, me son,' he say one time to
+me, 'I goin' to make one baril sugah to fedge the moze high price in New
+Orleans.' Well, he take his bez baril sugah--I nevah see a so careful
+man like me papa always to make a so beautiful sugah _et sirop_. 'Jules,
+go at Father Pierre an' ged this lill pitcher fill with holy water, an'
+tell him sen' his tin bucket, and I will make it fill with _quitte_.' I
+ged the holy-water; my papa sprinkle it over the baril, an' make one
+cross on the 'ead of the baril."
+
+"Why, Jools," said Parson Jones, "that didn't do no good."
+
+"Din do no good! Id broughd the so great value! You can strike me dead
+if thad baril sugah din fedge the more high cost than any other in the
+city. _Parce-que_, the man what buy that baril sugah he make a mistake
+of one hundred pound"--falling back--"_Mais_ certainlee!"
+
+"And you think that was growin' out of the holy-water?" asked the
+parson.
+
+"_Mais_, what could make it else? Id could not be the _quitte_, because
+my papa keep the bucket, an' forget to sen' the _quitte_ to Father
+Pierre."
+
+Parson Jones was disappointed.
+
+"Well, now, Jools, you know, I don't think that was right. I reckon you
+must be a plum Catholic."
+
+M. St.-Ange shrugged. He would not deny his faith.
+
+"I am a _Catholique, mais_"--brightening as he hoped to recommend
+himself anew--"not a good one."
+
+"Well, you know," said Jones--"where's Colossus? Oh! all right. Colossus
+strayed off a minute in Mobile, and I plum lost him for two days. Here's
+the place; come in. Colossus and this boy can go to the kitchen.--Now,
+Colossus, what _air_ you a-beckonin' at me faw?"
+
+He let his servant draw him aside and address him in a whisper.
+
+"Oh, go 'way!" said the parson with a jerk. "Who's goin' to throw me?
+What? Speak louder. Why, Colossus, you shayn't talk so, saw. 'Pon my
+soul, you're the mightiest fool I ever taken up with. Jest you go down
+that alley-way with this yalla boy, and don't show yo' face untell yo'
+called!"
+
+The negro begged; the master wrathily insisted.
+
+"Colossus, will you do ez I tell you, or shell I hev to strike you,
+saw?"
+
+"O Mahs Jimmy, I--I's gwine; but"--he ventured nearer--"don't on no
+account drink nothin', Mahs Jimmy."
+
+Such was the negro's earnestness that he put one foot in the gutter, and
+fell heavily against his master. The parson threw him off angrily.
+
+"Thar, now! Why, Colossus, you most of been dosted with sumthin'; yo'
+plum crazy.--Humph, come on, Jools, let's eat! Humph! to tell me that
+when I never taken a drop, exceptin' for chills, in my life--which he
+knows so as well as me!"
+
+The two masters began to ascend a stair.
+
+"_Mais_, he is a sassy; I would sell him, me," said the young Creole.
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that," replied the parson; "though there is people in
+Bethesdy who says he is a rascal. He's a powerful smart fool. Why, that
+boy's got money, Jools; more money than religion, I reckon. I'm shore he
+fallen into mighty bad company"--they passed beyond earshot.
+
+Baptiste and Colossus, instead of going to the tavern kitchen, passed to
+the next door and entered the dark rear corner of a low grocery, where,
+the law notwithstanding, liquor was covertly sold to slaves. There, in
+the quiet company of Baptiste and the grocer, the colloquial powers of
+Colossus, which were simply prodigious, began very soon to show
+themselves.
+
+"For whilst," said he, "Mahs Jimmy has eddication, you know--whilst he
+has eddication, I has 'scretion. He has eddication and I has 'scretion,
+an' so we gits along."
+
+He drew a black bottle down the counter, and, laying half his length
+upon the damp board, continued:
+
+"As a p'inciple I discredits de imbimin' of awjus liquors. De imbimin'
+of awjus liquors, de wiolution of de Sabbaf, de playin' of de fiddle,
+and de usin' of by-words, dey is de fo' sins of de conscience; an' if
+any man sin de fo' sins of de conscience, de debble done sharp his fork
+fo' dat man.--Ain't that so, boss?"
+
+The grocer was sure it was so.
+
+"Neberdeless, mind you"--here the orator brimmed his glass from the
+bottle and swallowed the contents with a dry eye--"mind you, a roytious
+man, sech as ministers of de gospel and dere body-sarvants, can take a
+_leetle_ for de weak stomach."
+
+But the fascinations of Colossus's eloquence must not mislead us; this
+is the story of a true Christian; to wit, Parson Jones.
+
+The parson and his new friend ate. But the coffee M. St.-Ange declared
+he could not touch; it was too wretchedly bad. At the French Market,
+near by, there was some noble coffee. This, however, would have to be
+bought, and Parson Jones had scruples.
+
+"You see, Jools, every man has his conscience to guide him, which it
+does so in"--
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried St.-Ange, "conscien'; thad is the bez, Posson Jone'.
+Certainlee! I am a _Catholique_, you is a _schismatique_; you thing it
+is wrong to dring some coffee--well, then, it _is_ wrong; you thing it
+is wrong to make the sugah to ged the so large price--well, then, it
+_is_ wrong; I thing it is right--well, then, it is right; it is all
+'abit; _c'est tout_. What a man thing is right, _is right_; 'tis all
+'abit. A man muz nod go again' his conscien'. My faith! do you thing I
+would go again' my conscien'? _Mais allons_, led us go and ged some
+coffee."
+
+"Jools."
+
+"W'at?"
+
+"Jools, it ain't the drinkin' of coffee, but the buyin' of it on a
+Sabbath. You must really excuse me, Jools, it's again' conscience, you
+know."
+
+"Ah!" said St.-Ange, "_c'est_ very true. For you it would be a sin,
+_mais_ for me it is only 'abit. Rilligion is a very strange; I know a
+man one time, he thing it was wrong to go to cock-fight Sunday evening.
+I thing it is all 'abit. _Mais_, come, Posson Jone'; I have got one
+friend, Miguel; led us go at his house and ged some coffee. Come; Miguel
+have no familie; only him and Joe--always like to see friend; _allons_,
+led us come yonder."
+
+"Why, Jools, my dear friend, you know," said the shamefaced parson, "I
+never visit on Sundays."
+
+"Never w'at?" asked the astounded Creole.
+
+"No," said Jones, smiling awkwardly.
+
+"Never visite?"
+
+"Exceptin' sometimes amongst church-members." said Parson Jones.
+
+"_Mais_," said the seductive St.-Ange, "Miguel and Joe is
+church-member'--certainlee! They love to talk about rilligion. Come at
+Miguel and talk about some rilligion. I am nearly expire for me coffee."
+
+Parson Jones took his hat from beneath his chair and rose up.
+
+"Jools," said the weak giant, "I ought to be in church right now."
+
+"_Mais_, the church is right yonder at Miguel', yes. Ah!" continued
+St.-Ange, as they descended the stairs, "I thing every man muz have the
+rilligion he like' the bez--me, I like the _Catholique_ rilligion the
+bez--for me it _is_ the bez. Every man will sure go to heaven if he like
+his rilligion the bez."
+
+"Jools," said the West-Floridian, laying his great hand tenderly upon
+the Creole's shoulder, as they stepped out upon the _banquette_, "do you
+think you have any shore hopes of heaven?"
+
+"Yass!" replied St.-Ange; "I am sure-sure. I thing everybody will go to
+heaven. I thing you will go, _et_ I thing Miguel will go, _et_
+Joe--everybody, I thing--_mais_, hof course, not if they not have been
+christen'. Even I thing some niggers will go."
+
+"Jools," said the parson, stopping in his walk--"Jools, I _don't_ want
+to lose my niggah."
+
+"Yon will not loose him. With Baptiste he _cannot_ ged loose."
+
+But Colossus's master was not re-assured.
+
+"Now," said he, still tarrying, "this is jest the way; had I of gone to
+church"--
+
+"Posson Jone'," said Jules.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I tell you. We goin' to church!"
+
+"Will you?" asked Jones, joyously.
+
+"_Allons_, come along," said Jules, taking his elbow.
+
+They walked down the Rue Chartres, passed several corners, and by and by
+turned into a cross street. The parson stopped an instant as they were
+turning and looked back up the street.
+
+"W'at you lookin'?" asked his companion.
+
+"I thought I saw Colossus," answered the parson, with an anxious face;
+"I reckon 'twa'n't him, though." And they went on.
+
+The street they now entered was a very quiet one. The eye of any chance
+passer would have been at once drawn to a broad, heavy, white brick
+edifice on the lower side of the way, with a flag-pole standing out like
+a bowsprit from one of its great windows, and a pair of lamps hanging
+before a large closed entrance. It was a theatre, honey-combed with
+gambling-dens. At this morning hour all was still, and the only sign of
+life was a knot of little barefoot girls gathered within its narrow
+shade, and each carrying an infant relative. Into this place the parson
+and M. St.-Ange entered, the little nurses jumping up from the sills to
+let them pass in.
+
+A half-hour may have passed. At the end of that time the whole juvenile
+company were laying alternate eyes and ears to the chinks, to gather
+what they could of an interesting quarrel going on within.
+
+"I did not, saw! I given you no cause of offence, saw! It's not so, saw!
+Mister Jools simply mistaken the house, thinkin' it was a
+Sabbath-school! No such thing, saw; I _ain't_ bound to bet! Yes, I kin
+git out. Yes, without bettin'! I hev a right to my opinion; I reckon I'm
+a _white man_, saw! No saw! I on'y said I didn't think you could get the
+game on them cards. 'Sno such thing, saw! I do _not_ know how to play! I
+wouldn't hev a rascal's money ef I should win it! Shoot, ef you dare!
+You can kill me, but you cayn't scare me! No, I shayn't bet! I'll die
+first! Yes, saw; Mr. Jools can bet for me if he admires to; I ain't his
+mostah."
+
+Here the speaker seemed to direct his words to St.-Ange.
+
+"Saw, I don't understand you, saw. I never said I'd loan you money to
+bet for me. I didn't suspicion this from you, saw. No, I won't take any
+more lemonade; it's the most notorious stuff I ever drank, saw!"
+
+M. St.-Ange's replies were in _falsetto_ and not without effect; for
+presently the parson's indignation and anger began to melt. "Don't ask
+me, Jools, I can't help you. It's no use; it's a matter of conscience
+with me, Jools."
+
+"_Mais oui!_ 'tis a matt' of conscien' wid me, the same."
+
+"But, Jools, the money's none o' mine, nohow; it belongs to Smyrny, you
+know."
+
+"If I could make jus' _one_ bet," said the persuasive St.-Ange, "I would
+leave this place, fas'-fas', yes. If I had thing--_mais_ I did not
+soupspicion this from you, Posson Jone'"--
+
+"Don't, Jools, don't!"
+
+"No! Posson Jone'."
+
+"You're bound to win?" said the parson, wavering.
+
+"_Mais certainement!_ But it is not to win that I want;'tis me
+conscien'--me honor!"
+
+"Well, Jools, I hope I'm not a-doin' no wrong. I'll loan you some of
+this money if you say you'll come right out 'thout takin' your
+winnin's."
+
+All was still. The peeping children could see the parson as he lifted
+his hand to his breast-pocket. There it paused a moment in bewilderment,
+then plunged to the bottom. It came back empty, and fell lifelessly at
+his side. His head dropped upon his breast, his eyes were for a moment
+closed, his broad palms were lifted and pressed against his forehead, a
+tremor seized him, and he fell all in a lump to the floor. The children
+ran off with their infant-loads, leaving Jules St.-Ange swearing by all
+his deceased relatives, first to Miguel and Joe, and then to the lifted
+parson, that he did not know what had become of the money "except if"
+the black man had got it.
+
+In the rear of ancient New Orleans, beyond the sites of the old rampart,
+a trio of Spanish forts, where the town has since sprung up and grown
+old, green with all the luxuriance of the wild Creole summer, lay the
+Congo Plains. Here stretched the canvas of the historic Cayetano, who
+Sunday after Sunday sowed the sawdust for his circus-ring.
+
+But to-day the great showman had fallen short of his printed promise.
+The hurricane had come by night, and with one fell swash had made an
+irretrievable sop of every thing. The circus trailed away its bedraggled
+magnificence, and the ring was cleared for the bull.
+
+Then the sun seemed to come out and work for the people. "See," said the
+Spaniards, looking up at the glorious sky with its great, white fleets
+drawn off upon the horizon--"see--heaven smiles upon the bull-fight!"
+
+In the high upper seats of the rude amphitheatre sat the gayly-decked
+wives and daughters of the Gascons, from the _métaries_ along the Ridge,
+and the chattering Spanish women of the Market, their shining hair
+un-bonneted to the sun. Next below were their husbands and lovers in
+Sunday blouses, milkmen, butchers, bakers, black-bearded fishermen,
+Sicilian fruiterers, swarthy Portuguese sailors, in little woollen caps,
+and strangers of the graver sort; mariners of England, Germany, and
+Holland. The lowest seats were full of trappers, smugglers, Canadian
+_voyageurs_, drinking and singing; _Américains_, too--more's the
+shame--from the upper rivers--who will not keep their seats--who ply the
+bottle, and who will get home by and by and tell how wicked Sodom is;
+broad-brimmed, silver-braided Mexicans, too, with their copper cheeks
+and bat's eyes and their tinkling spurred heels. Yonder, in that quieter
+section, are the quadroon women in their black lace shawls--and there is
+Baptiste; and below them are the turbaned black women, and there is--but
+he vanishes--Colossus.
+
+The afternoon is advancing, yet the sport, though loudly demanded, does
+not begin. The _Américains_ grow derisive and find pastime in gibes and
+raillery They mock the various Latins with their national inflections,
+and answer their scowls with laughter. Some of the more aggressive shout
+pretty French greetings to the women of Gascony, and one bargeman, amid
+peals of applause, stands on a seat and hurls a kiss to the quadroons.
+The mariners of England, Germany, and Holland, as spectators, like the
+fun, while the Spaniards look black and cast defiant imprecations upon
+their persecutors. Some Gascons, with timely caution, pick their women
+out and depart, running a terrible fire of gallantries.
+
+In hope of truce, a new call is raised for the bull: "The bull, the
+bull!--hush!"
+
+In a tier near the ground a man is standing and calling--standing head
+and shoulders above the rest--callimg in the _Américaine_ tongue.
+Another man, big and red, named Joe, and a handsome little Creole in
+elegant dress and full of laughter, wish to stop him, but the
+flat-boatmen, ha-ha-ing and cheering, will not suffer it. Ah, through
+some shameful knavery of the men, into whose hands he has fallen, he is
+drunk! Even the women can see that; and now he throws his arms wildly
+and raises his voice until the whole great circle hears it. He is
+preaching!
+
+Ah! kind Lord, for a special providence now! The men of his own
+nation--men from the land of the open English Bible and temperance cup
+and song are cheering him on to mad disgrace. And now another call for
+the appointed sport is drowned by the flat-boatmen singing the ancient
+tune of Mear. You can hear the words--
+
+     "Old Grimes is dead, that good old soul"
+
+--from ribald lips and throats turned brazen with laughter, from singers
+who toss their hats aloft and roll in their seats; the chorus swells to
+the accompaniment of a thousand brogans--
+
+     "He used to wear an old gray coat
+      All buttoned down before."
+
+A ribboned man in the arena is trying to be heard, and the Latins raise
+one mighty cry for silence. The big red man gets a hand over the
+parson's mouth, and the ribboned man seizes his moment.
+
+"They have been endeavoring for hours," he says, "to draw the terrible
+animals from their dens, but such is their strength and fierceness,
+that"--
+
+His voice is drowned. Enough has been heard to warrant the inference
+that the beasts cannot be whipped out of the storm-drenched cages to
+which menagerie-life and long starvation have attached them, and from
+the roar of indignation the man of ribbons flies. The noise increases.
+Men are standing up by hundreds, and women are imploring to be let out
+of the turmoil. All at once, like the bursting of a dam, the whole mass
+pours down into the ring. They sweep across the arena and over the
+showman's barriers. Miguel gets a frightful trampling. Who cares for
+gates or doors? They tear the beasts' houses bar from bar, and, laying
+hold of the gaunt buffalo, drag him forth by feet, ears, and tail; and
+in the midst of the _mêlée_, still head and shoulders above all, wilder,
+with the cup of the wicked, than any beast, is the man of God from the
+Florida parishes!
+
+In his arms he bore--and all the people shouted at once when they saw
+it--the tiger. He had lifted it high up with its back to his breast, his
+arms clasped under its shoulders; the wretched brute had curled up
+caterpillar-wise, with its long tail against its belly, and through its
+filed teeth grinned a fixed and impotent wrath. And Parson Jones was
+shouting:
+
+"The tiger and the buffler _shell_ lay down together! You dah to say
+they shayn't and I'll comb you with this varmint from head to foot! The
+tiger and the buffler _shell_ lay down together. They _shell!_ Now, you,
+Joe! Behold! I am here to see it done. The lion and the buffler _shell_
+lay down together!"
+
+Mouthing these words again and again, the parson forced his way through
+the surge in the wake of the buffalo. This creature the Latins had
+secured by a lariat over his head, and were dragging across the old
+rampart and into a street of the city.
+
+The northern races were trying to prevent, and there was pommelling and
+knocking down, cursing and knife-drawing, until Jules St.-Ange was quite
+carried away with the fun, laughed, clapped his hands, and swore with
+delight, and ever kept close to the gallant parson.
+
+Joe, contrariwise, counted all this child's-play an interruption. He had
+come to find Colossus and the money. In an unlucky moment he made bold
+to lay hold of the parson, but a piece of the broken barriers in the
+hands of a flat-boatman felled him to the sod, the terrible crowd swept
+over him, the lariat was cut and the giant parson hurled the tiger upon
+the buffalo's back. In another instant both brutes were dead at the
+hands of the mob; Jones was lifted from his feet, and prating of
+Scripture and the millennium, of Paul at Ephesus and Daniel in the
+"buffler's" den, was borne aloft upon the shoulders of the huzzaing
+_Américains_. Half an hour later he was sleeping heavily on the floor of
+a cell in the _calaboza_.
+
+When Parson Jones awoke, a bell was somewhere tolling for midnight.
+Somebody was at the door of his cell with a key. The lock grated, the
+door swung, the turnkey looked in and stepped back, and a ray of
+moonlight fell upon M. Jules St.-Ange. The prisoner sat upon the empty
+shackles and ring-bolt in the centre of the floor.
+
+"Misty Posson Jone'," said the visitor, softly.
+
+"O Jools!"
+
+"_Mais_, w'at de matter, Posson Jone'?"
+
+"My sins, Jools, my sins!"
+
+"Ah! Posson Jone', is that something to cry, because a man get sometime
+a litt' bit intoxicate? _Mais_, if a man keep _all the time_ intoxicate,
+I think that is again' the conscien'."
+
+"Jools, Jools, your eyes is darkened--oh I Jools, Where's my pore old
+niggah?"
+
+"Posson Jone', never min'; he is wid Baptiste."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don' know w'ere--_mais_ he is wid Baptiste. Baptiste is a beautiful
+to take care of somebody."
+
+"Is he as good as you, Jools?" asked Parson Jones, sincerely.
+
+Jules was slightly staggered.
+
+"You know, Posson Jone', you know, a nigger cannot be good as a w'ite
+man--_mais_ Baptiste is a good nigger."
+
+The parson moaned and dropped his chin into his hands.
+
+"I was to of left for home to-morrow, sun-up, on the Isabella schooner.
+Pore Smyrny!" He deeply sighed.
+
+"Posson Jone'," said Jules, leaning against the wall and smiling, "I
+swear you is the moz funny man I ever see. If I was you I would say, me,
+'Ah! 'ow I am lucky! the money I los', it was not mine, anyhow!' My
+faith! shall a man make hisse'f to be the more sorry because the money
+he los' is not his? Me, I would say, 'it is a specious providence.'
+
+"Ah! Misty Posson Jone'," he continued, "you make a so droll sermon ad
+the bull-ring. Ha! ha! I swear I thing you can make money to preach thad
+sermon many time ad the theatre St. Philippe. Hah! you is the moz brave
+dat I never see, _mais_ ad the same time the moz rilligious man. Where
+I'm goin' to fin' one priest to make like dat? _Mais,_ why you can't
+cheer up an' be 'appy? Me, if I should be miserabl' like that I would
+kill meself."
+
+The countryman only shook his head.
+
+"_Bien,_ Posson Jone', I have the so good news for you."
+
+The prisoner looked up with eager inquiry.
+
+"Las' evening when they lock' you, I come right off at M. De Blanc's
+house to get you let out of de calaboose; M. De Blanc he is the judge.
+So soon I was entering--'Ah! Jules, me boy, juz the man to make complete
+the game!' Posson Jone', it was a specious providence! I win in t'ree
+hours more dan six hundred dollah! Look." He produced a mass of
+bank-notes, _bons_, and due-bills.
+
+"And you got the pass?" asked the parson, regarding the money with a
+sadness incomprehensible to Jules.
+
+"It is here; it take the effect so soon the daylight."
+
+"Jools, my friend, your kindness is in vain."
+
+The Creole's face became a perfect blank.
+
+"Because," said the parson, "for two reasons: firstly, I hare broken the
+laws, and ought to stand the penalty; and secondly--you must really
+excuse me, Jools, you know, but the pass has been got onfairly, I'm
+afeerd. You told the judge I was innocent; and in neither case it don't
+become a Christian (which I hope I can still say I am one) to 'do evil
+that good may come.' I muss stay."
+
+M. St.-Ange stood up aghast, and for a moment speechless, at this
+exhibition of moral heroism; but an artifice was presently hit upon.
+"_Mais_, Posson Jone'!"--in his old _falsetto_--"de order--you cannot
+read it, it is in French--compel you to go hout, sir!"
+
+"Is that so?" cried the parson, bounding up with radiant face--"is that
+so, Jools?"
+
+The young man nodded, smiling; but, though he smiled, the fountain of
+his tenderness was opened. He made the sign of the cross as the parson
+knelt in prayer, and even whispered "Hail Mary," etc., quite through,
+twice over.
+
+Morning broke in summer glory upon a cluster of villas behind the city,
+nestled under live-oaks and magnolias on the banks of a deep bayou, and
+known as Suburb St. Jean.
+
+With the first beam came the West-Floridian and the Creole out upon the
+bank below the village. Upon the parson's arm hung a pair of antique
+saddle-bags. Baptiste limped wearily behind; both his eyes were
+encircled with broad, blue rings, and one cheek-bone bore the official
+impress of every knuckle of Colossus's left hand. The "beautiful to take
+care of somebody" had lost his charge. At mention of the negro he became
+wild, and, half in English, half in the "gumbo" dialect, said murderous
+things. Intimidated by Jules to calmness, he became able to speak
+confidently on one point; he could, would, and did swear that Colossus
+had gone home to the Florida parishes; he was almost certain; in fact,
+he thought so.
+
+There was a clicking of pulleys as the three appeared upon the bayou's
+margin, and Baptiste pointed out, in the deep shadow of a great oak, the
+Isabella, moored among the bulrushes, and just spreading her sails for
+departure. Moving down to where she lay, the parson and his friend
+paused on the bank, loath to say farewell.
+
+"O Jools!" said the parson, "supposin' Colossus ain't gone home! O
+Jools, if you'll look him out for me, I'll never forget you--I'll never
+forget you, nohow, Jools. No, Jools, I never will believe he taken that
+money. Yes, I know all niggahs will steal"--he set foot upon the
+gang-plank--"but Colossus wouldn't steal from me. Good-by."
+
+"Misty Posson Jone,'" said St.-Ange, putting his hand on the parson's
+arm with genuine affection, "hol' on. You see dis money--w'at I win las'
+night? Well, I win' it by a specious providence, ain't it?"
+
+"There's no tellin'," said the humbled Jones. "Providence
+
+     'Moves in a mysterious way
+        His wonders to perform.'"
+
+"Ah!" cried the Creole, "_c'est_ very true. I ged this money in the
+mysterieuze way. _Mais_, if I keep dis money, you know where it goin' be
+to-night?"
+
+"I really can't say," replied the parson.
+
+"Goin' to de dev'," said the sweetly-smiling yonng man.
+
+The schooner-captain, leaning against the shrouds, and even Baptiste,
+laughed outright.
+
+"O Jools, you mustn't!"
+
+"Well, den, w'at I shall do wid _it?_"
+
+"Any thing!" answered the parson; "better donate it away to some poor
+man"--
+
+"Ah! Misty Posson Jone', dat is w'at I want. You los' five hondred
+dollar'--'twas me fault."
+
+"No, it wa'n't, Jools."
+
+"_Mais_, it was!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"It _was_ me fault! I _swear_ it was me fault! _Mais_, here is five
+hondred dollar'; I wish you shall take it. Here! I don't got no use for
+money.--Oh, my faith! Posson Jone', you must not begin to cry some
+more."
+
+Parson Jones was choked with tears. When he found voice he said:
+
+"O Jools, Jools, Jools! my pore, noble, dear, misguidened friend! ef you
+hed of hed a Christian raisin'! May the Lord show you your errors
+better'n I kin, and bless you for your good intentions--oh, no! I cayn't
+touch that money with a ten-foot pole; it wa'n't rightly got; you must
+really excuse me, my dear friend, but I cayn't touch it."
+
+St.-Ange was petrified.
+
+"Good-by, dear Jools," continued the parson. "I'm in the Lord's haynds,
+and he's very merciful, which I hope and trust you'll find it out.
+Good-by!"--the schooner swang slowly off before the breeze--"good-by!"
+
+St.-Ange roused himself.
+
+"Posson Jone'! make me hany'ow _dis_ promise: you never, never, _never_
+will come back to New Orleans."
+
+"Ah, Jools, the Lord willin', I'll never leave home again!"
+
+"All right!" cried the Creole; "I thing he's willin'. Adieu, Posson
+Jone'. My faith'! you are the so fighting an' moz rilligious man as I
+never saw! Adieu! Adieu!"
+
+Baptiste uttered a cry and presently ran by his master toward the
+schooner, his hands full of clods.
+
+St.-Ange looked just in time to see the sable form of Colossus of Rhodes
+emerge from the vessel's hold, and the pastor of Smyrna and Bethesda
+seize him in his embrace.
+
+"O Colossus! you outlandish old nigger! Thank the Lord! Thank the Lord!"
+
+The little Creole almost wept. He ran down the tow-path, laughing and
+swearing, and making confused allusion to the entire _personnel_ and
+furniture of the lower regions.
+
+By odd fortune, at the moment that St.-Ange further demonstrated his
+delight by tripping his mulatto into a bog, the schooner came brushing
+along the reedy bank with a graceful curve, the sails flapped, and the
+crew fell to poling her slowly along.
+
+Parson Jones was on the deck, kneeling once more in prayer. His hat had
+fallen before him; behind him knelt his slave. In thundering tones he
+was confessing himself "a plum fool," from whom "the conceit had been
+jolted out," and who had been made to see that even his "nigger had the
+longest head of the two."
+
+Colossus clasped his hands and groaned.
+
+The parson prayed for a contrite heart.
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Colossus.
+
+The master acknowledged countless mercies.
+
+"Dat's so!" cried the slave.
+
+The master prayed that they might still be "piled on."
+
+"Glory!" cried the black man, clapping his hands; "pile on!"
+
+"An' now," continued the parson, "bring this pore, backslidin' jackace
+of a parson and this pore ole fool nigger back to thar home in peace!"
+
+"Pray fo' de money!" called Colossus.
+
+But the parson prayed for Jules.
+
+"Pray fo' de _money!_" repeated the negro.
+
+"And oh, give thy servant back that there lost money!"
+
+Colossus rose stealthily, and tiptoed by his still shouting master.
+St.-Ange, the captain, the crew, gazed in silent wonder at the
+strategist. Pausing but an instant over the master's hat to grin an
+acknowledgment of his beholders' speechless interest, he softly placed
+in it the faithfully-mourned and honestly-prayed-for Smyrna fund; then,
+saluted by the gesticulative, silent applause of St.-Ange and the
+schooner-men, he resumed his first attitude behind his roaring master.
+
+"Amen!" cried Colossus, meaning to bring him to a close.
+
+"Onworthy though I be"--cried Jones.
+
+"_Amen!_" reiterated the negro.
+
+"A-a-amen!" said Parson Jones.
+
+He rose to his feet, and, stooping to take up his hat, beheld the
+well-known roll. As one stunned, he gazed for a moment upon his slave,
+who still knelt with clasped hands and rolling eyeballs; but when he
+became aware of the laughter and cheers that greeted him from both deck
+and shore, he lifted eyes and hands to heaven, and cried like the
+veriest babe. And when he looked at the roll again, and hugged and
+kissed it, St.-Ange tried to raise a second shout, but choked, and the
+crew fell to their poles.
+
+And now up runs Baptiste, covered with slime, and prepares to cast his
+projectiles. The first one fell wide of the mark; the schooner swung
+round into a long reach of water, where the breeze was in her favor;
+another shout of laughter drowned the maledictions of the muddy man; the
+sails filled; Colossus of Rhodes, smiling and bowing as hero of the
+moment, ducked as the main boom swept round, and the schooner, leaning
+slightly to the pleasant influence, rustled a moment over the bulrushes,
+and then sped far away down the rippling bayou.
+
+M. Jules St.-Ange stood long, gazing at the receding vessel as it now
+disappeared, now re-appeared beyond the tops of the high undergrowth;
+but, when an arm of the forest hid it finally from sight, he turned
+townward, followed by that fagged-out spaniel, his servant, saying, as
+he turned, "Baptiste."
+
+"_Miché?_"
+
+"You know w'at I goin' do wid dis money?"
+
+"_Non, m'sieur._"
+
+"Well, you can strike me dead if I don't goin' to pay hall my debts!
+_Allons!_"
+
+He began a merry little song to the effect that his sweetheart was a
+wine-bottle, and master and man, leaving care behind, returned to the
+picturesque Rue Royale. The ways of Providence are indeed strange. In
+all Parson Jones's after-life, amid the many painful reminiscences of
+his visit to the City of the Plain, the sweet knowledge was withheld
+from him that by the light of the Christian virtue that shone from him
+even in his great fall, Jules St.-Ange arose, and went to his father an
+honest man.
+
+
+
+
+
+JEAN-AH POQUELIN.
+
+
+In the first decade of the present century, when the newly established
+American Government was the most hateful thing in Louisiana--when the
+Creoles were still kicking at such vile innovations as the trial by
+jury, American dances, anti-smuggling laws, and the printing of the
+Governor's proclamation in English--when the Anglo-American flood that
+was presently to burst in a crevasse of immigration upon the delta had
+thus far been felt only as slippery seepage which made the Creole
+tremble for his footing--there stood, a short distance above what is now
+Canal Street, and considerably back from the line of villas which
+fringed the river-bank on Tchoupitoulas Road, an old colonial
+plantation-house half in ruin.
+
+It stood aloof from civilization, the tracts that had once been its
+indigo fields given over to their first noxious wildness, and grown up
+into one of the horridest marshes within a circuit of fifty miles.
+
+The house was of heavy cypress, lifted up on pillars, grim, solid, and
+spiritless, its massive build a strong reminder of days still earlier,
+when every man had been his own peace officer and the insurrection of
+the blacks a daily contingency. Its dark, weatherbeaten roof and sides
+were hoisted up above the jungly plain in a distracted way, like a
+gigantic ammunition-wagon stuck in the mud and abandoned by some
+retreating army. Around it was a dense growth of low water willows, with
+half a hundred sorts of thorny or fetid bushes, savage strangers alike
+to the "language of flowers" and to the botanist's Greek. They were hung
+with countless strands of discolored and prickly smilax, and the
+impassable mud below bristled with _chevaux de frise_ of the dwarf
+palmetto. Two lone forest-trees, dead cypresses, stood in the centre of
+the marsh, dotted with roosting vultures. The shallow strips of water
+were hid by myriads of aquatic plants, under whose coarse and spiritless
+flowers, could one have seen it, was a harbor of reptiles, great and
+small, to make one shudder to the end of his days.
+
+The house was on a slightly raised spot, the levee of a draining canal.
+The waters of this canal did not run; they crawled, and were full of
+big, ravening fish and alligators, that held it against all comers.
+
+Such was the home of old Jean Marie Poquelin, once an opulent indigo
+planter, standing high in the esteem of his small, proud circle of
+exclusively male acquaintances in the old city; now a hermit, alike
+shunned by and shunning all who had ever known him. "The last of his
+line," said the gossips. His father lies under the floor of the St.
+Louis Cathedral, with the wife of his youth on one side, and the wife of
+his old age on the other. Old Jean visits the spot daily. His
+half-brother--alas! there was a mystery; no one knew what had become of
+the gentle, young half brother, more than thirty years his junior, whom
+once he seemed so fondly to love, but who, seven years ago, had
+disappeared suddenly, once for all, and left no clew of his fate.
+
+They had seemed to live so happily in each other's love. No father,
+mother, wife to either, no kindred upon earth. The elder a bold, frank,
+impetuous, chivalric adventurer; the younger a gentle, studious,
+book-loving recluse; they lived upon the ancestral estate like mated
+birds, one always on the wing, the other always in the nest.
+
+There was no trait in Jean Marie Poquelin, said the old gossips, for
+which he was so well known among his few friends as his apparent
+fondness for his "little brother." "Jacques said this," and "Jacques
+said that;" he "would leave this or that, or any thing to Jacques," for
+"Jacques was a scholar," and "Jacques was good," or "wise," or "just,"
+or "far-sighted," as the nature of the case required; and "he should ask
+Jacques as soon as he got home," since Jacques was never elsewhere to be
+seen.
+
+It was between the roving character of the one brother, and the
+bookishness of the other, that the estate fell into decay. Jean Marie,
+generous gentleman, gambled the slaves away one by one, until none was
+left, man or woman, but one old African mute.
+
+The indigo-fields and vats of Louisiana had been generally abandoned as
+unremunerative. Certain enterprising men had substituted the culture of
+sugar; but while the recluse was too apathetic to take so active a
+course, the other saw larger, and, at time, equally respectable profits,
+first in smuggling, and later in the African slave-trade. What harm
+could he see in it? The whole people said it was vitally necessary, and
+to minister to a vital public necessity,--good enough, certainly, and so
+he laid up many a doubloon, that made him none the worse in the public
+regard.
+
+One day old Jean Marie was about to start upon a voyage that was to be
+longer, much longer, than any that he had yet made. Jacques had begged
+him hard for many days not to go, but he laughed him off, and finally
+said, kissing him:
+
+"_Adieu, 'tit frère_."
+
+"No," said Jacques, "I shall go with you."
+
+They left the old hulk of a house in the sole care of the African mute,
+and went away to the Guinea coast together.
+
+Two years after, old Poquelin came home without his vessel. He must have
+arrived at his house by night. No one saw him come. No one saw "his
+little brother;" rumor whispered that he, too, had returned, but he had
+never been seen again.
+
+A dark suspicion fell upon the old slave-trader. No matter that the few
+kept the many reminded of the tenderness that had ever marked his
+bearing to the missing man. The many shook their heads. "You know he has
+a quick and fearful temper;" and "why does he cover his loss with
+mystery?" "Grief would out with the truth."
+
+"But," said the charitable few, "look in his face; see that expression
+of true humanity." The many did look in his face, and, as he looked in
+theirs, he read the silent question: "Where is thy brother Abel?" The
+few were silenced, his former friends died off, and the name of Jean
+Marie Poquelin became a symbol of witchery, devilish crime, and hideous
+nursery fictions.
+
+The man and his house were alike shunned. The snipe and duck hunters
+forsook the marsh, and the wood-cutters abandoned the canal. Sometimes
+the hardier boys who ventured out there snake-shooting heard a slow
+thumping of oar-locks on the canal. They would look at each other for a
+moment half in consternation, half in glee, then rush from their sport
+in wanton haste to assail with their gibes the unoffending, withered old
+man who, in rusty attire, sat in the stern of a skiff, rowed homeward by
+his white-headed African mute.
+
+"O Jean-ah Poquelin! O Jean-ah! Jean-ah Poquelin!"
+
+It was not necessary to utter more than that. No hint of wickedness,
+deformity, or any physical or moral demerit; merely the name and tone of
+mockery: "Oh, Jean-ah Poquelin!" and while they tumbled one over another
+in their needless haste to fly, he would rise carefully from his seat,
+while the aged mute, with downcast face, went on rowing, and rolling up
+his brown fist and extending it toward the urchins, would pour forth
+such an unholy broadside of French imprecation and invective as would
+all but craze them with delight.
+
+Among both blacks and whites the house was the object of a thousand
+superstitions. Every midnight they affirmed, the _feu follet_ came out
+of the marsh and ran in and out of the rooms, flashing from window to
+window. The story of some lads, whose words in ordinary statements were
+worthless, was generally credited, that the night they camped in the
+woods, rather than pass the place after dark, they saw, about sunset,
+every window blood-red, and on each of the four chimneys an owl sitting,
+which turned his head three times round, and moaned and laughed with a
+human voice. There was a bottomless well, everybody professed to know,
+beneath the sill of the big front door under the rotten veranda; whoever
+set his foot upon that threshold disappeared forever in the depth below.
+
+What wonder the marsh grew as wild as Africa! Take all the Faubourg Ste.
+Marie, and half the ancient city, you would not find one graceless
+dare-devil reckless enough to pass within a hundred yards of the house
+after nightfall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The alien races pouring into old New Orleans began to find the few
+streets named for the Bourbon princes too strait for them. The wheel of
+fortune, beginning to whirl, threw them off beyond the ancient
+corporation lines, and sowed civilization and even trade upon the lands
+of the Graviers and Girods. Fields became roads, roads streets.
+Everywhere the leveller was peering through his glass, rodsmen were
+whacking their way through willow-brakes and rose-hedges, and the
+sweating Irishmen tossed the blue clay up with their long-handled
+shovels.
+
+"Ha! that is all very well," quoth the Jean-Baptistes, fueling the
+reproach of an enterprise that asked neither co-operation nor advice of
+them, "but wait till they come yonder to Jean Poquelin's marsh; ha! ha!
+ha!" The supposed predicament so delighted them, that they put on a mock
+terror and whirled about in an assumed stampede, then caught their
+clasped hands between their knees in excess of mirth, and laughed till
+the tears ran; for whether the street-makers mired in the marsh, or
+contrived to cut through old "Jean-ah's" property, either event would be
+joyful. Meantime a line of tiny rods, with bits of white paper in their
+split tops, gradually extended its way straight through the haunted
+ground, and across the canal diagonally.
+
+"We shall fill that ditch," said the men in mud-boots, and brushed close
+along the chained and padlocked gate of the haunted mansion. Ah, Jean-ah
+Poquelin, those were not Creole boys, to be stampeded with a little hard
+swearing.
+
+He went to the Governor. That official scanned the odd figure with no
+slight interest. Jean Poquelin was of short, broad frame, with a bronzed
+leonine face. His brow was ample and deeply furrowed. His eye, large and
+black, was bold and open like that of a war-horse, and his jaws shut
+together with the firmness of iron. He was dressed in a suit of
+Attakapas cottonade, and his shirt unbuttoned and thrown back from the
+throat and bosom, sailor-wise, showed a herculean breast; hard and
+grizzled. There was no fierceness or defiance in his look, no harsh
+ungentleness, no symptom of his unlawful life or violent temper; but
+rather a peaceful and peaceable fearlessness. Across the whole face, not
+marked in one or another feature, but as it were laid softly upon the
+countenance like an almost imperceptible veil, was the imprint of some
+great grief. A careless eye might easily overlook it, but, once seen,
+there it hung--faint, but unmistakable.
+
+The Governor bowed.
+
+"_Parlez-vous français_?" asked the figure.
+
+"I would rather talk English, if you can do so," said the Governor.
+
+"My name, Jean Poquelin."
+
+"How can I serve you, Mr. Poquelin?"
+
+"My 'ouse is yond'; _dans le marais là-bas_."
+
+The Governor bowed.
+
+"Dat _marais_ billong to me."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"To me; Jean Poquelin; I hown 'im meself."
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"He don't billong to you; I get him from me father."
+
+"That is perfectly true, Mr. Poquelin, as far as I am aware."
+
+"You want to make strit pass yond'?"
+
+"I do not know, sir; it is quite probable; but the city will indemnify
+you for any loss you may suffer--you will get paid, you understand."
+
+"Strit can't pass dare."
+
+"You will have to see the municipal authorities about that, Mr.
+Poquelin."
+
+A bitter smile came upon the old man's face:
+
+"_Pardon, Monsieur_, you is not _le Gouverneur_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"_Mais_, yes. You har _le Gouverneur_--yes. Veh-well. I come to you. I
+tell you, strit can't pass at me 'ouse."
+
+"But you will have to see"--
+
+"I come to you. You is _le Gouverneur_. I know not the new laws. I ham a
+Fr-r-rench-a-man! Fr-rench-a-man have something _aller au contraire_--he
+come at his _Gouverneur_. I come at you. If me not had been bought from
+me king like _bossals_ in the hold time, ze king gof--France
+would-a-show _Monsieur le Gouverneur_ to take care his men to make strit
+in right places. _Mais_, I know; we billong to _Monsieur le Président_.
+I want you do somesin for me, eh?"
+
+"What is it?" asked the patient Governor.
+
+"I want you tell _Monsieur le Président_,
+strit--can't--pass--at--me--'ouse."
+
+"Have a chair, Mr. Poquelin;" but the old man did not stir. The Governor
+took a quill and wrote a line to a city official, introducing Mr.
+Poquelin, and asking for him every possible courtesy. He handed it to
+him, instructing him where to present it.
+
+"Mr. Poquelin," he said with a conciliatory smile, "tell me, is it your
+house that our Creole citizens tell such odd stories about?"
+
+The old man glared sternly upon the speaker, and with immovable features
+said:
+
+"You don't see me trade some Guinea nigga'?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"You don't see me make some smuggling"
+
+"No, sir; not at all."
+
+"But, I am Jean Marie Poquelin. I mine me hown bizniss. Dat all right?
+Adieu."
+
+He put his hat on and withdrew. By and by he stood, letter in hand,
+before the person to whom it was addressed. This person employed an
+interpreter.
+
+"He says," said the interpreter to the officer, "he come to make you the
+fair warning how you muz not make the street pas' at his 'ouse."
+
+The officer remarked that "such impudence was refreshing;" but the
+experienced interpreter translated freely.
+
+"He says: 'Why you don't want?'" said the interpreter.
+
+The old slave-trader answered at some length.
+
+"He says," said the interpreter, again turning to the officer, "the
+marass is a too unhealth' for peopl' to live."
+
+"But we expect to drain his old marsh; it's not going to be a marsh."
+
+"_Il dit_"--The interpreter explained in French.
+
+The old man answered tersely.
+
+"He says the canal is a private," said the interpreter.
+
+"Oh! _that_ old ditch; that's to be filled up. Tell the old man we're
+going to fix him up nicely."
+
+Translation being duly made, the man in power was amused to see a
+thunder-cloud gathering on the old man's face.
+
+"Tell him," he added, "by the time we finish, there'll not be a ghost
+left in his shanty."
+
+The interpreter began to translate, but--
+
+"_J' comprends, J' comprends_," said the old man, with an impatient
+gesture, and burst forth, pouring curses upon the United States, the
+President, the Territory of Orleans, Congress, the Governor and all his
+subordinates, striding out of the apartment as he cursed, while the
+object of his maledictions roared with merriment and rammed the floor
+with his foot.
+
+"Why, it will make his old place worth ten dollars to one," said the
+official to the interpreter.
+
+"'Tis not for de worse of de property," said the interpreter.
+
+"I should guess not," said the other, whittling his chair,--"seems to me
+as if some of these old Creoles would liever live in a crawfish hole
+than to have a neighbor"
+
+"You know what make old Jean Poquelin make like that? I will tell you.
+You know"--
+
+The interpreter was rolling a cigarette, and paused to light his tinder;
+then, as the smoke poured in a thick double stream from his nostrils, he
+said, in a solemn whisper:
+
+"He is a witch."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the other.
+
+"You don't believe it? What you want to bet?" cried the interpreter,
+jerking himself half up and thrusting out one arm while he bared it of
+its coat-sleeve with the hand of the other. "What you want to bet?"
+
+"How do you know?" asked the official.
+
+"Dass what I goin' to tell you. You know, one evening I was shooting
+some _grosbec_. I killed three, but I had trouble to fine them, it was
+becoming so dark. When I have them I start' to come home; then I got to
+pas' at Jean Poquelin's house."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the other, throwing his leg over the arm of his
+chair.
+
+"Wait," said the interpreter. "I come along slow, not making some
+noises; still, still"--
+
+"And scared," said the smiling one.
+
+"_Mais_, wait. I get all pas' the 'ouse. 'Ah!' I say; 'all right!' Then
+I see two thing' before! Hah! I get as cold and humide, and shake like a
+leaf. You think it was nothing? There I see, so plain as can be (though
+it was making nearly dark), I see Jean--Marie--Po-que-lin walkin' right
+in front, and right there beside of him was something like a man--but
+not a man--white like paint!--I dropp' on the grass from scared--they
+pass'; so sure as I live 'twas the ghos' of Jacques Poquelin, his
+brother!"
+
+"Pooh!" said the listener.
+
+"I'll put my han' in the fire," said the interpreter.
+
+"But did you never think," asked the other, "that that might be Jack
+Poquelin, as you call him, alive and well, and for some cause hid away
+by his brother?"
+
+"But there har' no cause!" said the other, and the entrance of third
+parties changed the subject.
+
+Some months passed and the street was opened. A canal was first dug
+through the marsh, the small one which passed so close to Jean
+Poquelin's house was filled, and the street, or rather a sunny road,
+just touched a corner of the old mansion's dooryard. The morass ran dry.
+Its venomous denizens slipped away through the bulrushes; the cattle
+roaming freely upon its hardened surface trampled the superabundant
+undergrowth. The bellowing frogs croaked to westward. Lilies and the
+flower-de-luce sprang up in the place of reeds; smilax and poison-oak
+gave way to the purple-plumed iron-weed and pink spiderwort; the
+bindweeds ran everywhere blooming as they ran, and on one of the dead
+cypresses a giant creeper hung its green burden of foliage and lifted
+its scarlet trumpets. Sparrows and red-birds flitted through the bushes,
+and dewberries grew ripe beneath. Over all these came a sweet, dry smell
+of salubrity which the place had not known since the sediments of the
+Mississippi first lifted it from the sea.
+
+But its owner did not build. Over the willow-brakes, and down the vista
+of the open street, bright new houses, some singly, some by ranks, were
+prying in upon the old man's privacy. They even settled down toward his
+southern side. First a wood-cutter's hut or two, then a market
+gardener's shanty, then a painted cottage, and all at once the faubourg
+had flanked and half surrounded him and his dried-up marsh.
+
+Ah! then the common people began to hate him. "The old tyrant!" "You
+don't mean an old _tyrant_?" "Well, then, why don't he build when the
+public need demands it? What does he live in that unneighborly way for?"
+"The old pirate!" "The old kidnapper!" How easily even the most ultra
+Louisianians put on the imported virtues of the North when they could be
+brought to bear against the hermit. "There he goes, with the boys after
+him! Ah! ha! ha! Jean-ah Poquelin! Ah! Jean-ah! Aha! aha! Jean-ah Marie!
+Jean-ah Poquelin! The old villain!" How merrily the swarming Américains
+echo the spirit of persecution! "The old fraud," they say--"pretends to
+live in a haunted house, does he? We'll tar and feather him some day.
+Guess we can fix him."
+
+He cannot be rowed home along the old canal now; he walks. He has broken
+sadly of late, and the street urchins are ever at his heels. It is like
+the days when they cried: "Go up, thou bald-head," and the old man now
+and then turns and delivers ineffectual curses.
+
+To the Creoles--to the incoming lower class of superstitious Germans,
+Irish, Sicilians, and others--he became an omen and embodiment of public
+and private ill-fortune. Upon him all the vagaries of their
+superstitions gathered and grew. If a house caught fire, it was imputed
+to his machinations. Did a woman go off in a fit, he had bewitched her.
+Did a child stray off for an hour, the mother shivered with the
+apprehension that Jean Poquelin had offered him to strange gods. The
+house was the subject of every bad boy's invention who loved to contrive
+ghostly lies. "As long as that house stands we shall have bad luck. Do
+you not see our pease and beans dying, our cabbages and lettuce going to
+seed and our gardens turning to dust, while every day you can see it
+raining in the woods? The rain will never pass old Poquelin's house. He
+keeps a fetich. He has conjured the whole Faubourg St. Marie. And why,
+the old wretch? Simply because our playful and innocent children call
+after him as he passes."
+
+A "Building and Improvement Company," which had not yet got its charter,
+"but was going to," and which had not, indeed, any tangible capital yet,
+but "was going to have some," joined the "Jean-ah Poquelin" war. The
+haunted property would be such a capital site for a market-house! They
+sent a deputation to the old mansion to ask its occupant to sell. The
+deputation never got beyond the chained gate and a very barren interview
+with the African mute. The President of the Board was then empowered
+(for he had studied French in Pennsylvania and was considered qualified)
+to call and persuade M. Poquelin to subscribe to the company's stock;
+but--
+
+"Fact is, gentlemen," he said at the next meeting, "it would take us at
+least twelve months to make Mr. Pokaleen understand the rather original
+features of our system, and he wouldn't subscribe when we'd done;
+besides, the only way to see him is to stop him on the street."
+
+There was a great laugh from the Board; they couldn't help it. "Better
+meet a bear robbed of her whelps," said one.
+
+"You're mistaken as to that," said the President. "I did meet him, and
+stopped him, and found him quite polite. But I could get no satisfaction
+from him; the fellow wouldn't talk in French, and when I spoke in
+English he hoisted his old shoulders up, and gave the same answer to
+every thing I said."
+
+"And that was--?" asked one or two, impatient of the pause.
+
+"That it 'don't worse w'ile?'"
+
+One of the Board said: "Mr. President, this market-house project, as I
+take it, is not altogether a selfish one; the community is to be
+benefited by it. We may feel that we are working in the public interest
+[the Board smiled knowingly], if we employ all possible means to oust
+this old nuisance from among us. You may know that at the time the
+street was cut through, this old Poquelann did all he could to prevent
+it. It was owing to a certain connection which I had with that affair
+that I heard a ghost story [smiles, followed by a sudden dignified
+check]--ghost story, which, of course, I am not going to relate; but I
+_may_ say that my profound conviction, arising from a prolonged study of
+that story, is, that this old villain, John Poquelann, has his brother
+locked up in that old house. Now, if this is so, and we can fix it on
+him, I merely _suggest_ that we can make the matter highly useful. I
+don't know," he added, beginning to sit down, "but that it is an action
+we owe to the community--hem!"
+
+"How do you propose to handle the subject?" asked the President.
+
+"I was thinking," said the speaker, "that, as a Board of Directors, it
+would be unadvisable for us to authorize any action involving trespass;
+but if you, for instance, Mr. President, should, as it were, for mere
+curiosity, _request_ some one, as, for instance, our excellent
+Secretary, simply as a personal favor, to look into the matter--this is
+merely a suggestion."
+
+The Secretary smiled sufficiently to be understood that, while he
+certainly did not consider such preposterous service a part of his
+duties as secretary, he might, notwithstanding, accede to the
+President's request; and the Board adjourned.
+
+Little White, as the Secretary was called, was a mild, kind-hearted
+little man, who, nevertheless, had no fear of any thing, unless it was
+the fear of being unkind.
+
+"I tell you frankly," he privately said to the President, "I go into
+this purely for reasons of my own."
+
+The next day, a little after nightfall, one might have descried this
+little man slipping along the rear fence of the Poquelin place,
+preparatory to vaulting over into the rank, grass-grown yard, and
+bearing himself altogether more after the manner of a collector of rare
+chickens than according to the usage of secretaries.
+
+The picture presented to his eye was not calculated to enliven his mind.
+The old mansion stood out against the western sky, black and silent. One
+long, lurid pencil-stroke along a sky of slate was all that was left of
+daylight. No sign of life was apparent; no light at any window, unless
+it might have been on the side of the house hidden from view. No owls
+were on the chimneys, no dogs were in the yard.
+
+He entered the place, and ventured up behind a small cabin which stood
+apart from the house. Through one of its many crannies he easily
+detected the African mute crouched before a flickering pine-knot, his
+head on his knees, fast asleep.
+
+He concluded to enter the mansion, and, with that view, stood and
+scanned it. The broad rear steps of the veranda would not serve him; he
+might meet some one midway. He was measuring, with his eye, the
+proportions of one of the pillars which supported it, and estimating the
+practicability of climbing it, when he heard a footstep. Some one
+dragged a chair out toward the railing, then seemed to change his mind
+and began to pace the veranda, his footfalls resounding on the dry
+boards with singular loudness. Little White drew a step backward, got
+the figure between himself and the sky, and at once recognized the
+short, broad-shouldered form of old Jean Poquelin.
+
+He sat down upon a billet of wood, and, to escape the stings of a
+whining cloud of mosquitoes, shrouded his face and neck in his
+handkerchief, leaving his eyes uncovered.
+
+He had sat there but a moment when he noticed a strange, sickening odor,
+faint, as if coming from a distance, but loathsome and horrid.
+
+Whence could it come? Not from the cabin; not from the marsh, for it was
+as dry as powder. It was not in the air; it seemed to come from the
+ground.
+
+Rising up, he noticed, for the first time, a few steps before him a
+narrow footpath leading toward the house. He glanced down it--ha! right
+there was some one coming--ghostly white!
+
+Quick as thought, and as noiselessly, he lay down at full length against
+the cabin. It was bold strategy, and yet, there was no denying it,
+little White felt that he was frightened. "It is not a ghost," he said
+to himself. "I _know_ it cannot be a ghost;" but the perspiration burst
+out at every pore, and the air seemed to thicken with heat. "It is a
+living man," he said in his thoughts. "I hear his footstep, and I hear
+old Poquelin's footsteps, too, separately, over on the veranda. I am not
+discovered; the thing has passed; there is that odor again; what a smell
+of death! Is it coming back? Yes. It stops at the door of the cabin. Is
+it peering in at the sleeping mute? It moves away. It is in the path
+again. Now it is gone." He shuddered. "Now, if I dare venture, the
+mystery is solved." He rose cautiously, close against the cabin, and
+peered along the path.
+
+The figure of a man, a presence if not a body--but whether clad in some
+white stuff or naked the darkness would not allow him to determine--had
+turned, and now, with a seeming painful gait, moved slowly from him.
+"Great Heaven! can it be that the dead do walk?" He withdrew again the
+hands which had gone to his eyes. The dreadful object passed between two
+pillars and under the house. He listened. There was a faint sound as of
+feet upon a staircase; then all was still except the measured tread of
+Jean Poquelin walking on the veranda, and the heavy respirations of the
+mute slumbering in the cabin.
+
+The little Secretary was about to retreat; but as he looked once more
+toward the haunted Louse a dim light appeared in the crack of a closed
+window, and presently old Jean Poquelin came, dragging his chair, and
+sat down close against the shining cranny. He spoke in a low, tender
+tone in the French tongue, making some inquiry. An answer came from
+within. Was it the voice of a human? So unnatural was it--so hollow, so
+discordant, so unearthly--that the stealthy listener shuddered again
+from head to foot, and when something stirred in some bushes near
+by--though it may have been nothing more than a rat--and came scuttling
+through the grass, the little Secretary actually turned and fled. As he
+left the enclosure he moved with bolder leisure through the bushes; yet
+now and then he spoke aloud: "Oh, oh! I see, I understand!" and shut his
+eyes in his hands.
+
+How strange that henceforth little White was the champion of Jean
+Poquelin! In season and out of season--wherever a word was uttered
+against him--the Secretary, with a quiet, aggressive force that
+instantly arrested gossip, demanded upon what authority the statement or
+conjecture was made; but as he did not condescend to explain his own
+remarkable attitude, it was not long before the disrelish and suspicion
+which had followed Jean Poquelin so many years fell also upon him.
+
+It was only the next evening but one after his adventure that he made
+himself a source of sullen amazement to one hundred and fifty boys, by
+ordering them to desist from their wanton hallooing. Old Jean Poquelin,
+standing and shaking his cane, rolling out his long-drawn maledictions,
+paused and stared, then gave the Secretary a courteous bow and started
+on. The boys, save one, from pure astonishment, ceased but a ruffianly
+little Irish lad, more daring than any had yet been, threw a big
+hurtling clod, that struck old Poquelin between the shoulders and burst
+like a shell. The enraged old man wheeled with uplifted staff to give
+chase to the scampering vagabond; and--he may have tripped, or he may
+not, but he fell full length. Little White hastened to help him up, but
+he waved him off with a fierce imprecation and staggering to his feet
+resumed his way homeward. His lips were reddened with blood.
+
+Little White was on his way to the meeting of the Board. He would have
+given all he dared spend to have staid away, for he felt both too fierce
+and too tremulous to brook the criticisms that were likely to be made.
+
+"I can't help it, gentlemen; I can't help you to make a case against the
+old man, and I'm not going to."
+
+"We did not expect this disappointment, Mr. White."
+
+"I can't help that, sir. No, sir; you had better not appoint any more
+investigations. Somebody'll investigate himself into trouble. No, sir;
+it isn't a threat, it is only my advice, but I warn you that whoever
+takes the task in hand will rue it to his dying day--which may be
+hastened, too."
+
+The President expressed himself "surprised."
+
+"I don't care a rush," answered little White, wildly and foolishly. "I
+don't care a rush if you are, sir. No, my nerves are not disordered; my
+head's as clear as a bell. No, I'm _not_ excited." A Director remarked
+that the Secretary looked as though he had waked from a nightmare.
+
+"Well, sir, if you want to know the fact, I have; and if you choose to
+cultivate old Poquelin's society you can have one, too."
+
+"White," called a facetious member, but White did not notice. "White,"
+he called again.
+
+"What?" demanded White, with a scowl.
+
+"Did you see the ghost?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I did," cried White, hitting the table, and handing the
+President a paper which brought the Board to other business.
+
+The story got among the gossips that somebody (they were afraid to say
+little White) had been to the Poquelin mansion by night and beheld
+something appalling. The rumor was but a shadow of the truth, magnified
+and distorted as is the manner of shadows. He had seen skeletons
+walking, and had barely escaped the clutches of one by making the sign
+of the cross.
+
+Some madcap boys with an appetite for the horrible plucked up courage to
+venture through the dried marsh by the cattle-path, and come before the
+house at a spectral hour when the air was full of bats. Something which
+they but half saw--half a sight was enough--sent them tearing back
+through the willow-brakes and acacia bushes to their homes, where they
+fairly dropped down, and cried:
+
+"Was it white?" "No--yes--nearly so--we can't tell--but we saw it." And
+one could hardly doubt, to look at their ashen faces, that they had,
+whatever it was.
+
+"If that old rascal lived in the country we come from," said certain
+Américains, "he'd have been tarred and feathered before now, wouldn't
+he, Sanders?"
+
+"Well, now he just would."
+
+"And we'd have rid him on a rail, wouldn't we?"
+
+"That's what I allow."
+
+"Tell you what you _could_ do." They were talking to some rollicking
+Creoles who had assumed an absolute necessity for doing _something_.
+"What is it you call this thing where an old man marries a young girl,
+and you come out with horns and"--
+
+"_Charivari_?" asked the Creoles.
+
+"Yes, that's it. Why don't you shivaree him?" Felicitous suggestion.
+
+Little White, with his wife beside him, was sitting on their doorsteps
+on the sidewalk, as Creole custom had taught them, looking toward the
+sunset. They had moved into the lately-opened street. The view was not
+attractive on the score of beauty. The houses were small and scattered,
+and across the flat commons, spite of the lofty tangle of weeds and
+bushes, and spite of the thickets of acacia, they needs must see the
+dismal old Poquelin mansion, tilted awry and shutting out the declining
+sun. The moon, white and slender, was hanging the tip of its horn over
+one of the chimneys.
+
+"And you say," said the Secretary, "the old black man has been going by
+here alone? Patty, suppose old Poquelin should be concocting some
+mischief; he don't lack provocation; the way that clod hit him the other
+day was enough to have killed him. Why, Patty, he dropped as quick as
+_that_! No wonder you haven't seen him. I wonder if they haven't heard
+something about him up at the drug-store. Suppose I go and see."
+
+"Do," said his wife.
+
+She sat alone for half an hour, watching that sudden going out of the
+day peculiar to the latitude.
+
+"That moon is ghost enough for one house," she said, as her husband
+returned. "It has gone right down the chimney."
+
+"Patty," said little White, "the drug-clerk says the boys are going to
+shivaree old Poquelin to-night. I'm going to try to stop it."
+
+"Why, White," said his wife, "you'd better not. You'll get hurt."
+
+"No, I'll not."
+
+"Yes, you will."
+
+"I'm going to sit out here until they come along. They're compelled to
+pass right by here."
+
+"Why, White, it may be midnight before they start; you're not going to
+sit out here till then."
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"Well, you're very foolish," said Mrs. White in an undertone, looking
+anxious, and tapping one of the steps with her foot.
+
+They sat a very long time talking over little family matters.
+
+"What's that?" at last said Mrs. White.
+
+"That's the nine-o'clock gun," said White, and they relapsed into a
+long-sustained, drowsy silence.
+
+"Patty, you'd better go in and go to bed," said he at last.
+
+"I'm not sleepy."
+
+"Well, you're very foolish," quietly remarked little White, and again
+silence fell upon them.
+
+"Patty, suppose I walk out to the old house and see if I can find out
+any thing."
+
+"Suppose," said she, "you don't do any such--listen!"
+
+Down the street arose a great hubbub. Dogs and boys were howling and
+barking; men were laughing, shouting, groaning, and blowing horns,
+whooping, and clanking cow-bells, whinnying, and howling, and rattling
+pots and pans.
+
+"They are coming this way," said little White. "You had better go into
+the house, Patty."
+
+"So had you."
+
+"No. I'm going to see if I can't stop them."
+
+"Why, White!"
+
+"I'll be back in a minute," said White, and went toward the noise.
+
+In a few moments the little Secretary met the mob. The pen hesitates on
+the word, for there is a respectable difference, measurable only on the
+scale of the half century, between a mob and a _charivari_. Little White
+lifted his ineffectual voice. He faced the head of the disorderly
+column, and cast himself about as if he were made of wood and moved by
+the jerk of a string. He rushed to one who seemed, from the size and
+clatter of his tin pan, to be a leader. "_Stop these fellows, Bienvenu,
+stop them just a minute, till I tell them something_." Bienvenu turned
+and brandished his instruments of discord in an imploring way to the
+crowd. They slackened their pace, two or three hushed their horns and
+joined the prayer of little White and Bienvenu for silence. The throng
+halted. The hush was delicious.
+
+"Bienvenu," said little White, "don't shivaree old Poquelin to-night;
+he's"--
+
+"My fwang," said the swaying Bienvenu, "who tail you I goin' to
+chahivahi somebody, eh? Yon sink bickause I make a little playfool wiz
+zis tin pan zat I am _dhonk_?"
+
+"Oh, no, Bienvenu, old fellow, you're all right. I was afraid you might
+not know that old Poquelin was sick, you know, but you're not going
+there, are you?"
+
+"My fwang, I vay soy to tail you zat you ah dhonk as de dev'. I am
+_shem_ of you. I ham ze servan' of ze _publique_. Zese _citoyens_ goin'
+to wickwest Jean Poquelin to give to the Ursuline' two hondred fifty
+dolla'"--
+
+"_Hé quoi_!" cried a listener, "_Cinq cent piastres, oui_!"
+
+"_Oui_!" said Bienvenu, "and if he wiffuse we make him some lit'
+_musique_; ta-ra ta!" He hoisted a merry hand and foot, then frowning,
+added: "Old Poquelin got no bizniz dhink s'much w'isky."
+
+"But, gentlemen," said little White, around whom a circle had gathered,
+"the old man is very sick."
+
+"My faith!" cried a tiny Creole, "we did not make him to be sick. W'en
+we have say we going make _le charivari_, do you want that we hall tell
+a lie? My faith! 'sfools!"
+
+"But you can shivaree somebody else," said desperate little White.
+
+"_Oui_" cried Bienvenu, "_et chahivahi_ Jean-ah Poquelin tomo'w!"
+
+"Let us go to Madame Schneider!" cried two or three, and amid huzzas and
+confused cries, among which was heard a stentorian Celtic call for
+drinks, the crowd again began to move.
+
+"_Cent piastres pour l'hôpital de charité_!"
+
+"Hurrah!"
+
+"One hongred dolla' for Charity Hospital!"
+
+"Hurrah!"
+
+"Whang!" went a tin pan, the crowd yelled, and Pandemonium gaped again.
+They were off at a right angle.
+
+Nodding, Mrs. White looked at the mantle-clock.
+
+"Well, if it isn't away after midnight."
+
+The hideous noise down street was passing beyond earshot. She raised a
+sash and listened. For a moment there was silence. Some one came to the
+door.
+
+"Is that you, White?"
+
+"Yes." He entered. "I succeeded, Patty."
+
+"Did you?" said Patty, joyfully.
+
+"Yes. They've gone down to shivaree the old Dutchwoman who married her
+step-daughter's sweetheart. They say she has got to pay a hundred
+dollars to the hospital before they stop."
+
+The couple retired, and Mrs. White slumbered. She was awakened by her
+husband snapping the lid of his watch.
+
+"What time?" she asked.
+
+"Half-past three. Patty, I haven't slept a wink. Those fellows are out
+yet. Don't you hear them?"
+
+"Why, White, they're coming this way!"
+
+"I know they are," said White, sliding out of bed and drawing on his
+clothes, "and they're coming fast. You'd better go away from that
+window, Patty. My! what a clatter!"
+
+"Here they are," said Mrs. White, but her husband was gone. Two or three
+hundred men and boys pass the place at a rapid walk straight down the
+broad, new street, toward the hated house of ghosts. The din was
+terrific. She saw little White at the head of the rabble brandishing his
+arms and trying in vain to make himself heard; but they only shook their
+heads laughing and hooting the louder, and so passed, bearing him on
+before them.
+
+Swiftly they pass out from among the houses, away from the dim oil lamps
+of the street, out into the broad starlit commons, and enter the willowy
+jungles of the haunted ground. Some hearts fail and their owners lag
+behind and turn back, suddenly remembering how near morning it is. But
+the most part push on, tearing the air with their clamor.
+
+Down ahead of them in the long, thicket-darkened way there
+is--singularly enough--a faint, dancing light. It must be very near the
+old house; it is. It has stopped now. It is a lantern, and is under a
+well-known sapling which has grown up on the wayside since the canal was
+filled. Now it swings mysteriously to and fro. A goodly number of the
+more ghost-fearing give up the sport; but a full hundred move forward at
+a run, doubling their devilish howling and banging.
+
+Yes; it is a lantern, and there are two persons under the tree. The
+crowd draws near--drops into a walk; one of the two is the old African
+mute; he lifts the lantern up so that it shines on the other; the crowd
+recoils; there is a hush of all clangor, and all at once, with a cry of
+mingled fright and horror from every throat, the whole throng rushes
+back, dropping every thing, sweeping past little White and hurrying on,
+never stopping until the jungle is left behind, and then to find that
+not one in ten has seen the cause of the stampede, and not one of the
+tenth is certain what it was.
+
+There is one huge fellow among them who looks capable of any villany. He
+finds something to mount on, and, in the Creole _patois_, calls a
+general halt. Bienvenu sinks down, and, vainly trying to recline
+gracefully, resigns the leadership. The herd gather round the speaker;
+he assures them that they have been outraged. Their right peaceably to
+traverse the public streets has been trampled upon. Shall such
+encroachments be endured? It is now daybreak. Let them go now by the
+open light of day and force a free passage of the public highway!
+
+A scattering consent was the response, and the crowd, thinned now and
+drowsy, straggled quietly down toward the old house. Some drifted ahead,
+others sauntered behind, but every one, as he again neared the tree,
+came to a stand-still. Little White sat upon a bank of turf on the
+opposite side of the way looking very stern and sad. To each new-comer
+he put the same question:
+
+"Did you come here to go to old Poquelin's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He's dead." And if the shocked hearer started away he would say: "Don't
+go away."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I want you to go to the funeral presently."
+
+If some Louisianian, too loyal to dear France or Spain to understand
+English, looked bewildered, some one would interpret for him; and
+presently they went. Little White led the van, the crowd trooping after
+him down the middle of the way. The gate, that had never been seen
+before unchained, was open. Stern little White stopped a short distance
+from it; the rabble stopped behind him. Something was moving out from
+under the veranda. The many whisperers stretched upward to see. The
+African mute came very slowly toward the gate, leading by a cord in the
+nose a small brown bull, which was harnessed to a rude cart. On the flat
+body of the cart, under a black cloth, were seen the outlines of a long
+box.
+
+"Hats off, gentlemen," said little White, as the box came in view, and
+the crowd silently uncovered.
+
+"Gentlemen," said little White, "here come the last remains of Jean
+Marie Poquelin, a better man, I'm afraid, with all his sins,--yes a
+better--a kinder man to his blood--a man of more self-forgetful
+goodness--than all of you put together will ever dare to be."
+
+There was a profound hush as the vehicle came creaking through the gate;
+but when it turned away from them toward the forest, those in front
+started suddenly. There was a backward rush, then all stood still again
+staring one way; for there, behind the bier, with eyes cast down and
+labored step, walked the living remains--all that was left--of little
+Jacques Poquelin, the long-hidden brother--a leper, as white as snow.
+
+Dumb with horror, the cringing crowd gazed upon the walking death. They
+watched, in silent awe, the slow _cortége_ creep down the long, straight
+road and lessen on the view, until by and by it stopped where a wild,
+unfrequented path branched off into the undergrowth toward the rear of
+the ancient city.
+
+"They are going to the _Terre aux Lépreux_," said one in the crowd. The
+rest watched them in silence.
+
+The little bull was set free; the mute, with the strength of an ape,
+lifted the long box to his shoulder. For a moment more the mute and the
+leper stood in sight, while the former adjusted his heavy burden; then,
+without one backward glance upon the unkind human world, turning their
+faces toward the ridge in the depths of the swamp known as the Leper's
+Land, they stepped into the jungle, disappeared, and were never seen
+again.
+
+
+
+
+
+TITE POULETTE.
+
+
+Kristian Koppig was a rosy-faced, beardless young Dutchman. He was one
+of that army of gentlemen who, after the purchase of Louisiana, swarmed
+from all parts of the commercial world, over the mountains of
+Franco-Spanish exclusiveness, like the Goths over the Pyrenees, and
+settled down in New Orleans to pick up their fortunes, with the
+diligence of hungry pigeons. He may have been a German; the distinction
+was too fine for Creole haste and disrelish.
+
+He made his home in a room with one dormer window looking out, and
+somewhat down, upon a building opposite, which still stands, flush with
+the street, a century old. Its big, round-arched windows in a long,
+second-story row, are walled up, and two or three from time to time have
+had smaller windows let into them again, with odd little latticed
+peep-holes in their batten shutters. This had already been done when
+Kristian Koppig first began to look at them from his solitary dormer
+window.
+
+All the features of the building lead me to guess that it is a remnant
+of the old Spanish Barracks, whose extensive structure fell by
+government sale into private hands a long time ago. At the end toward
+the swamp a great, oriental-looking passage is left, with an arched
+entrance, and a pair of ponderous wooden doors. You look at it, and
+almost see Count O'Reilly's artillery come bumping and trundling out,
+and dash around into the ancient Plaza to bang away at King St.
+Charles's birthday.
+
+I do not know who lives there now. You might stand about on the opposite
+_banquette_ for weeks and never find out. I suppose it is a residence,
+for it does not look like one. That is the rule in that region.
+
+In the good old times of duels, and bagatelle-clubs, and theatre-balls,
+and Cayetano's circus, Kristian Koppig rooming as described, there lived
+in the portion of this house, partly overhanging the archway, a palish
+handsome woman, by the name--or going by the name--of Madame John. You
+would hardly have thought of her being "colored." Though fading, she was
+still of very attractive countenance, fine, rather severe features,
+nearly straight hair carefully kept, and that vivid black eye so
+peculiar to her kind. Her smile, which came and went with her talk, was
+sweet and exceedingly intelligent; and something told you, as you looked
+at her, that she was one who had had to learn a great deal in this
+troublesome life.
+
+"But!"--the Creole lads in the street would say--"--her daughter!"
+and there would be lifting of arms, wringing of fingers, rolling of
+eyes, rounding of mouths, gaspings and clasping of hands. "So beautiful,
+beautiful, beautiful! White?--white like a water lily! White--like a
+magnolia!"
+
+Applause would follow, and invocation of all the saints to witness.
+
+And she could sing.
+
+"Sing?" (disdainfully)--"if a mocking-bird can _sing_! Ha!"
+
+They could not tell just how old she was; they "would give her about
+seventeen."
+
+Mother and daughter were very fond. The neighbors could hear them call
+each other pet names, and see them sitting together, sewing, talking
+happily to each other in the unceasing French way, and see them go out
+and come in together on their little tasks and errands. "'Tite
+Poulette," the daughter was called; she never went out alone.
+
+And who was this Madame John?
+
+"Why, you know!--she was"--said the wig-maker at the corner to Kristian
+Koppig--"I'll tell you. You know?--she was"--and the rest atomized off
+in a rasping whisper. She was the best yellow-fever nurse in a thousand
+yards round; but that is not what the wig-maker said.
+
+A block nearer the river stands a house altogether different from the
+remnant of old barracks. It is of frame, with a deep front gallery over
+which the roof extends. It has become a den of Italians, who sell fuel
+by daylight, and by night are up to no telling what extent of deviltry.
+This was once the home of a gay gentleman, whose first name happened to
+be John. He was a member of the Good Children Social Club. As his
+parents lived with him, his wife would, according to custom, have been
+called Madame John but he had no wife. His father died, then his mother;
+last of all, himself. As he is about to be off, in comes Madame John,
+with 'Tïte Poulette, then an infant, on her arm.
+
+"Zalli," said he, "I am going."
+
+She bowed her head, and wept.
+
+"You have been very faithful to me, Zalli."
+
+She wept on.
+
+"Nobody to take care of you now, Zalli."
+
+Zalli only went on weeping.
+
+"I want to give you this house, Zalli; it is for you and the little
+one."
+
+An hour after, amid the sobs of Madame John, she and the "little one"
+inherited the house, such as it was. With the fatal caution which
+characterizes ignorance, she sold the property and placed the proceeds
+in a bank, which made haste to fail. She put on widow's weeds, and wore
+them still when 'Tite Poulette "had seventeen," as the frantic lads
+would say.
+
+How they did chatter over her. Quiet Kristian Koppig had never seen the
+like. He wrote to his mother, and told her so. A pretty fellow at the
+corner would suddenly double himself up with beckoning to a knot of
+chums; these would hasten up; recruits would come in from two or three
+other directions; as they reached the corner their countenances would
+quickly assume a genteel severity, and presently, with her mother, 'Tite
+Poulette would pass--tall, straight, lithe, her great black eyes made
+tender by their sweeping lashes, the faintest tint of color in her
+Southern cheek, her form all grace, her carriage a wonder of simple
+dignity.
+
+The instant she was gone every tongue was let slip on the marvel of her
+beauty; but, though theirs were only the loose New Orleans morals of
+over fifty years ago, their unleashed tongues never had attempted any
+greater liberty than to take up the pet name, 'Tite Poulette. And yet
+the mother was soon to be, as we shall discover, a paid dancer at the
+_Salle de Condé_.
+
+To Zalli, of course, as to all "quadroon ladies," the festivities of the
+Conde-street ball-room were familiar of old. There, in the happy days
+when dear Monsieur John was young, and the eighteenth century old, she
+had often repaired under guard of her mother--dead now, alas!--and
+Monsieur John would slip away from the dull play and dry society of
+Théâtre d'Orléans, and come around with his crowd of elegant friends;
+and through the long sweet hours of the ball she had danced, and
+laughed, and coquetted under her satin mask, even to the baffling and
+tormenting of that prince of gentlemen, dear Monsieur John himself. No
+man of questionable blood dare set his foot within the door. Many noble
+gentlemen were pleased to dance with her. Colonel De ---- and General
+La ----: city councilmen and officers from the Government House. There
+were no paid dancers then. Every thing was decorously conducted indeed!
+Every girl's mother was there, and the more discreet always left before
+there was too much drinking. Yes, it was gay, gay!--but sometimes
+dangerous. Ha! more times than a few had Monsieur John knocked down some
+long-haired and long-knifed rowdy, and kicked the breath out of him for
+looking saucily at her; but that was like him, he was so brave and
+kind;--and he is gone!
+
+There was no room for widow's weeds there. So when she put these on, her
+glittering eyes never again looked through her pink and white mask, and
+she was glad of it; for never, never in her life had they so looked for
+anybody but her dear Monsieur John, and now he was in heaven--so the
+priest said--and she was a sick-nurse.
+
+Living was hard work; and, as Madame John had been brought up tenderly,
+and had done what she could to rear her daughter in the same mistaken
+way, with, of course, no more education than the ladies in society got,
+they knew nothing beyond a little music and embroidery. They struggled
+as they could, faintly; now giving a few private dancing lessons, now
+dressing hair, but ever beat back by the steady detestation of their
+imperious patronesses; and, by and by, for want of that priceless
+worldly grace known among the flippant as "money-sense," these two poor
+children, born of misfortune and the complacent badness of the times,
+began to be in want.
+
+Kristian Koppig noticed from his dormer window one day a man standing at
+the big archway opposite, and clanking the brass knocker on the wicket
+that was in one of the doors. He was a smooth man, with his hair parted
+in the middle, and his cigarette poised on a tiny gold holder. He waited
+a moment, politely cursed the dust, knocked again, threw his slender
+sword-cane under his arm, and wiped the inside of his hat with his
+handkerchief.
+
+Madame John held a parley with him at the wicket. 'Tite Poulette was
+nowhere seen. He stood at the gate while Madame John went up-stairs.
+Kristian Koppig knew him. He knew him as one knows a snake. He was the
+manager of the _Salle de Condé_. Presently Madame John returned with a
+little bundle, and they hurried off together.
+
+And now what did this mean? Why, by any one of ordinary acuteness the
+matter was easily understood, but, to tell the truth, Kristian Koppig
+was a trifle dull, and got the idea at once that some damage was being
+planned against 'Tite Poulette. It made the gentle Dutchman miserable
+not to be minding his own business, and yet--
+
+"But the woman certainly will not attempt"--said he to himself--"no, no!
+she cannot." Not being able to guess what he meant, I cannot say whether
+she could or not. I know that next day Kristian Koppig, glancing eagerly
+over the "_Ami des Lois_," read an advertisement which he had always
+before skipped with a frown. It was headed, "_Salle de Condé_," and,
+being interpreted, signified that a new dance was to be introduced, the
+_Danse de Chinois_, and that _a young lady_ would follow it with the
+famous "_Danse du Shawl_."
+
+It was the Sabbath. The young man watched the opposite window steadily
+and painfully from early in the afternoon until the moon shone bright;
+and from the time the moon shone bright until Madame John!--joy!--Madame
+John! and not 'Tite Poulette, stepped through the wicket, much dressed
+and well muffled, and hurried off toward the _Rue Condé_. Madame John
+was the "young lady;" and the young man's mind, glad to return to its
+own unimpassioned affairs, relapsed into quietude.
+
+Madame John danced beautifully. It had to be done. It brought some pay,
+and pay was bread; and every Sunday evening, with a touch here and there
+of paint and powder, the mother danced the dance of the shawl, the
+daughter remaining at home alone.
+
+Kristian Koppig, simple, slow-thinking young Dutchman, never noticing
+that he staid at home with his window darkened for the very purpose,
+would see her come to her window and look out with a little wild,
+alarmed look in her magnificent eyes, and go and come again, and again,
+until the mother, like a storm-driven bird, came panting home.
+
+Two or three months went by.
+
+One night, on the mother's return, Kristian Koppig coming to his room
+nearly at the same moment, there was much earnest conversation, which he
+could see, but not hear.
+
+"'Tite Poulette," said Madame John, "you are seventeen."
+
+"True, Maman."
+
+"Ah! my child, I see not how you are to meet the future." The voice
+trembled plaintively.
+
+"But how, Maman?"
+
+"Ah! you are not like others; no fortune, no pleasure, no friend."
+
+"Maman!"
+
+"No, no;--I thank God for it; I am glad you are not; but you will be
+lonely, lonely, all your poor life long. There is no place in this world
+for us poor women. I wish that we were either white or black!"--and the
+tears, two "shining ones," stood in the poor quadroon's eyes.
+
+Tha daughter stood up, her eyes flashing.
+
+"God made us, Maman," she said with a gentle, but stately smile.
+
+"Ha!" said the mother, her keen glance darting through her tears, "Sin
+made _me_, yes."
+
+"No," said 'Tite Poulette, "God made us. He made us Just as we are; not
+more white, not more black."
+
+"He made you, truly!" said Zalli. "You are so beautiful; I believe it
+well." She reached and drew the fair form to a kneeling posture. "My
+sweet, white daughter!"
+
+Now the tears were in the girl's eyes. "And could I be whiter than I
+am?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, no, no! 'Tite Poulette," cried the other; "but if we were only
+_real white!_--both of us; so that some gentleman might come to see me
+and say 'Madame John, I want your pretty little chick. She is so
+beautiful. I want to take her home. She is so good--I want her to be my
+wife.' Oh, my child, my child, to see that I would give my life--I would
+give my soul! Only you should take me along to be your servant. I walked
+behind two young men to-night; they ware coming home from their office;
+presently they began to talk about you."
+
+'Tite Poulette's eyes flashed fire.
+
+"No, my child, they spoke only the best things One laughed a little at
+times and kept saying 'Beware!' but the other--I prayed the Virgin to
+bless him, he spoke such kind and noble words. Such gentle pity; such a
+holy heart! 'May God defend her,' he said, _chérie_; he said, 'May God
+defend her, for I see no help for her.' The other one laughed and left
+him. He stopped in the door right across the street. Ah, my child, do
+you blush? Is that something to bring the rose to your cheek? Many fine
+gentlemen at the ball ask me often, 'How is your daughter, Madame
+John?'".
+
+The daughter's face was thrown into the mother's lap, not so well
+satisfied, now, with God's handiwork. Ah, how she wept! Sob, sob, sob;
+gasps and sighs and stifled ejaculations, her small right hand clinched
+and beating on her mother's knee; and the mother weeping over her.
+
+Kristian Koppig shut his window. Nothing but a generous heart and a
+Dutchman's phlegm could have done so at that moment. And even thou,
+Kristian Koppig!--for the window closed very slowly.
+
+He wrote to his mother, thus:
+
+"In this wicked city, I see none so fair as the poor girl who lives
+opposite me, and who, alas! though so fair, is one of those whom the
+taint of caste has cursed. She lives a lonely, innocent life in the
+midst of corruption, like the lilies I find here in the marshew, and I
+have great pity for her. 'God defend her,' I said to-night to a fellow
+clerk, 'I see no help for her.' I know there is a natural, and I think
+proper, horror of mixed blood (excuse the mention, sweet mother), and I
+feel it, too; and yet if she were in Holland today, not one of a hundred
+suitors would detect the hidden blemish."
+
+In such strain this young man wrote on trying to demonstrate the utter
+impossibility of his ever loving the lovable unfortunate, until the
+midnight tolling of the cathedral clock sent him to bed.
+
+About the same hour Zalli and 'Tite Poulette were kissing good-night.
+
+"'Tite Poulette, I want you to promise me one thing."
+
+"Well, Maman?"
+
+"If any gentleman should ever love you and ask you to marry,--not
+knowing, you know,--promise me you will not tell him you are not white."
+
+"It can never be," said 'Tite Poulette.
+
+"But if it should," said Madame John pleadingly.
+
+"And break the law?" asked 'Tite Poulette, impatiently.
+
+"But the law is unjust," said the mother.
+
+"But it is the law!"
+
+"But you will not, dearie, will you?"
+
+"I would surely tell him!" said the daughter.
+
+When Zalli, for some cause, went next morning to the window, she
+started.
+
+"'Tite Poulette!"--she called softly without moving. The daughter came.
+The young man, whose idea of propriety had actuated him to this display,
+was sitting in the dormer window, reading. Mother and daughter bent a
+steady gaze at each other. It meant in French, "If he saw us last
+night!"--
+
+"Ah! dear," said the mother, her face beaming with fun--
+
+"What can it be, Maman?"
+
+"He speaks--oh! ha, ha!--he speaks--such miserable French!"
+
+It came to pass one morning at early dawn that Zalli and 'Tite Poulette,
+going to mass, passed a café, just as--who should be coming out but
+Monsieur, the manager of the _Salle de Condé_. He had not yet gone to
+bed. Monsieur was astonished. He had a Frenchman's eye for the
+beautiful, and certainly there the beautiful was. He had heard of Madame
+John's daughter, and had hoped once to see her, but did not but could
+this be she?
+
+They disappeared within the cathedral. A sudden pang of piety moved him;
+he followed. 'Tite Poulette was already kneeling in the aisle. Zalli,
+still in the vestibule, was just taking her hand from the font of
+holy-water.
+
+"Madame John," whispered the manager.
+
+She courtesied.
+
+"Madame John, that young lady--is she your daughter?"
+
+"She--she--is my daughter," said Zalli, with somewhat of alarm in her
+face, which the manager misinterpreted.
+
+"I think not, Madame John." He shook his head, smiling as one too wise
+to be fooled.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, she is my daughter."
+
+"O no, Madame John, it is only make-believe, I think."
+
+"I swear she is, Monsieur de la Rue."
+
+"Is that possible?" pretending to waver, but convinced in his heart of
+hearts, by Zalli's alarm, that she was lying. "But how? Why does she not
+come to our ball-room with you?"
+
+Zalli, trying to get away from him, shrugged and smiled. "Each to his
+taste, Monsieur; it pleases her not."
+
+She was escaping, but he followed one step more. "I shall come to see
+you, Madame John."
+
+She whirled and attacked him with her eyes. "Monsieur must not give
+himself the trouble!" she said, the eyes at the same time adding, "Dare
+to come!" She turned again, and knelt to her devotions. The manager
+dipped in the font, crossed himself, and departed.
+
+Several weeks went by, and M. de la Rue had not accepted the fierce
+challenge of Madame John's eyes. One or two Sunday nights she had
+succeeded in avoiding him, though fulfilling her engagement in the
+_Salle_; but by and by pay-day,--a Saturday,--came round, and though the
+pay was ready, she was loath to go up to Monsieur's little office.
+
+It was an afternoon in May. Madame John came to her own room, and, with
+a sigh, sank into a chair. Her eyes were wet.
+
+"Did you go to his office, dear mother?" asked 'Tite Poulette.
+
+"I could not," she answered, dropping her face in her hands.
+
+"Maman, he has seen me at the window!"
+
+"While I was gone?" cried the mother.
+
+"He passed on the other side of the street. He looked up purposely, and
+saw me." The speaker's cheeks were burning red.
+
+Zalli wrung her hands.
+
+"It is nothing, mother; do not go near him."
+
+"But the pay, my child."
+
+"The pay matters not."
+
+"But he will bring it here; he wants the chance."
+
+That was the trouble, sure enough.
+
+About this time Kristian Koppig lost his position in the German
+importing house where, he had fondly told his mother, he was
+indispensable.
+
+"Summer was coming on," the senior said, "and you see our young men are
+almost idle. Yes, our engagement _was_ for a year, but ah--we could not
+foresee"--etc., etc., "besides" (attempting a parting flattery), "your
+father is a rich gentleman, and you can afford to take the summer easy.
+If we can ever be of any service to you," etc., etc.
+
+So the young Dutchman spent the afternoons at his dormer window reading
+and glancing down at the little casement opposite, where a small, rude
+shelf had lately been put out, holding a row of cigar-boxes with
+wretched little botanical specimens in them trying to die. 'Tite
+Poulette was their gardener; and it was odd to see,--dry weather or
+wet,--how many waterings per day those plants could take. She never
+looked up from her task; but I know she performed it with that
+unacknowledged pleasure which all girls love and deny, that of being
+looked upon by noble eyes.
+
+On this peculiar Saturday afternoon in May, Kristian Koppig had been
+witness of the distressful scene over the way. It occurred to 'Tite
+Poulette that such might be the case, and she stepped to the casement to
+shut it. As she did so, the marvellous delicacy of Kristian Koppig moved
+him to draw in one of his shutters. Both young heads came out at one
+moment, while at the same instant--
+
+"Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!" clanked the knocker on the wicket. The black
+eyes of the maiden and the blue over the way, from looking into each
+other for the first time in life, glanced down to the arched doorway
+upon Monsieur the manager. Then the black eyes disappeared within, and
+Kristian Koppig thought again, and re-opening his shutter, stood up at
+the window prepared to become a bold spectator of what might follow.
+
+But for a moment nothing followed.
+
+"Trouble over there," thought the rosy Dutchman, and waited. The manager
+waited too, rubbing his hat and brushing his clothes with the tips of
+his kidded fingers.
+
+"They do not wish to see him," slowly concluded the spectator.
+
+"Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!" quoth the knocker, and M. de la Rue looked up
+around at the windows opposite and noticed the handsome young Dutchman
+looking at him.
+
+"Dutch!" said the manager softly, between his teeth.
+
+"He is staring at me," said Kristian Koppig to himself;--"but then I am
+staring at him, which accounts for it."
+
+A long pause, and then another long rapping.
+
+"They want him to go away," thought Koppig.
+
+"Knock hard!" suggested a street youngster, standing by.
+
+"Rap, rap"--The manager had no sooner recommenced than several neighbors
+looked out of doors and windows.
+
+"Very bad," thought our Dutchman; "somebody should make him go off. I
+wonder what they will do."
+
+The manager stepped into the street, looked up at the closed window,
+returned to the knocker, and stood with it in his hand.
+
+"They are all gone out, Monsieur," said the street-youngster.
+
+"You lie!" said the cynosure of neighboring eyes.
+
+"Ah!" thought Kristian Koppig; "I will go down and ask him"--Here his
+thoughts lost outline; he was only convinced that he had somewhat to say
+to him, and turned to go down stairs. In going he became a little vexed
+with himself because he could not help hurrying. He noticed, too, that
+his arm holding the stair-rail trembled in a silly way, whereas he was
+perfectly calm. Precisely as he reached the street-door the manager
+raised the knocker; but the latch clicked and the wicket was drawn
+slightly ajar.
+
+Inside could just be descried Madame John. The manager bowed, smiled,
+talked, talked on, held money in his hand, bowed, smiled, talked on,
+flourished the money, smiled, bowed, talked on and plainly persisted in
+some intention to which Madame John was steadfastly opposed.
+
+The window above, too,--it was Kristian Koppig who noticed that,--opened
+a wee bit, like the shell of a terrapin; Presently the manager lifted
+his foot and put forward an arm, as though he would enter the gate by
+pushing, but as quick as gunpowder it clapped--in his face!
+
+You could hear the fleeing feet of Zalli pounding up the staircase.
+
+As the panting mother re-entered her room, "See, Maman," said 'Tite
+Poulette, peeping at the window, "the young gentleman from over the way
+has crossed!"
+
+"Holy Mary bless him!" said the mother.
+
+"I will go over," thought Kristian Koppig, "and ask him kindly if he is
+not making a mistake."
+
+"What are they doing, dear?" asked the mother, with clasped hands.
+
+"They are talking; the young man is tranquil, but 'Sieur de la Rue is
+very angry," whispered the daughter; and just then--pang! came a sharp,
+keen sound rattling up the walls on either side of the narrow way, and
+"Aha!" and laughter and clapping of female hands from two or three
+windows.
+
+"Oh! what a slap!" cried the girl, half in fright, half in glee, jerking
+herself back from the casement simultaneously with the report. But the
+"ahas" and laughter, and clapping of feminine hands, which still
+continued, came from another cause. 'Tite Poulette's rapid action had
+struck the slender cord that held up an end of her hanging garden, and
+the whole rank of cigar-boxes slid from their place, turned gracefully
+over as they shot through the air, and emptied themselves plump upon the
+head of the slapped manager. Breathless, dirty, pale as whitewash, he
+gasped a threat to be heard from again, and, getting round the corner as
+quick as he could walk, left Kristian Koppig, standing motionless, the
+most astonished man in that street.
+
+"Kristian Koppig, Kristian Koppig," said Greatheart to himself, slowly
+dragging up-stairs, "what a mischief you have done. One poor woman
+certainly to be robbed of her bitter wages, and another--so lovely!--put
+to the burning shame of being the subject of a street brawl! What will
+this silly neighborhood say? 'Has the gentleman a heart as well as a
+hand?' 'Is it jealousy?'" There he paused, afraid himself to answer the
+supposed query; and then--"Oh! Kristian Koppig, you have been such a
+dunce!" "And I cannot apologize to them. Who in this street would carry
+my note, and not wink and grin over it with low surmises? I cannot even
+make restitution. Money? They would not dare receive it. Oh! Kristian
+Koppig, why did you not mind your own business? Is she any thing to you?
+Do you love her? _Of course not_! Oh!--such a dunce!"
+
+The reader will eagerly admit that however faulty this young man's
+course of reasoning, his conclusion was correct. For mark what he did.
+
+He went to his room, which was already growing dark, shut his window,
+lighted his big Dutch lamp, and sat down to write. "Something _must_ be
+done," said he aloud, taking up his pen; "I will be calm and cool; I
+will be distant and brief; but--I shall have to be kind or I may offend.
+Ah! I shall have to write in French; I forgot that; I write it so
+poorly, dunce that I am, when all my brothers and sisters speak it so
+well." He got out his French dictionary. Two hours slipped by. He made a
+new pen, washed and refilled his inkstand, mended his "abominable!"
+chair, and after two hours more made another attempt, and another
+failure. "My head aches," said he, and lay down on his couch, the better
+to frame his phrases.
+
+He was awakened by the Sabbath sunlight. The bells of the Cathedral and
+the Ursulines' chapel were ringing for high mass, and a mocking-bird,
+perching on a chimney-top above Madame John's rooms, was carolling,
+whistling, mewing, chirping, screaming, and trilling with the ecstasy of
+a whole May in his throat. "Oh! sleepy Kristian Koppig," was the young
+man's first thought, "--such a dunce!"
+
+Madame John and daughter did not go to mass. The morning wore away, and
+their casement remained closed. "They are offended," said Kristian
+Koppig, leaving the house, and wandering up to the little Protestant
+affair known as Christ Church.
+
+"No, possibly they are not," he said, returning and finding the shutters
+thrown back.
+
+By a sad accident, which mortified him extremely, he happened to see,
+late in the afternoon,--hardly conscious that he was looking across the
+street,--that Madame John was--dressing. Could it be that she was going
+to the _Salle de Condé_? He rushed to his table, and began to write.
+
+He had guessed aright. The wages were too precious to be lost. The
+manager had written her a note. He begged to assure her that he was a
+gentleman of the clearest cut. If he had made a mistake the previous
+afternoon, he was glad no unfortunate result had followed except his
+having been assaulted by a ruffian; that the _Danse du Shawl_ was
+promised in his advertisement, and he hoped Madame John (whose wages
+were in hand waiting for her) would not fail to assist as usual. Lastly,
+and delicately put, he expressed his conviction that Mademoiselle was
+wise and discreet in declining to entertain gentlemen at her home.
+
+So, against much beseeching on the part of 'Tite Poulette, Madame John
+was going to the ball-room. "Maybe I can discover what 'Sieur de la Rue
+is planning against Monsieur over the way," she said, knowing certainly
+the slap would not be forgiven; and the daughter, though tremblingly, at
+once withdrew her objections.
+
+The heavy young Dutchman, now thoroughly electrified, was writing like
+mad. He wrote and tore up, wrote and tore up, lighted his lamp, started
+again, and at last signed his name. A letter by a Dutchman in
+French!--what can be made of it in English? We will see:
+
+"MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE:
+
+"A stranger, seeking not to be acquainted, but seeing and admiring all
+days the goodness and high honor, begs to be pardoned of them for the
+mistakes, alas! of yesterday, and to make reparation and satisfaction in
+destroying the ornaments of the window, as well as the loss of
+compensation from Monsieur the manager, with the enclosed bill of the
+_Banque de la Louisiane_ for fifty dollars ($50). And, hoping they will
+seeing what he is meaning, remains, respectfully,
+
+"KRISTIAN KOPPIG.
+
+"P.S.--Madame must not go to the ball."
+
+He must bear the missive himself. He must speak in French. What should
+the words be? A moment of study--he has it, and is off down the long
+three-story stairway. At the same moment Madame John stepped from the
+wicket, and glided off to the _Salle de Condé_, a trifle late.
+
+"I shall see Madame John, of course," thought the young man, crushing a
+hope, and rattled the knocker. 'Tite Poulette sprang up from praying for
+her mother's safety. "What has she forgotten?" she asked herself, and
+hastened down. The wicket opened. The two innocents were stunned.
+
+"Aw--aw"--said the pretty Dutchman, "aw,"--blurted out something in
+virgin Dutch, ... handed her the letter, and hurried down street.
+
+"Alas! what have I done?" said the poor girl, bending over her candle,
+and bursting into tears that fell on the unopened letter. "And what
+shall I do! It may be wrong to open it--and worse not to." Like her sex,
+she took the benefit of the doubt, and intensified her perplexity and
+misery by reading and misconstruing the all but unintelligible contents.
+What then? Not only sobs and sighs, but moaning and beating of little
+fists together, and outcries of soul-felt agony stifled against the
+bedside, and temples pressed into knitted palms, because of one who
+"sought _not to be_ acquainted," but offered money--money!--in pity to a
+poor--shame on her for saying that!--a poor _nigresse_.
+
+And now our self-confessed dolt turned back from a half-hour's walk,
+concluding there might be an answer to his note. "Surely Madame John
+will appear this time." He knocked. The shutter stirred above, and
+something white came fluttering wildly down like a shot dove. It was his
+own letter containing the fifty-dollar bill. He bounded to the wicket,
+and softly but eagerly knocked again.
+
+"Go away," said a trembling voice from above.
+
+"Madame John?" said he; but the window closed, and he heard a step, the
+same step on the stair. Step, step, every step one step deeper into his
+heart. 'Tite Poulette came to the closed door.
+
+"What will you?" said the voice within.
+
+"I--I--don't wish to see you. I wish to see Madame John."
+
+"I must pray Monsieur to go away. My mother is at the _Salle de Condé_."
+
+"At the ball!" Kristian Koppig strayed off, repeating the words for want
+of definite thought. All at once it occurred to him that at the ball he
+could make Madame John's acquaintance with impunity. "Was it courting
+sin to go?" By no means; he should, most likely, save a woman from
+trouble, and help the poor in their distress.
+
+Behold Kristian Koppig standing on the floor of the _Salle de Condé_. A
+large hall, a blaze of lamps, a bewildering flutter of fans and floating
+robes, strains of music, columns of gay promenaders, a long row of
+turbaned mothers lining either wall, gentlemen of the portlier sort
+filling the recesses of the windows, whirling waltzers gliding here and
+there--smiles and grace, smiles and grace; all fair, orderly, elegant,
+bewitching. A young Creole's laugh mayhap a little loud, and--truly
+there were many sword-canes. But neither grace nor foulness satisfied
+the eye of the zealous young Dutchman.
+
+Suddenly a muffled woman passed him, leaning on a gentleman's arm. It
+looked like--it must be, Madame John. Speak quick, Kristian Koppig; do
+not stop to notice the man!
+
+"Madame John"--bowing--"I am your neighbor, Kristian Koppig."
+
+Madame John bows low, and smiles--a ball-room smile, but is frightened,
+and her escort,--the manager,--drops her hand and slips away.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur," she whispers excitedly, "you will be killed if you stay
+here a moment. Are you armed? No. Take this." She tried to slip a dirk
+into his hands, but he would not have it.
+
+"Oh, my dear young man, go! Go quickly!" she plead, glancing furtively
+down the hall.
+
+"I wish you not to dance," said the young man.
+
+"I have danced already; I am going home. Come; be quick! we will go
+together." She thrust her arm through his, and they hastened into the
+street. When a square had been passed there came a sound of men running
+behind them.
+
+"Run, Monsieur, run!" she cried, trying to drag him; but Monsieur
+Dutchman would not.
+
+"_Run,_ Monsieur! Oh, my God! it is 'Sieur"--
+
+"_That_ for yesterday!" cried the manager, striking fiercely with his
+cane. Kristian Koppig's fist rolled him in the dirt.
+
+"_That_ for 'Tite Poulette!" cried another man dealing the Dutchman a
+terrible blow from behind.
+
+"And _that_ for me!" hissed a third, thrusting at him with something
+bright.
+
+"_That_ for yesterday!" screamed the manager, bounding like a tiger;
+"That!" "THAT!" "Ha!"
+
+Then Kristian Koppig knew that he was stabbed.
+
+"That!" and "That!" and "That!" and the poor Dutchman struck wildly here
+and there, grasped the air, shut his eyes, staggered, reeled, fell, rose
+half up, fell again for good, and they were kicking him and jumping on
+him. All at once they scampered. Zalli had found the night-watch.
+
+"Buz-z-z-z!" went a rattle. "Buz-z-z-z!" went another.
+
+"Pick him up."
+
+"Is he alive?"
+
+"Can't tell; hold him steady; lead the way, misses."
+
+"He's bleeding all over my breeches."
+
+"This way--here--around this corner."
+
+"This way now--only two squares more."
+
+"Here we are."
+
+"Rap-rap-rap!" on the old brass knocker. Curses on the narrow wicket,
+more on the dark archway, more still on the twisting stairs.
+
+Up at last and into the room.
+
+"Easy, easy, push this under his head: never mind his boots!"
+
+So he lies--on 'Tite Poulette's own bed.
+
+The watch are gone. They pause under the corner lamp to count
+profits;--a single bill--_Banque de la Louisiane_, fifty dollars.
+Providence is kind--tolerably so. Break it at the "Guillaume Tell." "But
+did you ever hear any one scream like that girl did?"
+
+And there lies the young Dutch neighbor. His money will not flutter back
+to him this time; nor will any voice behind a gate "beg Monsieur to go
+away." O, Woman!--that knows no enemy so terrible as man! Come nigh,
+poor Woman, you have nothing to fear. Lay your strange, electric touch
+upon the chilly flesh; it strikes no eager mischief along the fainting
+veins. Look your sweet looks upon the grimy face, and tenderly lay back
+the locks from the congested brows; no wicked misinterpretation lurks to
+bite your kindness. Be motherly, be sisterly, fear nought. Go, watch him
+by night; you may sleep at his feet and he will not stir. Yet he lives,
+and shall live--may live to forget you, who knows? But for all that, be
+gentle and watchful; be womanlike, we ask no more; and God reward you!
+
+Even while it was taking all the two women's strength to hold the door
+against Death, the sick man himself laid a grief upon them.
+
+"Mother," he said to Madame John, quite a master of French in his
+delirium, "dear mother, fear not; trust your boy; fear nothing. I will
+not marry 'Tite Poulette; I cannot. She is fair, dear mother, but ah!
+she is not--don't you know, mother? don't you know? The race! the race!
+Don't you know that she is jet black. Isn't it?"
+
+The poor nurse nodded "Yes," and gave a sleeping draught; but before the
+patient quite slept he started once and stared.
+
+"Take her away,"--waving his hand--"take your beauty away. She is jet
+white. Who could take a jet white wife? O, no, no, no, no!"
+
+Next morning his brain was right.
+
+"Madame," he weakly whispered, "I was delirious last night?"
+
+Zalli shrugged. "Only a very, very, wee, wee trifle of a bit."
+
+"And did I say something wrong or--foolish?"
+
+"O, no, no," she replied; "you only clasped your hands, so, and prayed,
+prayed all the time to the dear Virgin."
+
+"To the virgin?" asked the Dutchman, smiling incredulously.
+
+"And St. Joseph--yes, indeed," she insisted; "you may strike me dead."
+
+And so, for politeness' sake, he tried to credit the invention, but grew
+suspicions instead.
+
+Hard was the battle against death. Nurses are sometimes amazons, and
+such were these. Through the long, enervating summer, the contest
+lasted; but when at last the cool airs of October came stealing in at
+the bedside like long-banished little children, Kristian Koppig rose
+upon his elbow and smiled them a welcome.
+
+The physician, blessed man, was kind beyond measure; but said some
+inexplicable things, which Zalli tried in vain to make him speak in an
+undertone. "If I knew Monsieur John?" he said, "certainly! Why, we were
+chums at school. And he left you so much as that, Madame John? Ah! my
+old friend John, always noble! And you had it all in that naughty bank?
+Ah, well, Madame John, it matters little. No, I shall not tell 'Tite
+Poulette. Adieu."
+
+And another time:--"If I will let you tell me something? With pleasure,
+Madame John. No, and not tell anybody, Madame John. No, Madame, not even
+'Tite Poulette. What?"--a long whistle--"is that pos-si-ble?--and
+Monsieur John knew it?--encouraged it?--eh, well, eh, well!--But--can I
+believe you, Madame John? Oh! you have Monsieur John's sworn statement.
+Ah! very good, truly, but--you _say_ you have it; but where is it? Ah!
+to-morrow!" a sceptical shrug. "Pardon me, Madame John, I think perhaps,
+_perhaps_ you are telling the truth.
+
+"If I think you did right? Certainly! What nature keeps back, accident
+sometimes gives, Madame John; either is God's will. Don't cry. 'Stealing
+from the dead?' No! It was giving, yes! They are thanking you in heaven,
+Madame John."
+
+Kristian Koppig, lying awake, but motionless and with closed eyes, hears
+in part, and, fancying he understands, rejoices with silent intensity.
+When the doctor is gone he calls Zalli.
+
+"I give you a great deal of trouble, eh, Madame John?"
+
+"No, no; you are no trouble at all. Had you the yellow fever--ah! then!"
+
+She rolled her eyes to signify the superlative character of the
+tribulations attending yellow fever.
+
+"I had a lady and gentleman once--a Spanish lady and gentleman, just off
+the ship; both sick at once with the fever--delirious--could not tell
+their names. Nobody to help me but sometimes Monsieur John! I never had
+such a time,--never before, never since,--as that time. Four days and
+nights this head touched not a pillow."
+
+"And they died!" said Kristian Koppig.
+
+"The third night the gentleman went. Poor Senor! 'Sieur John,--he did
+not know the harm,--gave him some coffee and toast! The fourth night it
+rained and turned cool, and just before day the poor lady"--
+
+"Died!" said Koppig.
+
+Zalli dropped her arms listlessly into her lap and her eyes ran brimful.
+
+"And left an infant!" said the Dutchman, ready to shout with exultation.
+
+"Ah! no, Monsieur," said Zalli.
+
+The invalid's heart sank like a stone.
+
+"Madame John,"--his voice was all in a tremor,--"tell me the truth. Is
+'Tite Poulette your own child?"
+
+"Ah-h-h, ha! ha! what foolishness! Of course she is my child!" And
+Madame gave vent to a true Frenchwoman's laugh.
+
+It was too much for the sick man. In the pitiful weakness of his
+shattered nerves he turned his face into his pillow and wept like a
+child. Zalli passed into the next room to hide her emotion.
+
+"Maman, dear Maman," said 'Tite Poulette, who had overheard nothing, but
+only saw the tears.
+
+"Ah! my child, my child, my task--my task is too great--too great for
+me. Let me go now--another time. Go and watch at his bedside."
+
+"But, Maman,"--for 'Tite Poulette was frightened,--"he needs no care
+now."
+
+"Nay, but go, my child; I wish to be alone."
+
+The maiden stole in with averted eyes and tiptoed to the window--_that
+window_. The patient, already a man again, gazed at her till she could
+feel the gaze. He turned his eyes from her a moment to gather
+resolution. And now, stout heart, farewell; a word or two of friendly
+parting--nothing more.
+
+"'Tite Poulette."
+
+The slender figure at the window turned and came to the bedside.
+
+"I believe I owe my life to you," he said.
+
+She looked down meekly, the color rising in her cheek.
+
+"I must arrange to be moved across the street tomorrow, on a litter."
+
+She did not stir or speak.
+
+"And I must now thank you, sweet nurse, for your care. Sweet nurse!
+Sweet nurse!"
+
+She shook her head in protestation.
+
+"Heaven bless you, 'Tite Poulette!"
+
+Her face sank lower.
+
+"God has made you very beautiful, Tite Poulette!"
+
+She stirred not. He reached, and gently took her little hand, and as he
+drew her one step nearer, a tear fell from her long lashes. From the
+next room, Zalli, with a face of agonized suspense, gazed upon the pair,
+undiscovered. The young man lifted the hand to lay it upon his lips,
+when, with a mild, firm force, it was drawn away, yet still rested in
+his own upon the bedside, like some weak thing snared, that could only
+not get free.
+
+"Thou wilt not have my love, 'Tite Poulette?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Thou wilt not, beautiful?"
+
+"Cannot!" was all that she could utter, and upon their clasped hands the
+tears ran down.
+
+"Thou wrong'st me, 'Tite Poulette. Thou dost not trust me; thou fearest
+the kiss may loosen the hands. But I tell thee nay. I have struggled
+hard, even to this hour, against Love, but I yield me now; I yield; I am
+his unconditioned prisoner forever. God forbid that I ask aught but that
+you will be my wife."
+
+Still the maiden moved not, looked not up, only rained down tears.
+
+"Shall it not be, 'Tite Poulette?" He tried in vain to draw her.
+
+"'Tite Poulette?" So tenderly he called! And then she spoke.
+
+"It is against the law."
+
+"It is not!" cried Zalli, seizing her round the waist and dragging her
+forward. "Take her! she is thine. I have robbed God long enough. Here
+are the sworn papers--here! Take her; she is as white as snow--so! Take
+her, kiss her; Mary be praised! I never had a child--she is the
+Spaniard's daughter!"
+
+
+
+
+
+'SIEUR GEORGE.
+
+
+In the heart of New Orleans stands a large four-story brick building,
+that has so stood for about three-quarters of a century. Its rooms are
+rented to a class of persons occupying them simply for lack of activity
+to find better and cheaper quarters elsewhere. With its gray stucco
+peeling off in broad patches, it has a solemn look of gentility in rags,
+and stands, or, as it were, hangs, about the corner of two ancient
+streets, like a faded fop who pretends to be looking for employment.
+
+Under its main archway is a dingy apothecary-shop. On one street is the
+bazaar of a _modiste en robes et chapeaux_ and other humble shops; on
+the other, the immense batten doors with gratings over the lintels,
+barred and bolted with masses of cobwebbed iron, like the door of a
+donjon, are overhung by a creaking sign (left by the sheriff), on which
+is faintly discernible the mention of wines and liquors. A peep through
+one of the shops reveals a square court within, hung with many lines of
+wet clothes, its sides hugged by rotten staircases that seem vainly
+trying to clamber out of the rubbish.
+
+The neighborhood is one long since given up to fifth-rate shops, whose
+masters and mistresses display such enticing mottoes as "_Au gagne
+petit!_" Innumerable children swarm about, and, by some charm of the
+place, are not run over, but obstruct the sidewalks playing their
+clamorous games.
+
+The building is a thing of many windows, where passably good-looking
+women appear and disappear, clad in cotton gowns, watering little
+outside shelves of flowers and cacti, or hanging canaries' cages. Their
+husbands are keepers in wine-warehouses, rent-collectors for the agents
+of old Frenchmen who have been laid up to dry in Paris, custom-house
+supernumeraries and court-clerks' deputies (for your second-rate Creole
+is a great seeker for little offices). A decaying cornice hangs over,
+dropping bits of mortar on passers below, like a boy at a
+boarding-house.
+
+The landlord is one Kookoo, an ancient Creole of doubtful purity of
+blood, who in his landlordly old age takes all suggestions of repairs as
+personal insults. He was but a stripling when his father left him this
+inheritance, and has grown old and wrinkled and brown, a sort of
+periodically animate mummy, in the business. He smokes cascarilla, wears
+velveteen, and is as punctual as an executioner.
+
+To Kookoo's venerable property a certain old man used for many years to
+come every evening, stumbling through the groups of prattling children
+who frolicked about in the early moonlight--whose name no one knew, but
+whom all the neighbors designated by the title of 'Sieur George. It was
+his wont to be seen taking a straight--too straight--course toward his
+home, never careening to right or left, but now forcing himself slowly
+forward, as though there were a high gale in front, and now scudding
+briskly ahead at a ridiculous little dog-trot, as if there were a
+tornado behind. He would go up the main staircase very carefully,
+sometimes stopping half-way up for thirty or forty minutes' doze, but
+getting to the landing eventually, and tramping into his room in the
+second story, with no little elation to find it still there. Were it not
+for these slight symptoms of potations, he was such a one as you would
+pick out of a thousand for a miser. A year or two ago he suddenly
+disappeared.
+
+A great many years ago, when the old house was still new, a young man
+with no baggage save a small hair-trunk, came and took the room I have
+mentioned and another adjoining. He supposed he might stay fifty
+days--and he staid fifty years and over. This was a very fashionable
+neighborhood, and he kept the rooms on that account month after month.
+
+But when he had been here about a year something happened to him, so it
+was rumored, that greatly changed the tenor of his life; and from that
+time on there began to appear in him and to accumulate upon each other
+in a manner which became the profound study of Kookoo, the symptoms of a
+decay, whose cause baffled the landlord's limited powers of conjecture
+for well-nigh half a century. Hints of a duel, of a reason warped, of
+disinheritance, and many other unauthorized rumors, fluttered up and
+floated off, while he became recluse, and, some say, began incidentally
+to betray the unmanly habit which we have already noticed. His neighbors
+would have continued neighborly had he allowed them, but he never let
+himself be understood, and _les Américains_ are very droll anyhow; so,
+as they could do nothing else, they cut him.
+
+So exclusive he became that (though it may have been for economy) he
+never admitted even a housemaid, but kept his apartments himself. Only
+the merry serenaders, who in those times used to sing under the
+balconies, would now and then give him a crumb of their feast for pure
+fun's sake; and after a while, because they could not find out his full
+name, called him, at hazard, George--but always prefixing Monsieur.
+Afterward, when he began to be careless in his dress, and the fashion of
+serenading had passed away, the commoner people dared to shorten the
+title to "'Sieur George."
+
+Many seasons came and went. The city changed like a growing boy;
+gentility and fashion went uptown, but 'Sieur George still retained his
+rooms. Every one knew him slightly, and bowed, but no one seemed to know
+him well, unless it were a brace or so of those convivial fellows in
+regulation-blue at little Fort St. Charles. He often came home late,
+with one of these on either arm, all singing different tunes and
+stopping at every twenty steps to tell secrets. But by and by the fort
+was demolished, church and goverment property melted down under the warm
+demand for building-lots, the city spread like a ringworm,--and one day
+'Sieur George steps out of the old house in full regimentals!
+
+The Creole neighbors rush bareheaded into the middle of the street, as
+though there were an earthquake or a chimney on fire. What to do or say
+or think they do not know; they are at their wits' ends, therefore
+well-nigh happy. However, there is a German blacksmith's shop near by,
+and they watch to see what _Jacob_ will do. Jacob steps into the street
+with every eye upon him; he approaches Monsieur--he addresses to him a
+few remarks--they shake hands--they engage in some conversation--Monsieur
+places his hand on his sword!--now Monsieur passes.
+
+The populace crowd around the blacksmith, children clap their hands
+softly and jump up and down on tiptoes of expectation--'Sieur George is
+going to the war in Mexico!
+
+"Ah!" says a little girl in the throng, '"Sieur George's two rooms will
+be empty; I find that very droll."
+
+The landlord,--this same Kookoo,--is in the group. He hurls himself into
+the house and up the stairs. "Fifteen years pass since he have been in
+those room!" He arrives at the door--it is shut--"It is lock!"
+
+In short, further investigation revealed that a youngish lady in black,
+who had been seen by several neighbors to enter the house, but had not,
+of course, been suspected of such remarkable intentions, had, in company
+with a middle-aged slave-woman, taken these two rooms, and now, at the
+slightly-opened door, proffered a month's rent in advance. What could a
+landlord do but smile? Yet there was a pretext left "the rooms must need
+repairs?"--"No, sir; he could look in and see." Joy! he looked in. All
+was neatness. The floor unbroken, the walls cracked but a little, and
+the cracks closed with new plaster, no doubt by the jealous hand of
+'Sieur George himself Kookoo's eyes swept sharply round the two
+apartments. The furniture was all there. Moreover, there was Monsieur's
+little hair-trunk. He should not soon forget that trunk. One day,
+fifteen years or more before, he had taken hold of that trunk to assist
+Monsieur to arrange his apartment, and Monsieur had drawn his fist back
+and cried to him to "drop it!" _Mais!_ there it was, looking very
+suspicious in Kookoo's eyes, and the lady's domestic, as tidy as a
+yellow-bird, went and sat on it. Could that trunk contain treasure? It
+might, for Madame wanted to shut the door, and, in fact, did so.
+
+The lady was quite handsome--had been more so, but was still
+young--spoke the beautiful language, and kept, in the inner room, her
+discreet and taciturn mulattress, a tall, straight woman, with a fierce
+eye, but called by the young Creoles of the neighborhood "confound' good
+lookin'."
+
+Among _les Américaines_, where the new neighbor always expects to be
+called upon by the older residents, this lady might have made friends in
+spite of being as reserved as 'Sieur George; but the reverse being the
+Creole custom, and she being well pleased to keep her own company, chose
+mystery rather than society.
+
+The poor landlord was sorely troubled; it must not that any thing _de
+trop_ take place in his house. He watched the two rooms narrowly, but
+without result, save to find that Madame plied her needle for pay, spent
+her money for little else besides harpstrings, and took good care of the
+little trunk of Monsieur. This espionage was a good turn to the mistress
+and maid, for when Kookoo announced that all was proper, no more was
+said by outsiders. Their landlord never got but one question answered by
+the middle-aged maid:
+
+"Madame, he feared, was a litt' bit embarrass' _pour_ money, eh?"
+
+"_Non_; Mademoiselle [Mademoiselle, you notice!] had some property, but
+did not want to eat it up."
+
+Sometimes lady-friends came, in very elegant private carriages, to see
+her, and one or two seemed to beg her--but in vain--to go away with
+them; but these gradually dropped off, until lady and servant were alone
+in the world. And so years, and the Mexican war, went by.
+
+The volunteers came home; peace reigned, and the city went on spreading
+up and down the land; but 'Sieur George did not return. It overran the
+country like cocoa-grass. Fields, roads, woodlands, that were once
+'Sieur George's places of retreat from mankind, were covered all over
+with little one-story houses in the "Old Third," and fine residences and
+gardens up in "Lafayette." Streets went slicing like a butcher's knife,
+through old colonial estates, whose first masters never dreamed of the
+city reaching them,--and 'Sieur George was still away. The four-story
+brick got old and ugly, and the surroundings dim and dreamy. Theatres,
+processions, dry-goods stores, government establishments, banks, hotels,
+and all spirit of enterprise were gone to Canal Street and beyond, and
+the very beggars were gone with them. The little trunk got very old and
+bald, and still its owner lingered; still the lady, somewhat the worse
+for lapse of time, looked from the balcony-window in the brief southern
+twilights, and the maid every morning shook a worn rug or two over the
+dangerous-looking railing; and yet neither had made friends or enemies.
+
+The two rooms, from having been stingily kept at first, were needing
+repairs half the time, and the occupants were often moving, now into
+one, now back into the other; yet the hair-trunk was seen only by
+glimpses, the landlord, to his infinite chagrin, always being a little
+too late in offering his services, the women, whether it was light or
+heavy, having already moved it. He thought it significant.
+
+Late one day of a most bitter winter,--that season when, to the ecstatic
+amazement of a whole city-full of children, snow covered the streets
+ankle-deep,--there came a soft tap on the corridor-door of this pair of
+rooms. The lady opened it, and beheld a tall, lank, iron-gray man, a
+total stranger, standing behind--Monsieur George! Both men were
+weather-beaten, scarred, and tattered. Across 'Sieur George's crown,
+leaving a long, bare streak through his white hair, was the souvenir of
+a Mexican sabre.
+
+The landlord had accompanied them to the door: it was a magnificent
+opportunity. Mademoiselle asked them all in, and tried to furnish a seat
+to each; but failing, 'Sieur George went straight across the room and
+_sat on the hair-trunk_. The action was so conspicuous, the landlord
+laid it up in his penetrative mind.
+
+'Sieur George was quiet, or, as it appeared, quieted. The mulattress
+stood near him, and to her he addressed, in an undertone, most of the
+little he said, leaving Mademoiselle to his companion. The stranger was
+a warm talker, and seemed to please the lady from the first; but if he
+pleased, nothing else did. Kookoo, intensely curious, sought some
+pretext for staying, but found none. They were, altogether, an
+uncongenial company. The lady seemed to think Kookoo had no business
+there; 'Sieur George seemed to think the same concerning his companion;
+and the few words between Mademoiselle and 'Sieur George were cool
+enough. The maid appeared nearly satisfied, but could not avoid casting
+an anxious eye at times upon her mistress. Naturally the visit was
+short.
+
+The next day but one the two gentlemen came again in better attire.
+'Sieur George evidently disliked his companion, yet would not rid
+himself of him. The stranger was a gesticulating, stagy fellow, much
+Monsieur's junior, an incessant talker in Creole-French, always excited
+on small matters and unable to appreciate a great one. Once, as they
+were leaving, Kookoo,--accidents will happen,--was under the stairs. As
+they began to descend the tall man was speaking: "--better to bury
+it,"--the startled landlord heard him say, and held his breath, thinking
+of the trunk; but no more was uttered.
+
+A week later they came again.
+
+A week later they came again.
+
+A week later they came yet again!
+
+The landlord's eyes began to open. There must be a courtship in
+progress. It was very plain now why 'Sieur George had wished not to be
+accompanied by the rail gentleman; but since his visits had become
+regular and frequent, it was equally plain why he did not get rid of
+him;--because it would not look well to be going and coming too often
+alone. Maybe it was only this tender passion that the tall man had
+thought "better to bury." Lately there often came sounds of gay
+conversation from the first of the two rooms, which had been turned into
+a parlor; and as, week after week, the friends came down-stairs, the
+tall man was always in high spirits and anxious to embrace 'Sieur
+George, who,--"sly dog," thought the landlord,--would try to look
+grave, and only smiled in an embarrassed way. "Ah! Monsieur, you tink to
+be varry conning; _mais_ you not so conning as Kookoo, no;" and the
+inquisitive little man would shake his head and smile, and shake his
+head again, as a man has a perfect right to do under the conviction that
+he has been for twenty years baffled by a riddle and is learning to read
+it at last; he had guessed what was in 'Sieur George's head, he would by
+and by guess what was in the trunk.
+
+A few months passed quickly away, and it became apparent to every eye in
+or about the ancient mansion that the landlord's guess was not so bad;
+in fact, that Mademoiselle was to be married.
+
+On a certain rainy spring afternoon, a single hired hack drove up to the
+main entrance of the old house, and after some little bustle and the
+gathering of a crowd of damp children about the big doorway, 'Sieur
+George, muffled in a newly-repaired overcoat, jumped out and went
+up-stairs. A moment later he re-appeared, leading Mademoiselle, wreathed
+and veiled, down the stairway. Very fair was Mademoiselle still. Her
+beauty was mature,--fully ripe,--maybe a little too much so, but only a
+little; and as she came down with the ravishing odor of bridal flowers
+floating about her, she seemed the garlanded victim of a pagan
+sacrifice. The mulattress in holiday gear followed behind.
+
+The landlord owed a duty to the community. He arrested the maid on the
+last step: "Your mistress, she goin' _pour marier_ 'Sieur George? It
+make me glad, glad, glad!"
+
+"Marry 'Sieur George? Non, Monsieur."
+
+"Non? Not marrie 'Sieur George? _Mais comment_?"
+
+"She's going to marry the tall gentleman."
+
+"_Diable!_ ze long gentyman!"--With his hands upon his forehead, he
+watched the carriage trundle away. It passed out of sight through the
+rain; he turned to enter the house, and all at once tottered under the
+weight of a tremendous thought--they had left the trunk! He hurled
+himself up-stairs as he had done seven years before, but again--"Ah,
+bah!!"--the door was locked, and not a picayune of rent due.
+
+Late that night a small square man, in a wet overcoat, fumbled his way
+into the damp entrance of the house, stumbled up the cracking stairs,
+unlocked, after many languid efforts, the door of the two rooms, and
+falling over the hair-trunk, slept until the morning sunbeams climbed
+over the balcony and in at the window, and shone full on the back of his
+head. Old Kookoo, passing the door just then, was surprised to find it
+slightly ajar--pushed it open silently, and saw, within, 'Sieur George
+in the act of rising from his knees beside the mysterious trunk! He had
+come back to be once more the tenant of the two rooms.
+
+'Sieur George, for the second time, was a changed man--changed from bad
+to worse; from being retired and reticent, he had come, by reason of
+advancing years, or mayhap that which had left the terrible scar on his
+face, to be garrulous. When, once in a while, employment sought him (for
+he never sought employment), whatever remuneration he received went its
+way for something that left him dingy and threadbare. He now made a
+lively acquaintance with his landlord, as, indeed, with every soul in
+the neighborhood, and told all his adventures in Mexican prisons and
+Cuban cities; including full details of the hardships and perils
+experienced jointly with the "long gentleman" who had married
+Mademoiselle, and who was no Mexican or Cuban, but a genuine
+Louisianian.
+
+"It was he that fancied me," he said, "not I him; but once he had fallen
+in love with me I hadn't the force to cast him off. How Madame ever
+should have liked him was one of those woman's freaks that a man mustn't
+expect to understand. He was no more fit for her than rags are fit for a
+queen; and I could have choked his head off the night he hugged me round
+the neck and told me what a suicide she had committed. But other fine
+women are committing that same folly every day, only they don't wait
+until they're thirty-four or five to do it.--'Why don't I like him?'
+Well, for one reason, he's a drunkard!" Here Kookoo, whose imperfect
+knowledge of English prevented his intelligent reception of the story,
+would laugh as if the joke came in just at this point.
+
+However, with all Monsieur's prattle, he never dropped a word about the
+man he had been before he went away; and the great hair-trunk puzzle was
+still the same puzzle, growing greater every day.
+
+Thus the two rooms had been the scene of some events quite queer, if not
+really strange; but the queerest that ever they presented, I guess, was
+'Sieur George coming in there one day, crying like a little child, and
+bearing in his arms an infant--a girl--the lovely offspring of the
+drunkard whom he so detested, and poor, robbed, spirit-broken and now
+dead Madame. He took good care of the orphan, for orphan she was very
+soon. The long gentleman was pulled out of the Old Basin one morning,
+and 'Sieur George identified the body at the Trémé station. He never
+hired a nurse--the father had sold the lady's maid quite out of sight;
+so he brought her through all the little ills and around all the sharp
+corners of baby-life and childhood, without a human hand to help him,
+until one evening, having persistently shut his eyes to it for weeks and
+months, like one trying to sleep in the sunshine, he awoke to the
+realization that she was a woman. It was a smoky one in November, the
+first cool day of autumn. The sunset was dimmed by the smoke of burning
+prairies, the air was full of the ashes of grass and reeds, ragged
+urchins were lugging home sticks of cordwood, and when a bit of coal
+fell from a cart in front of Kookoo's old house, a child was boxed half
+across the street and robbed of the booty by a _blanchisseuse de fin_
+from over the way.
+
+The old man came home quite steady. He mounted the stairs smartly
+without stopping to rest, went with a step unusually light and quiet to
+his chamber and sat by the window opening upon the rusty balcony.
+
+It was a small room, sadly changed from what it had been in old times;
+but then so was 'Sieur George. Close and dark it was, the walls stained
+with dampness and the ceiling full of bald places that showed the
+lathing. The furniture was cheap and meagre, including conspicuously the
+small, curious-looking hair-trunk. The floor was of wide slabs fastened
+down with spikes, and sloping up and down in one or two broad
+undulations, as if they had drifted far enough down the current of time
+to feel the tide-swell.
+
+However, the floor was clean, the bed well made, the cypress table in
+place, and the musty smell of the walls partly neutralized by a geranium
+on the window-sill.
+
+He so coming in and sitting down, an unseen person called from the room
+adjoining (of which, also, he was still the rentee), to know if he were
+he, and being answered in the affirmative, said, "Papa George guess who
+was here to-day?"
+
+"Kookoo, for the rent?"
+
+"Yes, but he will not come back."
+
+"No? why not?"
+
+"Because you will not pay him."
+
+"No? and why not?"
+
+"Because I have paid him."
+
+"Impossible! where did you get the money?"
+
+"Cannot guess?--Mother Nativity."
+
+"What, not for embroidery?"
+
+"No? and why not? _Mais oui!_"--saying which, and with a pleasant laugh,
+the speaker entered the room. She was a girl of sixteen or thereabout,
+very beautiful, with very black hair and eyes. A face and form more
+entirely out of place you could not have found in the whole city. She
+sat herself at his feet, and, with her interlocked hands upon his knee,
+and her face, full of childish innocence mingled with womanly wisdom,
+turned to his, appeared for a time to take principal part in a
+conversation which, of course, could not be overheard in the corridor
+outside.
+
+Whatever was said, she presently rose, he opened his arms, and she sat
+on his knee and kissed him. This done, there was a silence, both smiling
+pensively and gazing out over the rotten balcony into the street. After
+a while she started up, saying something about the change of weather,
+and, slipping away, thrust a match between the bars of the grate. The
+old man turned about to the fire, and she from her little room brought a
+low sewing-chair and sat beside him, laying her head on his knee, and he
+stroking her brow with his brown palm.
+
+And then, in an altered--a low, sad tone--he began a monotonous recital.
+
+Thus they sat, he talking very steadily and she listening, until all the
+neighborhood was wrapped in slumber,--all the neighbors, but not Kookoo.
+
+Kookoo in his old age had become a great eavesdropper; his ear and eye
+took turns at the keyhole that night, for he tells things that were not
+intended for outside hearers. He heard the girl sobbing, and the old man
+saying, "But you must go now. You cannot stay with me safely or
+decently, much as I wish it. The Lord only knows how I'm to bear it, or
+where you're to go; but He's your Lord, child, and He'll make a place
+for you. I was your grandfather's death; I frittered your poor, dead
+mother's fortune away: let that be the last damage I do.
+
+"I have always meant everything for the best," he added half in
+soliloquy.
+
+From all Kookoo could gather, he must have been telling her the very
+story just recounted. She had dropped quite to the floor, hiding her
+face in her hands, and was saying between her sobs, "I cannot go, Papa
+George; oh, Papa George, I cannot go!"
+
+Just then 'Sieur George, kaving kept a good resolution all day, was
+encouraged by the orphan's pitiful tones to contemplate the most
+senseless act he ever attempted to commit. He said to the sobbing girl
+that she was not of his blood; that she was nothing to him by natural
+ties; that his covenant was with her grandsire to care for his
+offspring; and though it had been poorly kept, it might be breaking it
+worse than ever to turn her out upon ever so kind a world.
+
+"I have tried to be good to you all these years. When I took you, a wee
+little baby, I took you for better or worse. I intended to do well by
+you all your childhood-days, and to do best at last. I thought surely we
+should be living well by this time, and you could choose from a world
+full of homes and a world full of friends.
+
+"I don't see how I missed it!" Here he paused a moment in meditation,
+and presently resumed with some suddenness:
+
+"I thought that education, far better than Mother Nativity has given
+you, should have afforded your sweet charms a noble setting; that good
+mothers and sisters would be wanting to count you into their families,
+and that the blossom of a happy womanhood would open perfect and full of
+sweetness.
+
+"I would have given my life for it. I did give it, such as it was; but
+it was a very poor concern, I know--my life--and not enough to buy any
+good thing.
+
+"I have had a thought of something, but I'm afraid to tell it. It didn't
+come to me to-day or yesterday; it has beset me a long time--for
+months."
+
+The girl gazed into the embers, listening intensely.
+
+"And oh! dearie, if I could only get you to think the same way, you
+might stay with me then."
+
+"How long?" she asked, without stirring.
+
+"Oh, is long as heaven should let us. But there is only one chance," he
+said, as it were feeling his way.
+
+"only one way for us to stay together. Do you understand me?"
+
+She looked up at the old man with a glance of painful inquiry.
+
+"If you could be--my wife, dearie?"
+
+She uttered a low, distressful cry, and, gliding swiftly into her room,
+for the first time in her young life turned the key between them.
+
+And the old man sat and wept.
+
+Then Kookoo, peering through the keyhole, saw that they had been looking
+into the little trunk. The lid was up, but the back was toward the door,
+and he could see no more than if it had been closed.
+
+He stooped and stared into the aperture until his dry old knees were
+ready to crack. It seemed as if 'Sieur George was stone, only stone
+couldn't weep like that.
+
+Every separate bone in his neck was hot with pain. He would have given
+ten dollars--ten sweet dollars!--to have seen 'Sieur George get up and
+turn that trunk around.
+
+There! 'Sieur George rose up--what a face!
+
+He started toward the bed, and as he came to the trunk he paused, looked
+at it, muttered something about "ruin," and something about "fortune,"
+kicked the lid down and threw himself across the bed.
+
+Small profit to old Kookoo that he went to his own couch; sleep was not
+for the little landlord. For well-nigh half a century he had suspected
+his tenant of having a treasure hidden in his house, and to-night he had
+heard his own admission that in the little trunk was a fortune. Kookoo
+had never felt so poor in all his days before. He felt a Creole's anger,
+too, that a tenant should be the holder of wealth while his landlord
+suffered poverty.
+
+And he knew very well, too, did Kookoo, what the tenant would do. If he
+did not know what he kept in the trunk, he knew what he kept behind it,
+and he knew he would take enough of it to-night to make him sleep
+soundly.
+
+No one would ever have supposed Kookoo capable of a crime. He was too
+fearfully impressed with the extra-hazardous risks of dishonesty; he was
+old, too, and weak, and, besides all, intensely a coward. Nevertheless,
+while it was yet two or three hours before daybreak, the sleep-forsaken
+little man arose, shuffled into his garments, and in his stocking-feet
+sought the corridor leading to 'Sieur George's apartment. The November
+night, as it often does in that region, had grown warm and clear; the
+stars were sparkling like diamonds pendent in the deep blue heavens, and
+at every window and lattice and cranny the broad, bright moon poured
+down its glittering beams upon the hoary-headed thief, as he crept along
+the mouldering galleries and down the ancient corridor that led to
+'Sieur George's chamber.
+
+'Sieur George's door, though ever so slowly opened, protested with a
+loud creak. The landlord, wet with cold sweat from head to foot, and
+shaking till the floor trembled, paused for several minutes, and then
+entered the moon-lit apartment. The tenant, lying as if he had not
+moved, was sleeping heavily. And now the poor coward trembled so, that
+to kneel before the trunk, without falling, he did not know how. Twice,
+thrice, he was near tumbling headlong. He became as cold as ice. But the
+sleeper stirred, and the thought of losing his opportunity strung his
+nerves up in an instant. He went softly down upon his knees, laid his
+hands upon the lid, lifted it, and let in the intense moonlight. The
+trunk was full, full, crowded down and running over full, of the tickets
+of the Havana Lottery!
+
+A little after daybreak, Kookoo from his window saw the orphan, pausing
+on the corner. She stood for a moment, and then dove into the dense fog
+which had floated in from the river, and disappeared. He never saw her
+again.
+
+But her Lord is taking care of her. Once only she has seen 'Sieur
+George. She had been in the belvedere of the house which she now calls
+home, looking down upon the outspread city. Far away southward and
+westward the great river glistened in the sunset. Along its sweeping
+bends the chimneys of a smoking commerce, the magazines of surplus
+wealth, the gardens of the opulent, the steeples of a hundred
+sanctuaries and thousands on thousands of mansions and hovels covered
+the fertile birthright arpents which 'Sieur George, in his fifty years'
+stay, had seen tricked away from dull colonial Esaus by their blue-eyed
+brethren of the North. Nearer by she looked upon the forlornly silent
+region of lowly dwellings, neglected by legislation and shunned by all
+lovers of comfort, that once had been the smiling fields of her own
+grandsire's broad plantation; and but a little way off, trudging across
+the marshy commons, her eye caught sight of 'Sieur George following the
+sunset out upon the prairies to find a night's rest in the high grass.
+
+She turned at once, gathered the skirt of her pink calico uniform, and,
+watching her steps through her tears, descended the steep winding-stair
+to her frequent kneeling-place under the fragrant candles of the
+chapel-altar in Mother Nativity's asylum.
+
+'Sieur George is houseless. He cannot find the orphan. Mother Nativity
+seems to know nothing of her. If he could find her now, and could get
+from her the use of ten dollars for but three days, he knows a
+combination which would repair all the past; it could not fail,
+he--thinks. But he cannot find her, and the letters he writes--all
+containing the one scheme--disappear in the mail-box, and there's an
+end.
+
+
+
+
+
+MADAME DÉLICIEUSE
+
+
+Just adjoining the old Café de Poésie on the corner, stood the little
+one-story, yellow-washed tenement of Dr. Mossy, with its two glass doors
+protected by batten shutters, and its low, weed-grown tile roof sloping
+out over the sidewalk. You were very likely to find the Doctor in, for
+he was a great student and rather negligent of his business--as
+business. He was a small, sedate, Creole gentleman of thirty or more,
+with a young-old face and manner that provoked instant admiration. He
+would receive you--be you who you may--in a mild, candid manner, looking
+into your face with his deep blue eyes, and re-assuring you with a
+modest, amiable smile, very sweet and rare on a man's mouth.
+
+To be frank, the Doctor's little establishment was dusty and
+disorderly--very. It was curious to see the jars, and jars, and jars. In
+them were serpents and hideous fishes and precious specimens of many
+sorts. There were stuffed birds on broken perches; and dried lizards,
+and eels, and little alligators, and old skulls with their crowns sawed
+off, and ten thousand odd scraps of writing-paper strewn with crumbs of
+lonely lunches, and interspersed with long-lost spatulas and rust-eaten
+lancets.
+
+All New Orleans, at least all Creole New Orleans, knew, and yet did not
+know, the dear little Doctor. So gentle, so kind, so skilful, so
+patient, so lenient; so careless of the rich and so attentive to the
+poor; a man, all in all, such as, should you once love him, you would
+love him forever. So very learned, too, but with apparently no idea of
+how to _show himself_ to his social profit,--two features much more
+smiled at than respected, not to say admired, by a people remote from
+the seats of learning, and spending most of their esteem upon animal
+heroisms and exterior display.
+
+"Alas!" said his wealthy acquaintances, "what a pity; when he might as
+well be rich."
+
+"Yes, his father has plenty."
+
+"Certainly, and gives it freely. But intends his son shall see none of
+it."
+
+"His son? You dare not so much as mention him."
+
+"Well, well, how strange! But they can never agree--not even upon their
+name. Is not that droll?--a man named General Villivicencio, and his
+son, Dr. Mossy!"
+
+"Oh, that is nothing; it is only that the Doctor drops the _de
+Villivicencio_."
+
+"Drops the _de Villivicencio?_ but I think the _de Villivicencio_ drops
+him, ho, ho, ho,--_diable!_"
+
+Next to the residence of good Dr. Mossy towered the narrow,
+red-brick-front mansion of young Madame Délicieuse, firm friend at once
+and always of those two antipodes, General Villivicencio and Dr. Mossy.
+Its dark, covered carriage-way was ever rumbling, and, with nightfall,
+its drawing-rooms always sent forth a luxurious light from the
+lace-curtained windows of the second-story balconies.
+
+It was one of the sights of the Rue Royale to see by night its tall,
+narrow outline reaching high up toward the stars, with all its windows
+aglow.
+
+The Madame had had some tastes of human experience; had been betrothed
+at sixteen (to a man she did not love, "being at that time a fool," as
+she said); one summer day at noon had been a bride, and at sundown--a
+widow. Accidental discharge of the tipsy bridegroom's own pistol. Pass
+it by! It left but one lasting effect on her, a special detestation of
+quarrels and weapons.
+
+The little maidens whom poor parentage has doomed to sit upon street
+door-sills and nurse their infant brothers have a game of "choosing" the
+beautiful ladies who sweep by along the pavement; but in Rue Royale
+there was no choosing; every little damsel must own Madame Délicieuse or
+nobody, and as that richly adorned and regal favorite of old General
+Villivicencio came along they would lift their big, bold eyes away up to
+her face and pour forth their admiration in a universal--"Ah-h-h-h!"
+
+But, mark you, she was good Madame Délicieuse as well as fair Madame
+Délicieuse: her principles, however, not constructed in the austere
+Anglo-Saxon style, exactly (what need, with the lattice of the
+Confessional not a stone's throw off?). Her kind offices and beneficent
+schemes were almost as famous as General Villivicencio's splendid alms;
+if she could at times do what the infantile Washington said he could
+not, why, no doubt she and her friends generally looked upon it as a
+mere question of enterprise.
+
+She had charms, too, of intellect--albeit not such a sinner against time
+and place as to be an "educated woman"--charms that, even in a plainer
+person, would have brought down the half of New Orleans upon one knee,
+with both hands on the left side. _She_ had the _whole_ city at her
+feet, and, with the fine tact which was the perfection of her character,
+kept it there contented. Madame was, in short, one of the kind that
+gracefully wrest from society the prerogative of doing as they please,
+and had gone even to such extravagant lengths as driving out in the
+_Américain_ faubourg, learning the English tongue, talking national
+politics, and similar freaks whereby she provoked the unbounded worship
+of her less audacious lady friends. In the centre of the cluster of
+Creole beauties which everywhere gathered about her, and, most of all,
+in those incomparable companies which assembled in her own splendid
+drawing-rooms, she was always queen lily. Her house, her drawing-rooms,
+etc.; for the little brown aunt who lived with her was a mere piece of
+curious furniture.
+
+There was this notable charm about Madame Délicieuse, she improved by
+comparison. She never looked so grand as when, hanging on General
+Villivicencio's arm at some gorgeous ball, these two bore down on you
+like a royal barge lashed to a ship-of-the-line. She never looked so
+like her sweet name, as when she seated her prettiest lady adorers close
+around her, and got them all a-laughing.
+
+Of the two balconies which overhung the _banquette_ on the front of the
+Délicieuse house, one was a small affair, and the other a deeper and
+broader one, from which Madame and her ladies were wont upon gala days
+to wave handkerchiefs and cast flowers to the friends in the
+processions. There they gathered one Eighth of January morning to see
+the military display. It was a bright blue day, and the group that quite
+filled the balcony had laid wrappings aside, as all flower-buds are apt
+to do on such Creole January days, and shone resplendent in spring
+attire.
+
+The sight-seers passing below looked up by hundreds and smiled at the
+ladies' eager twitter, as, flirting in humming-bird fashion from one
+subject to another, they laughed away the half-hours waiting for the
+pageant. By and by they fell a-listening, for Madame Délicieuse had
+begun a narrative concerning Dr. Mossy. She sat somewhat above her
+listeners, her elbow on the arm of her chair, and her plump white hand
+waving now and then in graceful gesture, they silently attending with
+eyes full of laughter and lips starting apart.
+
+"_Vous savez_," she said (they conversed in French of course), "you know
+it is now long that Dr. Mossy and his father have been in disaccord.
+Indeed, when have they not differed? For, when Mossy was but a little
+boy, his father thought it hard that he was not a rowdy. He switched him
+once because he would not play with his toy gun and drum. He was not so
+high when his father wished to send him to Paris to enter the French
+army; but he would not go. We used to play often together on the
+_banquette_--for I am not so very many years younger than he, no
+indeed--and, if I wanted some fun, I had only to pull his hair and run
+into the house; he would cry, and monsieur papa would come out with his
+hand spread open and"--
+
+Madame gave her hand a malicious little sweep, and Joined heartily in
+the laugh which followed.
+
+"That was when they lived over the way. But wait! you shall see: I have
+something. This evening the General"--
+
+The houses of Rue Royale gave a start and rattled their windows. In the
+long, irregular line of balconies the beauty of the city rose up. Then
+the houses jumped again and the windows rattled; Madame steps inside the
+window and gives a message which the housemaid smiles at in receiving.
+As she turns the houses shake again, and now again; and now there comes
+a distant strain of trumpets, and by and by the drums and bayonets and
+clattering hoofs, and plumes and dancing banners; far down the long
+street stretch out the shining ranks of gallant men, and the fluttering,
+over-leaning swarms of ladies shower down their sweet favors and wave
+their countless welcomes.
+
+In the front, towering above his captains, rides General Villivicencio,
+veteran of 1814-15, and, with the gracious pomp of the old-time
+gentleman, lifts his cocked hat, and bows, and bows.
+
+Madame Délicieuse's balcony was a perfect maze of waving kerchiefs. The
+General looked up for the woman of all women; she was not there. But he
+remembered the other balcony, the smaller one, and cast his glance
+onward to it. There he saw Madame and one other person only. A small
+blue-eyed, broad-browed, scholarly-looking man whom the arch lady had
+lured from his pen by means of a mock professional summons, and who now
+stood beside her, a smile of pleasure playing on his lips and about his
+eyes.
+
+"_Vite!_" said Madame, as the father's eyes met the son's. Dr. Mossy
+lifted his arm and cast a bouquet of roses. A girl in the crowd bounded
+forward, caught it in the air, and, blushing, handed it to the plumed
+giant. He bowed low, first to the girl, then to the balcony above; and
+then, with a responsive smile, tossed up two splendid kisses, one to
+Madame, and one, it seemed--
+
+"For what was that cheer?"
+
+"Why, did you not see? General Villivicencio cast a kiss to his son."
+
+The staff of General Villivicencio were a faithful few who had not bowed
+the knee to any abomination of the Américains, nor sworn deceitfully to
+any species of compromise; their beloved city was presently to pass into
+the throes of an election, and this band, heroically unconscious of
+their feebleness, putting their trust in "re-actions" and like
+delusions, resolved to make one more stand for the traditions of their
+fathers. It was concerning this that Madame Délicieuse was incidentally
+about to speak when interrupted by the boom of cannon; they had promised
+to meet at her house that evening.
+
+They met. With very little discussion or delay (for their minds were
+made up beforehand), it was decided to announce in the French-English
+newspaper that, at a meeting of leading citizens, it had been thought
+consonant with the public interest to place before the people the name
+of General Hercule Mossy de Villivicencio. No explanation was considered
+necessary. All had been done in strict accordance with time-honored
+customs, and if any one did not know it it was his own fault. No
+eulogium was to follow, no editorial indorsement. The two announcements
+were destined to stand next morning, one on the English side and one on
+the French, in severe simplicity, to be greeted with profound
+gratification by a few old gentlemen in blue cottonade, and by roars of
+laughter from a rampant majority.
+
+As the junto were departing, sparkling Madame Délicieuse detained the
+General at the head of the stairs that descended into the tiled
+carriage-way, to wish she was a man, that she might vote for him.
+
+"But, General," she said, "had I not a beautiful bouquet of ladies on my
+balcony this morning?"
+
+The General replied, with majestic gallantry, that "it was as
+magnificent as could be expected with the central rose wanting." And so
+Madame was disappointed, for she was trying to force the General to
+mention his son. "I will bear this no longer; he shall not rest," she
+had said to her little aunt, "until he has either kissed his son or
+quarrelled with him."
+
+To which the aunt had answered that, "_coûte que coûte_, she need not
+cry about it;" nor did she. Though the General's compliment had foiled
+her thrust, she answered gayly to the effect that enough was enough;
+"but, ah! General," dropping her voice to an undertone, "if you had
+heard what some of those rosebuds said of you!"
+
+The old General pricked up like a country beau. Madame laughed to
+herself, "Monsieur Peacock, I have thee;" but aloud she said gravely:
+
+"Come into the drawing-room, if you please, and seat yourself. You must
+be greatly fatigued."
+
+The friends who waited below overheard the invitation.
+
+"_Au revoir, Général_," said they.
+
+"_Au revoir, Messieurs,_" he answered, and followed the lady.
+
+"General," said she, as if her heart were overflowing, "you have been
+spoken against. Please sit down."
+
+"Is that true, Madame?"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+She sank into a luxurious chair.
+
+"A lady said to-day--but you will be angry with me, General."
+
+"With you, Madame? That is not possible."
+
+"I do not love to make revelations, General; but when a noble friend is
+evil spoken of"--she leaned her brow upon her thumb and forefinger, and
+looked pensively at her slipper's toe peeping out at the edge of her
+skirt on the rich carpet--"one's heart gets very big."
+
+"Madame, you are an angel! But what said she, Madame?"
+
+"Well, General, I have to tell you the whole truth, if you will not be
+angry. We were all speaking at once of handsome men. She said to me:
+'Well, Madame Délicieuse, you may say what you will of General
+Villivicencio, and I suppose it is true; but everybody knows'--pardon
+me, General, but just so she said--'all the world knows he treats his
+son very badly.'"
+
+"It is not true," said the General.
+
+"If I wasn't angry!" said Madame, making a pretty fist. 'How can that
+be?' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'mamma says he has been angry with his
+son for fifteen years.' 'But what did his son do?' I said. 'Nothing,'
+said she. '_Ma foi_,' I said, 'me, I too would be angry if my son had
+done nothing for fifteen years'--ho, ho, ho!"
+
+"It is not true," said the General.
+
+The old General cleared his throat, and smiled as by compulsion.
+
+"You know, General," said Madame, looking distressed, "it was nothing to
+joke about, but I had to say so, because I did not know what your son
+had done, nor did I wish to hear any thing against one who has the honor
+to call you his father."
+
+She paused a moment to let the flattery take effect, and then proceeded:
+
+"But then another lady said to me; she said, 'For shame, Clarisse, to
+laugh at good Dr. Mossy; nobody--neither General Villivicencio, neither
+any other, has a right to be angry against that noble, gentle, kind,
+brave'"--
+
+"Brave!" said the General, with a touch of irony. "So she said,"
+answered Madame Délicieuse, "and I asked her, 'how brave?' 'Brave?' she
+said, 'why, braver than _any soldier_, in tending the small-pox, the
+cholera, the fevers, and all those horrible things. Me, I saw his father
+once run from a snake; I think _he_ wouldn't fight the small-pox--my
+faith!' she said, 'they say that Dr. Mossy does all that and never wears
+a scapula!--and does it nine hundred and ninety-nine times in a thousand
+for nothing! _Is_ that brave, Madame Délicieuse, or is it not?'--And,
+General,--what could I say?"
+
+Madame dropped her palms on either side of her spreading robes and
+waited pleadingly for an answer. There was no sound but the drumming of
+the General's fingers on his sword-hilt. Madame resumed:
+
+"I said, 'I do not deny that Mossy is a noble gentleman;'--I had to say
+that, had I not, General?"
+
+"Certainly, Madame," said the General, "my son is a gentleman, yes."
+
+"'But,' I said, 'he should not make Monsieur, his father, angry.'"
+
+"True," said the General, eagerly.
+
+"But that lady said: 'Monsieur, his father, makes himself angry,' she
+said. 'Do you know, Madame, why his father is angry so long?' Another
+lady says, 'I know!' 'For what?' said I. 'Because he refused to become a
+soldier; mamma told me that.' 'It cannot be!' I said."
+
+The General flushed. Madame saw it, but relentlessly continued:
+
+"'_Mais oui_,' said that lady. 'What!' I said, 'think you General
+Villivicencio will not rather be the very man most certain to respect a
+son who has the courage to be his own master? Oh, what does he want with
+a poor fool of a son who will do only as he says? You think he will love
+him less for healing instead of killing? Mesdemoiselles, you do not know
+that noble soldier!'"
+
+The noble soldier glowed, and bowed his acknowledgments in a dubious,
+half remonstrative way, as if Madame might be producing material for her
+next confession, as, indeed, she diligently was doing; but she went
+straight on once more, as a surgeon would.
+
+"But that other lady said: 'No, Madame, no, ladies, but I am going to
+tell you why Monsieur, the General, is angry with his son.' 'Very well,
+why?'--'Why? It is just--because--he is--a little man!'"
+
+General Villivicencio stood straight up.
+
+"Ah! mon ami," cried the lady, rising excitedly, "I have wounded you and
+made you angry, with my silly revelations. Pardon me, my friend. Those
+were foolish girls, and, anyhow, they admired you. They said you looked
+glorious--grand--at the head of the procession."
+
+Now, all at once, the General felt the tremendous fatigues of the day;
+there was a wild, swimming, whirling sensation in his head that forced
+him to let his eyelids sink down; yet, just there, in the midst of his
+painful bewilderment, he realized with ecstatic complacency that the
+most martial-looking man in Louisiana was standing in his spurs with the
+hand of Louisiana's queenliest woman laid tenderly on his arm.
+
+"I am a wretched tattler!" said she.
+
+"Ah! no, Madame, you are my dearest friend, yes.'
+
+"Well, anyhow, I called them fools. 'Ah! innocent creatures,' I said,
+'think you a man of his sense and goodness, giving his thousands to the
+sick and afflicted, will cease to love his only son because he is not
+big like a horse or quarrelsome like a dog? No, ladies, there is a great
+reason which none of you know.' 'Well, well,' they cried, 'tell it; he
+has need of a very good reason; tell it now.' 'My ladies,' I said, 'I
+must not'--for, General, for all the world I knew not a reason why you
+should be angry against your son; you know, General, you have never told
+me."
+
+The beauty again laid her hand on his arm and gazed, with round-eyed
+simplicity, into his sombre countenance. For an instant her witchery had
+almost conquered.
+
+"Nay, Madame, some day I shall tell you; I have more than one burden
+_here_. But let me ask you to be seated, for I have a question, also,
+for you, which I have longed to ask. It lies heavily upon my heart; I
+must ask it now. A matter of so great importance"--
+
+Madame's little brown aunt gave a faint cough from a dim corner of the
+room.
+
+"'Tis a beautiful night," she remarked, and stepped out on the balcony.
+
+Then the General asked his question. It was a very long question, or,
+maybe, repeated twice or thrice; for it was fully ten minutes before he
+moved out of the room, saying good-evening.
+
+Ah! old General Villivicencio. The most martial-looking man in
+Louisiana! But what would the people, the people who cheered in the
+morning, have said, to see the fair Queen Délicieuse at the top of the
+stair, sweetly bowing you down into the starlight,--humbled,
+crestfallen, rejected!
+
+The campaign opened. The Villivicencio ticket was read in French and
+English with the very different sentiments already noted. In the
+Exchange, about the courts, among the "banks," there was lively talking
+concerning its intrinsic excellence and extrinsic chances. The young
+gentlemen who stood about the doors of the so-called "coffee-houses"
+talked with a frantic energy alarming to any stranger, and just when you
+would have expected to see them jump and bite large mouthfuls out of
+each other's face, they would turn and enter the door, talking on in the
+same furious manner, and, walking up to the bar, click their glasses to
+the success of the Villivicencio ticket. Sundry swarthy and wrinkled
+remnants of an earlier generation were still more enthusiastic. There
+was to be a happy renaissance; a purging out of Yankee ideas; a blessed
+home-coming of those good old Bourbon morals and manners which Yankee
+notions had expatriated. In the cheerfulness of their anticipations they
+even went the length of throwing their feet high in air, thus indicating
+how the Villivicencio ticket was going to give "doze Américains" the
+kick under the nose.
+
+In the three or four weeks which followed, the General gathered a
+surfeit of adulation, notwithstanding which he was constantly and with
+pain imagining a confused chatter of ladies, and when he shut his eyes
+with annoyance, there was Madame Délicieuse standing, and saying, "I
+knew not a reason why you should be angry against your son," gazing in
+his face with hardened simplicity, and then--that last scene on the
+stairs wherein he seemed still to be descending, down, down.
+
+Madame herself was keeping good her resolution.
+
+"Now or never," she said, "a reconciliation or a quarrel."
+
+When the General, to keep up appearances, called again, she so moved him
+with an account of certain kindly speeches of her own invention, which
+she imputed to Dr. Mossy, that he promised to call and see his son;
+"perhaps;" "pretty soon;" "probably."
+
+Dr. Mossy, sitting one February morning among his specimens and books of
+reference, finishing a thrilling chapter on the cuticle, too absorbed to
+hear a door open, suddenly realized that something was in his light,
+and, looking up, beheld General Villivicencio standing over him.
+Breathing a pleased sigh, he put down his pen, and, rising on tiptoe,
+laid his hand upon his father's shoulder, and lifting his lips like a
+little wife, kissed him.
+
+"Be seated, papa," he said, offering his own chair, and perching on the
+desk.
+
+The General took it, and, clearing his throat, gazed around upon the
+jars and jars with their little Adams and Eves in zoölogical gardens.
+
+"Is all going well, papa?" finally asked Dr. Mossy.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then there was a long pause.
+
+"'Tis a beautiful day," said the son.
+
+"Very beautiful," rejoined the father.
+
+"I thought there would have been a rain, but it has cleared off," said
+the son.
+
+"Yes," responded the father, and drummed on the desk.
+
+"Does it appear to be turning cool?" asked the son.
+
+"No; it does not appear to be turning cool at all," was the answer.
+
+"H'm 'm!" said Dr. Mossy.
+
+"Hem!" said General Villivicencio.
+
+Dr. Mossy, not realizing his own action, stole a glance at his
+manuscript.
+
+"I am interrupting you," said the General, quickly, and rose.
+
+"No, no! pardon me; be seated; it gives me great pleasure to--I did not
+know what I was doing. It is the work with which I fill my leisure
+moments."
+
+So the General settled down again, and father and son sat very close to
+each other--in a bodily sense; spiritually they were many miles apart.
+The General's finger-ends, softly tapping the desk, had the sound of
+far-away drums.
+
+"The city--it is healthy?" asked the General.
+
+"Did you ask me if"--said the little Doctor, starting and looking up.
+
+"The city--it has not much sickness at present?" repeated the father.
+
+"No, yes--not much," said Mossy, and, with utter unconsciousness, leaned
+down upon his elbow and supplied an omitted word to the manuscript.
+
+The General was on his feet as if by the touch of a spring.
+
+"I must go!"
+
+"Ah! no, papa," said the son.
+
+"But, yes, I must."
+
+"But wait, papa, I had just now something to speak of"--
+
+"Well?" said the General, standing with his hand on the door, and with
+rather a dark countenance.
+
+Dr. Mossy touched his fingers to his forehead, trying to remember.
+
+"I fear I have--ah! I rejoice to see your name before the public, dear
+papa, and at the head of the ticket."
+
+The General's displeasure sank down like an eagle's feathers. He smiled
+thankfully, and bowed.
+
+"My friends compelled me," he said.
+
+"They think you will be elected?"
+
+"They will not doubt it. But what think you, my son?"
+
+Now the son had a conviction which it would have been madness to
+express, so he only said:
+
+"They could not elect one more faithful."
+
+The General bowed solemnly.
+
+"Perhaps the people will think so; my friends believe they will."
+
+"Your friends who have used your name should help you as much as they
+can, papa," said the Doctor. "Myself, I should like to assist you, papa,
+if I could."
+
+"A-bah!" said the pleased father, incredulously.
+
+"But, yes," said the son.
+
+A thrill of delight filled the General's frame. _This_ was like a son.
+
+"Thank you, my son! I thank you much. Ah, Mossy, my dear boy, you make
+me happy!"
+
+"But," added Mossy, realizing with a tremor how far he had gone, "I see
+not how it is possible."
+
+The General's chin dropped.
+
+"Not being a public man," continued the Doctor; "unless, indeed, my
+pen--you might enlist my pen."
+
+He paused with a smile of bashful inquiry. The General stood aghast for
+a moment, and then caught the idea.
+
+"Certainly! cer-tain-ly! ha, ha, ha!"--backing out of the
+door--"certainly! Ah! Mossy, you are right, to be sure; to make a
+complete world we must have swords _and_ pens. Well, my son, '_au
+revoir;_' no, I cannot stay--I will return. I hasten to tell my friends
+that the pen of Dr. Mossy is on our side! Adieu, dear son."
+
+Standing outside on the _banquette_ he bowed--not to Dr. Mossy, but to
+the balcony of the big red-brick front--a most sunshiny smile, and
+departed.
+
+The very next morning, as if fate had ordered it, the Villivicencio
+ticket was attacked--ambushed, as it were, from behind the Américain
+newspaper. The onslaught was--at least General Villivicencio said it
+was--absolutely ruffianly. Never had all the lofty courtesies and
+formalities of chivalric contest been so completely ignored. Poisoned
+balls--at least personal epithets--were used. The General himself was
+called "antiquated!" The friends who had nominated him, they were
+positively sneered at; dubbed "fossils," "old ladies," and their caucus
+termed "irresponsible"--thunder and lightning! gentlemen of honor to be
+termed "not responsible!" It was asserted that the nomination was made
+secretly, in a private house, by two or three unauthorized harum-scarums
+(that touched the very bone) who had with more caution than propriety
+withheld their names. The article was headed, "The Crayfish-eaters'
+Ticket." It continued further to say that, had not the publication of
+this ticket been regarded as a dull hoax, it would not have been
+suffered to pass for two weeks unchallenged, and that it was now high
+time the universal wish should be realized in its withdrawal.
+
+Among the earliest readers of this production was the young Madame. She
+first enjoyed a quiet gleeful smile over it, and then called:
+
+"Ninide, here, take this down to Dr. Mossy--stop." She marked the
+communication heavily with her gold pencil. "No answer; he need not
+return it."
+
+About the same hour, and in a neighboring street, one of the "not
+responsibles" knocked on the Villivicencio castle gate. The General
+invited him into his bedroom. With a short and strictly profane harangue
+the visitor produced the offensive newspaper, and was about to begin
+reading, when one of those loud nasal blasts, so peculiar to the Gaul,
+resounded at the gate, and another "not responsible" entered, more
+excited, if possible, than the first. Several minutes were spent in
+exchanging fierce sentiments and slapping the palm of the left hand
+rapidly with the back of the right. Presently there was a pause for
+breath.
+
+"Alphonse, proceed to read," said the General, sitting up in bed.
+
+"De Crayfish-eaters' Ticket"--began Alphonse; but a third rapping at the
+gate interrupted him, and a third "irresponsible" re-enforced their
+number, talking loudly and wildly to the waiting-man as he came up the
+hall.
+
+Finally, Alphonse read the article. Little by little the incensed
+gentlemen gave it a hearing, now two words and now three, interrupting
+it to rip out long, rasping maledictions, and wag their forefingers at
+each other as they strode ferociously about the apartment.
+
+As Alphonse reached the close, and dashed the paper to the floor, the
+whole quartet, in terrific unison, cried for the blood of the editor.
+
+But hereupon the General spoke with authority.
+
+"No, Messieurs," he said, buttoning his dressing-gown, savagely, "you
+shall not fight him. I forbid it--you shall not!"
+
+"But," cried the three at once, "one of us must fight, and you--you
+cannot; if _you_ fight our cause is lost! The candidate must not fight."
+
+"Hah-h! Messieurs," cried the hero, beating his breast and lifting his
+eyes, "_grace au ciel_. I have a son. Yes, my beloved friends, a son who
+shall call the villain out and make him pay for his impudence with
+blood, or eat his words in to-morrow morning's paper. Heaven be thanked
+that gave me a son for this occasion! I shall see him at once--as soon
+as I can dress."
+
+"We will go with you."
+
+"No, gentlemen, let me see my son alone. I can meet you at Maspero's in
+two hours. Adieu, my dear friends."
+
+He was resolved.
+
+"_Au, revoir,_," said the dear friends.
+
+Shortly after, cane in hand, General Villivicencio moved with an ireful
+stride up the _banquette_ of Rue Royale. Just as he passed the red-brick
+front one of the batten shutters opened the faintest bit, and a certain
+pair of lovely eyes looked after him, without any of that round
+simplicity which we have before discovered in them. As he half turned to
+knock at his son's door he glanced at this very shutter, but it was as
+tightly closed as though the house were an enchanted palace.
+
+Dr. Mossy's door, on the contrary, swung ajar when he knocked, and the
+General entered.
+
+"Well, my son, have you seen that newspaper? No, I think not. I _see_
+you have not, since your cheeks are not red with shame and anger."
+
+Dr. Mossy looked up with astonishment from the desk where he sat
+writing.
+
+"What is that, papa?"
+
+"My faith! Mossy, is it possible you have not heard of the attack upon
+me, which has surprised and exasperated the city this morning?"
+
+"No," said Dr. Mossy, with still greater surprise, and laying his hand
+on the arm of his chair.
+
+His father put on a dying look. "My soul!" At that moment his glance
+fell upon the paper which had been sent in by Madame Délicieuse. "But,
+Mossy, my son," he screamed, "_there_ it is!" striking it rapidly with
+one finger--"there! there! there! read it! It calls me 'not
+responsible!' 'not responsible' it calls me! Read! read!"
+
+"But, papa," said the quiet little Doctor, rising, and accepting the
+crumpled paper thrust at him, "I have read this. If this is it, well,
+then, already I am preparing to respond to it."
+
+The General seized him violently, and, spreading a suffocating kiss on
+his face, sealed it with an affectionate oath.
+
+"Ah, Mossy, my boy, you are glorious! You had begun already to write!
+You are glorious! Read to me what you have written, my son."
+
+The Doctor took up a bit of manuscript, and resuming his chair, began:
+
+"MESSRS. EDITORS: On your journal of this morning"--
+
+"Eh! how! you have not written it in English, is it, son?"
+
+"But, yes, papa."
+
+"'Tis a vile tongue," said the General; "but, if it is
+necessary--proceed."
+
+"MESSRS. EDITORS: On your journal of this morning is published an
+editorial article upon the Villivicencio ticket, which is plentiful and
+abundant with mistakes. Who is the author or writer of the above said
+editorial article your correspondent does at present ignore, but doubts
+not he is one who, hasty to form an opinion, will yet, however, make his
+assent to the correction of some errors and mistakes which"--
+
+"Bah!" cried the General.
+
+Dr. Mossy looked up, blushing crimson.
+
+"Bah!" cried the General, still more forcibly. "Bêtise!"
+
+"How?" asked the gentle son.
+
+"'Tis all nonsent!" cried the General, bursting into English. "Hall you
+'ave to say is: ''Sieur Editeurs! I want you s'all give de nem of de
+indignan' scoundrel who meek some lies on you' paper about mon Père et
+ses amis!"
+
+"Ah-h!" said Dr. Mossy, in a tone of derision and anger.
+
+His father gazed at him in mute astonishment. He stood beside his
+disorderly little desk, his small form drawn up, a hand thrust into his
+breast, and that look of invincibility in his eyes such as blue eyes
+sometimes surprise us with.
+
+"You want me to fight," he said.
+
+"My faith!" gasped the General, loosening in all his joints. "I
+believe--you may cut me in pieces if I do not believe you were going to
+reason it out in the newspaper! Fight? If I want you to fight? Upon my
+soul, I believe you do not want to fight!"
+
+"No," said Mossy.
+
+"My God!" whispered the General. His heart seemed to break.
+
+"Yes," said the steadily gazing Doctor, his lips trembling as he opened
+them. "Yes, your God. I am afraid"--
+
+"Afraid!" gasped the General.
+
+"Yes," rang out the Doctor, "afraid; afraid! God forbid that I should
+not be afraid. But I will tell you what I do not fear--I do not fear to
+call your affairs of honor--murder!"
+
+"My son!" cried the father.
+
+"I retract," cried the son; "consider it unsaid. I will never reproach
+my father."
+
+"It is well," said the father. "I was wrong. It is my quarrel. I go to
+settle it myself."
+
+Dr. Mossy moved quickly between his father and the door. General
+Villivicencio stood before him utterly bowed down.
+
+"What will you?" sadly demanded the old man.
+
+"Papa," said the son, with much tenderness, "I cannot permit you.
+Fifteen years we were strangers, and yesterday were friends. You must
+not leave me so. I will even settle this quarrel for you. You must let
+me. I am pledged to your service."
+
+The peace-loving little doctor did not mean "to settle," but "to
+adjust." He felt in an instant that he was misunderstood; yet, as quiet
+people are apt to do, though not wishing to deceive, he let the
+misinterpretation stand. In his embarrassment he did not know with
+absolute certainty what he should do himself.
+
+The father's face--he thought of but one way to settle a quarrel--began
+instantly to brighten. "I would myself do it," he said, apologetically,
+"but my friends forbid it."
+
+"And so do I," said the Doctor, "but I will go myself now, and will not
+return until all is finished. Give me the paper."
+
+"My son, I do not wish to compel you."
+
+There was something acid in the Doctor's smile as he answered:
+
+"No; but give me the paper, if you please."
+
+The General handed it.
+
+"Papa," said the son, "you must wait here for my return."
+
+"But I have an appointment at Maspero's at"--
+
+"I will call and make excuse for you," said the son.
+
+"Well," consented the almost happy father, "go, my son; I will stay. But
+if some of your sick shall call?"
+
+"Sit quiet," said the son. "They will think no one is here." And the
+General noticed that the dust lay so thick on the panes that a person
+outside would have to put his face close to the glass to see within.
+
+In the course of half an hour the Doctor had reached the newspaper
+office, thrice addressed himself to the wrong person, finally found the
+courteous editor, and easily convinced him that his father had been
+imposed upon; but when Dr. Mossy went farther, and asked which one of
+the talented editorial staff had written the article:
+
+"You see, Doctor," said the editor--"just step into my private office a
+moment."
+
+They went in together. The next minute saw Dr. Mossy departing hurriedly
+from the place, while the editor complacently resumed his pen, assured
+that he would not return.
+
+General Villivicencio sat and waited among the serpents and innocents.
+His spirits began to droop again. Revolving Mossy's words, he could not
+escape the fear that possibly, after all, his son might compromise the
+Villivicencio honor in the interests of peace. Not that he preferred to
+put his son's life in jeopardy; he would not object to an adjustment,
+provided the enemy should beg for it. But if not, whom would his son
+select to perform those friendly offices indispensable in polite
+quarrels? Some half-priest, half-woman? Some spectacled book-worm? He
+suffered.
+
+The monotony of his passive task was relieved by one or two callers who
+had the sagacity (or bad manners) to peer through the dirty glass, and
+then open the door, to whom, half rising from his chair, he answered,
+with a polite smile, that the Doctor was out, nor could he say how long
+he might be absent. Still the time dragged painfully, and he began at
+length to wonder why Mossy did not return.
+
+There came a rap at the glass door different from all the raps that had
+forerun it--a fearless, but gentle, dignified, graceful rap; and the
+General, before he looked round, felt in all his veins that it came from
+the young Madame. Yes, there was her glorious outline thrown side wise
+upon the glass. He hastened and threw open the door, bending low at the
+same instant, and extending his hand.
+
+She extended hers also, but not to take his. With a calm dexterity that
+took the General's breath, she reached between him and the door, and
+closed it.
+
+"What is the matter?" anxiously asked the General--for her face, in
+spite of its smile, was severe.
+
+"General," she began, ignoring his inquiry--and, with all her Creole
+bows, smiles, and insinuating phrases, the severity of her countenance
+but partially waned--"I came to see my physician--your son. Ah! General,
+when I find you reconciled to your son, it makes me think I am in
+heaven. You will let me say so? You will not be offended with the old
+playmate of your son?"
+
+She gave him no time to answer.
+
+"He is out, I think, is he not? But I am glad of it. It gives us
+occasion to rejoice together over his many merits. For you know,
+General, in all the years of your estrangement, Mossy had no friend like
+myself. I am proud to tell you so now; is it not so?"
+
+The General was so taken aback that, when he had thanked her in a
+mechanical way, he could say nothing else. She seemed to fall for a
+little while into a sad meditation that embarrassed him beyond measure.
+But as he opened his mouth to speak, she resumed:
+
+"Nobody knew him so well as I; though I, poor me, I could not altogether
+understand him; for look you, General, he was--what do you think?--_a
+great man_!--nothing less."
+
+"How?" asked the General, not knowing what else to respond.
+
+"You never dreamed of that, eh?" continued the lady. "But, of course
+not; nobody did but me. Some of those Américains, I suppose, knew it;
+but who would ever ask them? Here in Royal Street, in New Orleans, where
+we people know nothing and care nothing but for meat, drink, and
+pleasure, he was only Dr. Mossy, who gave pills. My faith! General, no
+wonder you were disappointed in your son, for you thought the same. Ah!
+yes, you did! But why did you not ask me, his old playmate? I knew
+better. I could have told you how your little son stood head and
+shoulders above the crowd. I could have told you some things too
+wonderful to believe. I could have told you that his name was known and
+honored in the scientific schools of Paris, of London, of Germany! Yes!
+I could have shown you"--she warmed as she proceeded--"I could have
+shown you letters (I begged them of him), written as between brother and
+brother, from the foremost men of science and discovery!"
+
+She stood up, her eyes flashing with excitement.
+
+"But why did you never tell me?" cried the General.
+
+"He never would allow me--but you--why did you not ask me? I will tell
+you; you were too proud to mention your son. But he had pride to match
+yours--ha!--achieving all--every thing--with an assumed name! 'Let me
+tell your father,' I implored him; but--'let him find me out,' he said,
+and you never found him out. Ah! there he was fine. He would not, he
+said, though only for your sake, re-enter your affections as any thing
+more or less than just--your son. Ha!"
+
+And so she went on. Twenty times the old General was astonished anew,
+twenty times was angry or alarmed enough to cry out, but twenty times
+she would not be interrupted. Once he attempted to laugh, but again her
+hand commanded silence.
+
+"Behold, Monsieur, all these dusty specimens, these revolting fragments.
+How have you blushed to know that our idle people laugh in their sleeves
+at these things! How have you blushed--and you his father! But why did
+you not ask me? I could have told you: 'Sir, your son is not an
+apothecary; not one of these ugly things but has helped him on in the
+glorious path of discovery; discovery, General--your son--known in
+Europe as a scientific discoverer!' Ah-h! the blind people say, 'How is
+that, that General Villivicencio should be dissatisfied with his son? He
+is a good man, and a good doctor, only a little careless, that's all.'
+But _you_ were more blind still, for you shut your eyes tight like this;
+when, had you searched for his virtues as you did for his faults, you,
+too, might have known before it was too late what nobility, what beauty,
+what strength, were in the character of your poor, poor son!"
+
+"Just Heaven! Madame, you shall not speak of my son as of one dead and
+buried! But, if you have some bad news"--
+
+"Your son took your quarrel on his hands, eh?"
+
+"I believe so--I think"--
+
+"Well; I saw him an hour ago in search of your slanderer!"
+
+"He must find him!" said the General, plucking up.
+
+"But if the search is already over," slowly responded Madame.
+
+The father looked one instant in her face, then rose with an
+exclamation:
+
+"Where is my son? What has happened? Do you think I am a child, to be
+trifled with--a horse to be teased? Tell me of my son!"
+
+Madame was stricken with genuine anguish.
+
+"Take your chair," she begged; "wait; listen; take your chair."
+
+"Never!" cried the General; "I am going to find my son--my God! Madame,
+you have _locked this door_! What are you, that you should treat me so?
+Give me, this instant"--
+
+"Oh! Monsieur, I beseech you to take your chair, and I will tell you
+all. You can do nothing now. Listen! suppose you should rush out and
+find that your son had played the coward at last! Sit down and"--
+
+"Ah! Madame, this is play!" cried the distracted man.
+
+"But no; it is not play. Sit down; I want to ask you something."
+
+He sank down and she stood over him, anguish and triumph strangely
+mingled in her beautiful face.
+
+"General, tell me true; did you not force this quarrel into your son's
+hand? I _know_ he would not choose to have it. Did you not do it to test
+his courage, because all these fifteen years you have made yourself a
+fool with the fear that he became a student only to escape being a
+soldier? Did you not?"
+
+Her eyes looked him through and through.
+
+"And if I did?" demanded he with faint defiance.
+
+"Yes! and if he has made dreadful haste and proved his courage?" asked
+she.
+
+"Well, then,"--the General straightened up triumphantly--"then he is my
+son!"
+
+He beat the desk.
+
+"And heir to your wealth, for example?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+The lady bowed in solemn mockery.
+
+"It will make him a magnificent funeral!"
+
+The father bounded up and stood speechless, trembling from head to foot.
+Madame looked straight in his eye.
+
+"Your son has met the writer of that article."
+
+"Where?" the old man's lips tried to ask.
+
+"Suddenly, unexpectedly, in a passage-way."
+
+"My God! and the villain"--
+
+"Lives!" cried Madame.
+
+He rushed to the door, forgetting that it was locked.
+
+"Give me that key!" he cried, wrenched at the knob, turned away
+bewildered, turned again toward it, and again away; and at every step
+and turn he cried, "Oh! my son, my son! I have killed my son! Oh! Mossy,
+my son, my little boy! Oh! my son, my son!"
+
+Madame buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud. Then the father
+hushed his cries and stood for a moment before her.
+
+"Give me the key, Clarisse, let me go."
+
+She rose and laid her face on his shoulder.
+
+"What is it, Clarisse?" asked he.
+
+"Your son and I were ten years betrothed."
+
+"Oh, my child!"
+
+"Because, being disinherited, he would not be me husband."
+
+"Alas! would to God I had known it! Oh! Mossy, my son."
+
+"Oh! Monsieur," cried the lady, clasping her hands, "forgive me--mourn
+no more--your son is unharmed! I wrote the article--I am your recanting
+slanderer! Your son is hunting for me now. I told my aunt to misdirect
+him. I slipped by him unseen in the carriage-way."
+
+The wild old General, having already staggered back and rushed forward
+again, would have seized her in his arms, had not the little Doctor
+himself at that instant violently rattled the door and shook his finger
+at them playfully as he peered through the glass.
+
+"Behold!" said Madame, attempting a smile: "open to your son; here is
+the key."
+
+She sank into a chair.
+
+Father and son leaped into each other's arms; then turned to Madame:
+
+"Ah! thou lovely mischief-maker"--
+
+She had fainted away.
+
+"Ah! well, keep out of the way, if you please, papa," said Dr. Mossy, as
+Madame presently reopened her eyes; "no wonder you fainted; you have
+finished some hard work--see; here; no; Clarisse, dear, take this."
+
+Father and son stood side by side, tenderly regarding her as she
+revived.
+
+"Now, papa, you may kiss her; she is quite herself again, already."
+
+"My daughter!" said the stately General; "this--is my son's ransom; and,
+with this,--I withdraw the Villivicencio ticket."
+
+"You shall not," exclaimed the laughing lady, throwing her arms about
+his neck.
+
+"But, yes!" he insisted; "my faith! you will at least allow me to remove
+my dead from the field."
+
+"But, certainly;" said the son; "see, Clarisse, here is Madame, your
+aunt, asking us all into the house. Let us go."
+
+The group passed out into the Rue Royale, Dr. Mossy shutting the door
+behind them. The sky was blue, the air was soft and balmy, and on the
+sweet south breeze, to which the old General bared his grateful brow,
+floated a ravishing odor of--
+
+"Ah! what is it?" the veteran asked of the younger pair, seeing the
+little aunt glance at them with a playful smile.
+
+Madame Délicieuse for almost the first time in her life, and Dr. Mossy
+for the thousandth--blushed.
+
+It was the odor of orange-blossoms.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Old Creole Days, by George Washington Cable
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Creole Days, by George Washington Cable
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old Creole Days
+
+Author: George Washington Cable
+
+Release Date: November 24, 2003 [EBook #10234]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD CREOLE DAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, L Barber and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+OLD CREOLE DAYS
+
+A STORY OF CREOLE LIFE
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE W. CABLE
+
+1907
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+MADAME DELPHINE
+CAFE DES EXILES
+BELLES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION
+"POSSON JONE'"
+JEAN-AH POQUELIN
+'TITE POULETTE
+'SIEUR GEORGE
+MADAME DELICIEUSE
+
+
+
+
+MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+AN OLD HOUSE.
+
+A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to
+and across Canal Street, the central avenue of the city, and to that
+corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the
+arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant
+merchandise. The crowd--and if it is near the time of the carnival it
+will be great--will follow Canal Street.
+
+But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover of
+Creole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone to
+call the Rue Royale. You will pass a few restaurants, a few
+auction-rooms, a few furniture warehouses, and will hardly realize that
+you have left behind you the activity and clatter of a city of merchants
+before you find yourself in a region of architectural decrepitude, where
+an ancient and foreign-seeming domestic life, in second stories,
+overhangs the ruins of a former commercial prosperity, and upon every
+thing has settled down a long sabbath of decay. The vehicles in the
+street are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores are
+shrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of bright
+mould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many great
+doors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many street
+windows are nailed up; half the balconies are begrimed and rust-eaten,
+and many of the humid arches and alleys which characterize the older
+Franco-Spanish piles of stuccoed brick betray a squalor almost oriental.
+
+Yet beauty lingers here. To say nothing of the picturesque, sometimes
+you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched
+wicket in some _porte-cochere_--red-painted brick pavement, foliage of
+dark palm or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming
+parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten
+window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a
+glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and much
+similar rich antiquity.
+
+The faces of the inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the street
+a sad proportion are dingy and shabby; but just when these are putting
+you off your guard, there will pass you a woman--more likely two or
+three--of patrician beauty.
+
+Now, if you will go far enough down this old street, you will see, as
+you approach its intersection with ----. Names in that region elude one
+like ghosts.
+
+However, as you begin to find the way a trifle more open, you will not
+fail to notice on the right-hand side, about midway of the square, a
+small, low, brick house of a story and a half, set out upon the
+sidewalk, as weather-beaten and mute as an aged beggar fallen asleep.
+Its corrugated roof of dull red tiles, sloping down toward you with an
+inward curve, is overgrown with weeds, and in the fall of the year is
+gay with the yellow plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with
+your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten
+shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are
+shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated.
+Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the
+house has the lockjaw. There are two doors, and to each a single chipped
+and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on a line
+with the house, is a garden masked from view by a high, close
+board-fence. You may see the tops of its fruit-trees--pomegranate,
+peach, banana, fig, pear, and particularly one large orange, close by
+the fence, that must be very old.
+
+The residents over the narrow way, who live in a three-story house,
+originally of much pretension, but from whose front door hard times have
+removed almost all vestiges of paint, will tell you: "Yass, de 'ouse is
+in'abit; 'tis live in."
+
+And this is likely to be all the information you get--not that they
+would not tell, but they cannot grasp the idea that you wish to
+know--until, possibly, just as you are turning to depart, your
+informant, in a single word and with the most evident non-appreciation
+of its value, drops the simple key to the whole matter:
+
+"Dey's quadroons."
+
+He may then be aroused to mention the better appearance of the place in
+former years, when the houses of this region generally stood farther
+apart, and that garden comprised the whole square.
+
+Here dwelt, sixty years ago and more, one Delphine Carraze; or, as she
+was commonly designated by the few who knew her, Madame Delphine. That
+she owned her home, and that it had been given her by the then deceased
+companion of her days of beauty, were facts so generally admitted as to
+be, even as far back as that sixty years ago, no longer a subject of
+gossip. She was never pointed out by the denizens of the quarter as a
+character, nor her house as a "feature." It would have passed all Creole
+powers of guessing to divine what you could find worthy of inquiry
+concerning a retired quadroon woman; and not the least puzzled of all
+would have been the timid and restive Madame Delphine herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+MADAME DELPHINE.
+
+During the first quarter of the present century, the free quadroon caste
+of New Orleans was in its golden age. Earlier generations--sprung, upon
+the one hand, from the merry gallants of a French colonial military
+service which had grown gross by affiliation with Spanish-American
+frontier life, and, upon the other hand from comely Ethiopians culled
+out of the less negroidal types of African live goods, and bought at the
+ship's side with vestiges of quills and cowries and copper wire still in
+their head-dresses,--these earlier generations, with scars of battle or
+private rencontre still on the fathers, and of servitude on the
+manumitted mothers, afforded a mere hint of the splendor that was to
+result from a survival of the fairest through seventy-five years devoted
+to the elimination of the black pigment and the cultivation of hyperian
+excellence and nymphean grace and beauty. Nor, if we turn to the
+present, is the evidence much stronger which is offered by the _gens de
+couleur_ whom you may see in the quadroon quarter this afternoon, with
+"Ichabod" legible on their murky foreheads through a vain smearing of
+toilet powder, dragging their chairs down to the narrow gateway of their
+close-fenced gardens, and staring shrinkingly at you as you pass, like a
+nest of yellow kittens.
+
+But as the present century was in its second and third decades, the
+_quadroones_ (for we must contrive a feminine spelling to define the
+strict limits of the caste as then established) came forth in splendor.
+Old travellers spare no terms to tell their praises, their faultlessness
+of feature, their perfection of form, their varied styles of
+beauty,--for there were even pure Caucasian blondes among them,--their
+fascinating manners, their sparkling vivacity, their chaste and pretty
+wit, their grace in the dance, their modest propriety, their taste and
+elegance in dress. In the gentlest and most poetic sense they were
+indeed the sirens of this land where it seemed "always afternoon"--a
+momentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, so
+beautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of special
+chapters by writers of the day more original than correct as social
+philosophers.
+
+The balls that were got up for them by the male _sang-pur_ were to that
+day what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the same
+nights proved failures through the coincidence. The magnates of
+government,--municipal, state, federal,--those of the army, of the
+learned professions and of the clubs,--in short, the white male
+aristocracy in every thing save the ecclesiastical desk,--were there.
+Tickets were high-priced to insure the exclusion of the vulgar. No
+distinguished stranger was allowed to miss them. They were beautiful!
+They were clad in silken extenuations from the throat to the feet, and
+wore, withal, a pathos in their charm that gave them a family likeness
+to innocence.
+
+Madame Delphine, were you not a stranger, could have told you all about
+it; though hardly, I suppose, without tears.
+
+But at the time of which we would speak (1821-22) her day of splendor
+was set, and her husband--let us call him so for her sake--was long
+dead. He was an American, and, if we take her word for it, a man of
+noble heart and extremely handsome; but this is knowledge which we can
+do without.
+
+Even in those days the house was always shut, and Madame Delphine's
+chief occupation and end in life seemed to be to keep well locked up
+in-doors. She was an excellent person, the neighbors said,--a very
+worthy person; and they were, maybe, nearer correct then they knew. They
+rarely saw her save when she went to or returned from church; a small,
+rather tired-looking, dark quadroone of very good features and a gentle
+thoughtfulness of expression which would take long to describe: call it
+a widow's look.
+
+In speaking of Madame Delphine's house, mention should have been made of
+a gate in the fence on the Royal-street sidewalk. It is gone now, and
+was out of use then, being fastened once for all by an iron staple
+clasping the cross-bar and driven into the post.
+
+Which leads us to speak of another person.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+CAPITAINE LEMAITRE.
+
+He was one of those men that might be any age,--thirty, forty,
+forty-five; there was no telling from his face what was years and what
+was only weather. His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but also
+luminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterward
+remembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of his
+eyes. Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face the
+closest. But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not with
+the oddness that he who had reared him had striven to produce.
+
+He had not been brought up by mother or father. He had lost both in
+infancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa of
+the colonial school, whose unceasing endeavor had been to make "his boy"
+as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as it
+became a pure-blooded French Creole to be who would trace his pedigree
+back to the god Mars.
+
+"Remember, my boy," was the adjuration received by him as regularly as
+his waking cup of black coffee, "that none of your family line ever kept
+the laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he should
+bear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, from
+the nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as of
+gentle, _judicial_ benevolence. The domestics of the old man's house
+used to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe.
+His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facial
+expression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or of
+large dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come.
+
+And, true enough, at twenty-one (in Ursin Lemaitre), the labors of his
+grandfather were an apparent success. He was not rugged, nor was he
+loud-spoken, as his venerable trainer would have liked to present him to
+society; but he was as serenely terrible as a well-aimed rifle, and the
+old man looked upon his results with pride. He had cultivated him up to
+that pitch where he scorned to practise any vice, or any virtue, that
+did not include the principle of self-assertion. A few touches only were
+wanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old man
+died. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to
+see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride,
+of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.
+
+The two Lafittes were, at the time young Lemaitre reached his majority
+(say 1808 or 1812), only merchant-blacksmiths, so to speak, a term
+intended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands,
+who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, and
+moved in society among its autocrats. But they were full of
+possibilities, men of action, and men, too, of thought, with already a
+pronounced disbelief in the custom-house. In these days of big carnivals
+they would have been patented as the dukes of Little Manchac and
+Barataria.
+
+Young Ursin Lemaitre (in full the name was Lemaitre-Vignevielle) had not
+only the hearty friendship of these good people, but also a natural turn
+for accounts; and as his two friends were looking about them with an
+enterprising eye, it easily resulted that he presently connected himself
+with the blacksmithing profession. Not exactly at the forge in the
+Lafittes' famous smithy, among the African Samsons, who, with their
+shining black bodies bared to the waist, made the Rue St. Pierre ring
+with the stroke of their hammers; but as a--there was no occasion to
+mince the word in those days--smuggler.
+
+Smuggler--patriot--where was the difference? Beyond the ken of a
+community to which the enforcement of the revenue laws had long been
+merely so much out of every man's pocket and dish, into the
+all-devouring treasury of Spain. At this date they had come under a
+kinder yoke, and to a treasury that at least echoed when the customs
+were dropped into it; but the change was still new. What could a man be
+more than Capitaine Lemaitre was--the soul of honor, the pink of
+courtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of the
+elephant; frank--the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: his
+paper was good in Toulouse Street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs he
+was the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimer
+virtues.
+
+Years went by. Events transpired which have their place in history.
+Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted in
+their interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to grow
+disreputable, hazardous, and debased. In certain onslaughts made upon
+them by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. The
+business became unprofitable for a time until the enterprising
+Lafittes--thinkers--bethought them of a corrective--"privateering".
+
+Thereupon the United States Government set a price upon their heads.
+Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offered
+money and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, then
+hovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that they
+had spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of the
+market, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they were
+received as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in the
+battle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--here
+tradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward.
+
+Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was among
+the missing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THREE FRIENDS.
+
+The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans was
+a little man fondly known among his people as Pere Jerome. He was a
+Creole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwelling
+was a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall,
+close fence, and reached by a narrow out-door stair from the green
+batten gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicated
+behind by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance of
+the chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands in
+benediction. The name of the street--ah! there is where light is
+wanting. Save the Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little of
+record concerning churches at that time, though they were springing up
+here and there. All there is certainty of is that Pere Jerome's frame
+chapel was some little new-born "down-town" thing, that may have
+survived the passage of years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory"
+"so as by fire." His parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smell
+distinctly there the vow of poverty. His bed-chamber was bare and clean,
+and the bed in it narrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-room
+that would tempt a laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table was
+small, but stout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made of
+fine wood, and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinkling
+pleasantry. His mother's and sister's doing, Pere Jerome would explain;
+they would not permit this apartment--or department--to suffer. Therein,
+as well as in the parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort,
+that explained interestingly the Pere Jerome's rotundity and rosy smile.
+
+In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes to
+sit with Pere Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached--one,
+Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now his brother
+in-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngest manhood, and
+both, like the little priest himself, the regretful rememberers of a
+fourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like Pere Jerome, they had
+come, through years, to the thick of life's conflicts,--the priest's
+brother-in-law a physician, the other an attorney, and brother-in-law to
+the lonely wanderer,--yet they loved to huddle around this small board,
+and be boys again in heart while men in mind. Neither one nor another
+was leader. In earlier days they had always yielded to him who no longer
+met with them a certain chieftainship, and they still thought of him and
+talked of him, and, in their conjectures, groped after him, as one of
+whom they continued to expect greater things than of themselves.
+
+They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing,
+speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric way,
+the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of
+the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the
+lawyer, who was half Americain; but running sometimes into English and
+sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.
+
+Pere Jerome advanced an idea something like this:
+
+"It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality
+of any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can know
+how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or
+our fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is a
+community of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human since
+Adam--nay, nor Adam himself--ever sinned entirely to himself. And so I
+never am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel my
+conscience pointing at me as one of the accessories."
+
+"In a word," said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, "you think we are
+partly to blame for the omission of many of your Paternosters, eh?"
+
+Father Jerome smiled.
+
+"No; a man cannot plead so in his own defence; our first father tried
+that, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absent
+friend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as
+partners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wiser
+care and with better companions, how different might he not have been!
+How can we speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from
+that name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his
+speech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'Pere Jerome, 'ow dat is a
+dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Ain't it?'
+'Ah, madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I 'ope de good God will fo'give
+me an' you fo' dat!'"
+
+Jean Thompson answered quickly:
+
+"You should not have let her say that."
+
+"_Mais_, fo' w'y?"
+
+"Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the more
+to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have said,"--the
+attorney changed to French,--"'He is no pirate; he has merely taken out
+letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the republic of
+Carthagena!'"
+
+"_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and his
+brother-in-law, the priest, laughed.
+
+"Why not?" demanded Thompson.
+
+"Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand."
+
+Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else,
+when Pere Jerome spoke.
+
+"I will tell you what I could have said, I could have said: 'Madame,
+yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him. He stum'le in de dark; but dat good God
+will mek it a _mo' terrible fo'_ dat man oohever he is, w'at put 'at
+light out!'"
+
+"But how do you know he is a pirate?" demanded Thompson, aggressively.
+
+"How do we know?" said the little priest, returning to French. "Ah!
+there is no other explanation of the ninety-and-nine stories that come
+to us, from every port where ships arrive from the north coast of Cuba,
+of a commander of pirates there who is a marvel of courtesy and
+gentility"--[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See gazettes of the period.]
+
+"And whose name is Lafitte," said the obstinate attorney.
+
+"And who, nevertheless, is not Lafitte," insisted Pere Jerome.
+
+"Daz troo, Jean," said Doctor Varrillat. "We hall know daz troo."
+
+Pere Jerome leaned forward over the board and spoke, with an air of
+secrecy, in French.
+
+"You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. You
+have heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of the
+ship himself drove them off."
+
+"An incredible story," said Thompson.
+
+"But not so incredible as the truth. I have it from a passenger. There
+was on the ship a young girl who was very beautiful. She came on deck,
+where the corsair stood, about to issue his orders, and, more beautiful
+than ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a small
+missal spread open, and her finger on the Apostles' Creed, commanded him
+to read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stood gazing
+on her face, which did not quail; and then with a low bow, said: 'Give
+me this book and I will do your bidding.' She gave him the book and bade
+him leave the ship, and he left it unmolested."
+
+Pere Jerome looked from the physician to the attorney and back again,
+once or twice, with his dimpled smile.
+
+"But he speaks English, they say," said Jean Thompson.
+
+"He has, no doubt, learned it since he left us," said the priest.
+
+"But this ship-master, too, says his men called him Lafitte."
+
+"Lafitte? No. Do you not see? It is your brother-in-law, Jean Thompson!
+It is your wife's brother! Not Lafitte, but" (softly) "Lemaitre!
+Lemaitre! Capitaine Ursin Lemaitre!"
+
+The two guests looked at each other with a growing drollery on either
+face, and presently broke into a laugh.
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor, as the three rose up, "you juz kip dad
+cog-an'-bull fo' yo' negs summon."
+
+Pere Jerome's eyes lighted up--
+
+"I goin' to do it!"
+
+"I tell you," said Evariste, turning upon him with sudden gravity, "iv
+dad is troo, I tell you w'ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyare
+nut'n fo' doze creed; _he fall in love!_"
+
+Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to Pere
+Jerome:
+
+"But anny'ow you tell it in dad summon dad 'e hyare fo' dad creed."
+
+Pere Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter. The remarkable
+effects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently find him
+attributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find for
+some a more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was but
+one of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity and
+incredible eccentricity Pere Jerome had a regular correspondent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE CAP FITS.
+
+About two months after the conversation just given, and therefore
+somewhere about the Christmas holidays of the year 1821, Pere Jerome
+delighted the congregation of his little chapel with the announcement
+that he had appointed to preach a sermon in French on the following
+sabbath--not there, but in the cathedral.
+
+He was much beloved. Notwithstanding that among the clergy there were
+two or three who shook their heads and raised their eyebrows, and said
+he would be at least as orthodox if he did not make quite so much of the
+Bible and quite so little of the dogmas, yet "the common people heard
+him gladly." When told, one day, of the unfavorable whispers, he smiled
+a little and answered his informant,--whom he knew to be one of the
+whisperers himself,--laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder:
+
+"Father Murphy,"--or whatever the name was,--"your words comfort me."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Because--_'Voe quum benedixerint mihi homines!'_" [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: "Woe unto me when all men speak well of me!"]
+
+The appointed morning, when it came, was one of those exquisite days in
+which there is such a universal harmony, that worship rises from the
+heart like a spring.
+
+"Truly," said Pere Jerome to the companion who was to assist him in the
+mass, "this is a sabbath day which we do not have to make holy, but only
+to _keep_ so."
+
+Maybe it was one of the secrets of Pere Jerome's success as a preacher,
+that he took more thought as to how he should feel, than as to what he
+should say.
+
+The cathedral of those days was called a very plain old pile, boasting
+neither beauty nor riches; but to Pere Jerome it was very lovely; and
+before its homely altar, not homely to him, in the performance of those
+solemn offices, symbols of heaven's mightiest truths, in the hearing of
+the organ's harmonies, and the yet more elegant interunion of human
+voices in the choir, in overlooking the worshipping throng which knelt
+under the soft, chromatic lights, and in breathing the sacrificial odors
+of the chancel, he found a deep and solemn joy; and yet I guess the
+finest thought of his the while was one that came thrice and again:
+
+"Be not deceived, Pere Jerome, because saintliness of feeling is easy
+here; you are the same priest who overslept this morning, and over-ate
+yesterday, and will, in some way, easily go wrong to-morrow and the day
+after."
+
+He took it with him when--the _Veni Creator_ sung--he went into the
+pulpit. Of the sermon he preached, tradition has preserved for us only a
+few brief sayings, but they are strong and sweet.
+
+"My friends," he said,--this was near the beginning,--"the angry words
+of God's book are very merciful--they are meant to drive us home; but
+the tender words, my friends, they are sometimes terrible! Notice these,
+the tenderest words of the tenderest prayer that ever came from the lips
+of a blessed martyr--the dying words of the holy Saint Stephen, 'Lord,
+lay not this sin to their charge.' Is there nothing dreadful in that?
+Read it thus: 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' Not to the
+charge of them who stoned him? To whose charge then? Go ask the holy
+Saint Paul. Three years afterward, praying in the temple at Jerusalem,
+he answered that question: 'I stood by and consented.' He answered for
+himself only; but the Day must come when all that wicked council that
+sent Saint Stephen away to be stoned, and all that city of Jerusalem,
+must hold up the hand and say: 'We, also, Lord--we stood by.' Ah!
+friends, under the simpler meaning of that dying saint's prayer for the
+pardon of his murderers is hidden the terrible truth that we all have a
+share in one another's sins."
+
+Thus Pere Jerome touched his key-note. All that time has spared us
+beside may be given in a few sentences.
+
+"Ah!" he cried once, "if it were merely my own sins that I had to answer
+for, I might hold up my head before the rest of mankind; but no, no, my
+friends--we cannot look each other in the face, for each has helped the
+other to sin. Oh, where is there any room, in this world of common
+disgrace, for pride? Even if we had no common hope, a common despair
+ought to bind us together and forever silence the voice of scorn!"
+
+And again, this:
+
+"Even in the promise to Noe, not again to destroy the race with a flood,
+there is a whisper of solemn warning. The moral account of the
+antediluvians was closed off, and the balance brought down in the year
+of the deluge; but the account of those who come after runs on and on,
+and the blessed bow of promise itself warns us that God will not stop it
+till the Judgment Day! O God, I thank thee that that day must come at
+last, when thou wilt destroy the world, and stop the interest on my
+account!"
+
+It was about at this point that Pere Jerome noticed, more particularly
+than he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, a
+small, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, who
+gave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress,
+seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck were
+scrupulously concealed by a heavy veil, and her hands, which were small,
+by gloves.
+
+"Quadroones," thought he, with a stir of deep pity.
+
+Once, as he uttered some stirring word, he saw the mother and daughter
+(if such they were), while they still bent their gaze upon him, clasp
+each other's hand fervently in the daughter's lap. It was at these
+words:
+
+"My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleans
+to whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the _nots_
+rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling to
+purgatory for leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go who
+strew it with thorns and briers!"
+
+The movement of the pair was only seen because he watched for it. He
+glanced that way again as he said:
+
+"O God, be very gentle with those children who would be nearer heaven
+this day had they never had a father and mother, but had got their
+religious training from such a sky and earth as we have in Louisiana
+this holy morning! Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"
+
+The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged
+the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full
+of tears.
+
+"I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side
+aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other,
+"who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single only
+principle of life: defiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even
+gain; but defiance: defiance to God, defiance to man, defiance to
+nature, defiance to reason; defiance and defiance and defiance."
+
+"He is going to tell it!" murmured Evariste to Jean.
+
+"This man," continued Pere Jerome, "became a smuggler and at last a
+pirate in the Gulf of Mexico. Lord, lay not that sin to his charge
+alone! But a strange thing followed. Being in command of men of a sort
+that to control required to be kept at the austerest distance, he now
+found himself separated from the human world and thrown into the solemn
+companionship with the sea, with the air, with the storm, the calm the
+heavens by day, the heavens by night. My friends, that was the first
+time in his life that he ever found himself in really good company.
+
+"Now, this man had a great aptness for accounts. He had kept them--had
+rendered them. There was beauty, to him, in a correct, balanced, and
+closed account. An account unsatisfied was a deformity. The result is
+plain. That man, looking out night after night upon the grand and holy
+spectacle of the starry deep above and the watery deep below, was sure
+to find himself, sooner or later, mastered by the conviction that the
+great Author of this majestic creation keeps account of it; and one
+night there came to him, like a spirit walking on the sea, the awful,
+silent question: 'My account with God--how does it stand?' Ah! friends,
+that is a question which the book of nature does not answer.
+
+"Did I say the book of nature is a catechism? Yes. But, after it answers
+the first question with 'God,' nothing but questions follow; and so, one
+day, this man gave a ship full of merchandise for one little book which
+answered those questions. God help him to understand it! and God help
+you, monsieur, and you, madame, sitting here in your _smuggled clothes_,
+to beat upon the breast with me and cry, 'I, too, Lord--I, too, stood by
+and consented.'"
+
+Pere Jerome had not intended these for his closing words; but just
+there, straight away before his sight and almost at the farthest door, a
+man rose slowly from his seat and regarded him steadily with a kind,
+bronzed, sedate face, and the sermon, as if by a sign of command, was
+ended. While the Credo was being chanted he was still there; but when, a
+moment after its close, the eye of Pere Jerome returned in that
+direction, his place was empty.
+
+As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, was
+turning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, he
+just had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing him
+to overtake them, when the one nearer him spoke in the Creole _patois,_
+saying, with some timid haste:
+
+"Good-morning, Pere--Pere Jerome; Pere Jerome, we thank the good God for
+that sermon."
+
+"Then, so do I," said the little man. They were the same two that he had
+noticed when he was preaching. The younger one bowed silently; she was a
+beautiful figure, but the slight effort of Pere Jerome's kind eyes to
+see through the veil was vain. He would presently have passed on, but
+the one who had spoken before said:
+
+"I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines."
+
+"Yes; but I am going this way to see a sick person."
+
+The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and
+timidity.
+
+"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good
+God," she said.
+
+Pere Jerome smiled:
+
+"God does not need me to look after his sick; but he allows me to do it,
+just as you let your little boy in frocks carry in chips." He might have
+added that he loved to do it, quite as much.
+
+It was plain the woman had somewhat to ask, and was trying to get
+courage to ask it.
+
+"You have a little boy?" asked the priest.
+
+"No, I have only my daughter;" she indicated the girl at her side. Then
+she began to say something else, stopped, and with much nervousness
+asked:
+
+"Pere Jerome, what was the name of that man?"
+
+"His name?" said the priest. "You wish to know his name?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur" (or _Miche_, as she spoke it); "it was such a beautiful
+story." The speaker's companion looked another way.
+
+"His name," said Father Jerome,--"some say one name and some another.
+Some think it was Jean Lafitte, the famous; you have heard of him? And
+do you go to my church, Madame----?"
+
+"No, Miche; not in the past; but from this time, yes. My name"--she
+choked a little, and yet it evidently gave her pleasure to offer this
+mark of confidence--"is Madame Delphine--Delphine Carraze."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+A CRY OF DISTRESS.
+
+Pere Jerome's smile and exclamation, as some days later he entered his
+parlor in response to the announcement of a visitor, were indicative of
+hearty greeting rather than surprise.
+
+"Madame Delphine!"
+
+Yet surprise could hardly have been altogether absent, for though
+another Sunday had not yet come around, the slim, smallish figure
+sitting in a corner, looking very much alone, and clad in dark attire,
+which seemed to have been washed a trifle too often, was Delphine
+Carraze on her second visit. And this, he was confident, was over and
+above an attendance in the confessional, where he was sure he had
+recognized her voice.
+
+She rose bashfully and gave her hand, then looked to the floor, and
+began a faltering speech, with a swallowing motion in the throat, smiled
+weakly and commenced again, speaking, as before, in a gentle, low note,
+frequently lifting up and casting down her eyes while shadows of anxiety
+and smiles of apology chased each other rapidly across her face. She was
+trying to ask his advice.
+
+"Sit down," said he; and when they had taken seats she resumed, with
+downcast eyes:
+
+"You know,--probably I should have said this in the confessional, but"--
+
+"No matter, Madame Delphine; I understand; you did not want an oracle,
+perhaps; you want a friend."
+
+She lifted her eyes, shining with tears, and dropped them again.
+
+"I"--she ceased. "I have done a"--she dropped her head and shook it
+despondingly--"a cruel thing." The tears rolled from her eyes as she
+turned away her face.
+
+Pere Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with the
+evident intention of speaking at length.
+
+"It began nineteen years ago--by"--her eyes, which she had lifted, fell
+lower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and she
+murmured--"I fell in love."
+
+She said no more, and by and by Pere Jerome replied:
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine, to love is the right of every soul. I believe in
+love. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardian
+smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to
+answer for, and yet I think God may have said 'She is a quadroone; all
+the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to
+her--almost compulsory,--charge it to account of whom it may concern.'"
+
+"No, no!" said Madame Delphine, looking up quickly, "some of it might
+fall upon"--Her eyes fell, and she commenced biting her lips and
+nervously pinching little folds in her skirt. "He was good--as good as
+the law would let him be--better, indeed, for he left me property, which
+really the strict law does not allow. He loved our little daughter very
+much. He wrote to his mother and sisters, owning all his error and
+asking them to take the child and bring her up. I sent her to them when
+he died, which was soon after, and did not see my child for sixteen
+years. But we wrote to each other all the time, and she loved me. And
+then--at last"--Madame Delphine ceased speaking, but went on diligently
+with her agitated fingers, turning down foolish hems lengthwise of her
+lap.
+
+"At last your mother-heart conquered," said Pere Jerome.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"The sisters married, the mother died; I saw that even where she was she
+did not escape the reproach of her birth and blood, and when she asked
+me to let her come"--The speaker's brimming eyes rose an instant. "I
+know it was wicked, but--I said, come."
+
+The tears dripped through her hands upon her dress.
+
+"Was it she who was with you last Sunday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And now you do not know what to do with her?"
+
+"_Ah! c'est ca oui_!--that is it."
+
+"Does she look like you, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Oh, thank God", no! you would never believe she was my daughter, she is
+white and beautiful!"
+
+"You thank God for that which is your main difficulty, Madame Delphine."
+
+"Alas! yes."
+
+Pere Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed
+out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.
+
+"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame
+Delphine, without changing his attitude.
+
+Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.
+
+"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest,
+speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had
+dropped upon a strange planet." He suddenly looked up with a brightness
+which almost as quickly passed away, and then he looked down again. His
+happy thought was the cloister; but he instantly said to himself: "They
+cannot have overlooked that choice, except intentionally--which they
+have a right to do." He could do nothing but shake his head.
+
+"And suppose you should suddenly die," he said; he wanted to get at once
+to the worst.
+
+The woman made a quick gesture, and buried her head in her handkerchief,
+with the stifled cry:
+
+"Oh, Olive, my daughter!"
+
+"Well, Madame Delphine," said Pere Jerome, more buoyantly, "one thing is
+sure: we _must_ find a way out of this trouble."
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed, looking heavenward, "if it might be!"
+
+"But it must be!" said the priest.
+
+"But how shall it be?" asked the desponding woman.
+
+"Ah!" said Pere Jerome, with a shrug, "God knows."
+
+"Yes," said the quadroone, with a quick sparkle in her gentle eye; "and
+I know, if God would tell anybody, He would tell you!"
+
+The priest smiled and rose.
+
+"Do you think so? Well, leave me to think of it. I will ask Him."
+
+"And He will tell you!" she replied. "And He will bless you!" She rose
+and gave her hand. As she withdrew it she smiled. "I had such a strange
+dream," she said, backing toward the door.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes. I got my troubles all mixed up with your sermon. I dreamed I made
+that pirate the guardian of my daughter."
+
+Pere Jerome smiled also, and shrugged.
+
+"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in this
+country, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I think
+that one is, without doubt, the best."
+
+"Without doubt," echoed Madame Delphine, wearily, still withdrawing
+backward. Pere Jerome stepped forward and opened the door.
+
+The shadow of some one approaching it from without fell upon the
+threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting
+from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair
+where the hat had covered it, and dark below, gently stroking back his
+very soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while
+Pere Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger
+hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine's
+eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor
+were of white duck.
+
+"Well, Pere Jerome," she said, in a hurried undertone, "I am just going
+to say Hail Marys all the time till you find that out for me!"
+
+"Well, I hope that will be soon, Madame Carraze. Good-day, Madame
+Carraze."
+
+And as she departed, the priest turned to the newcomer and extended both
+hands, saying, in the same familiar dialect in which he had been
+addressing the quadroone:
+
+"Well-a-day, old playmate! After so many years!"
+
+They sat down side by side, like husband and wife, the priest playing
+with the other's hand, and talked of times and seasons past, often
+mentioning Evariste and often Jean.
+
+Madame Delphine stopped short half-way home and returned to Pere
+Jerome's. His entry door was wide open and the parlor door ajar. She
+passed through the one and with downcast eyes was standing at the other,
+her hand lifted to knock, when the door was drawn open and the white
+duck shoes passed out. She saw, besides, this time the blue cottonade
+suit.
+
+"Yes," the voice of Pere Jerome was saying, as his face appeared in the
+door--"Ah! Madame"--
+
+"I lef' my para_sol_," said Madame Delphine, in English.
+
+There was this quiet evidence of a defiant spirit hidden somewhere down
+under her general timidity, that, against a fierce conventional
+prohibition, she wore a bonnet instead of the turban of her caste, and
+carried a parasol.
+
+Pere Jerome turned and brought it.
+
+He made a motion in the direction in which the late visitor had
+disappeared.
+
+"Madame Delphine, you saw dat man?"
+
+"Not his face."
+
+"You couldn' billieve me iv I tell you w'at dat man purpose to do!"
+
+"Is dad so, Pere Jerome?"
+
+"He's goin' to hopen a bank!"
+
+"Ah!" said Madame Delphine, seeing she was expected to be astonished.
+
+Pere Jerome evidently longed to tell something that was best kept
+secret; he repressed the impulse, but his heart had to say something. He
+threw forward one hand and looking pleasantly at Madame Delphine, with
+his lips dropped apart, clenched his extended hand and thrusting it
+toward the ground, said in a solemn undertone:
+
+"He is God's own banker, Madame Delphine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+MICHE VIGNEVIELLE.
+
+Madame Delphine sold one of the corner lots of her property. She had
+almost no revenue, and now and then a piece had to go. As a consequence
+of the sale, she had a few large bank-notes sewed up in her petticoat,
+and one day--maybe a fortnight after her tearful interview with Pere
+Jerome--she found it necessary to get one of these changed into small
+money. She was in the Rue Toulouse, looking from one side to the other
+for a bank which was not in that street at all, when she noticed a small
+sign hanging above a door, bearing the name "Vignevielle." She looked
+in. Pere Jerome had told her (when she had gone to him to ask where she
+should apply for change) that if she could only wait a few days, there
+would be a new concern opened in Toulouse Street,--it really seemed as
+if Vignevielle was the name, if she could judge; it looked to be, and it
+was, a private banker's,--"U.L. Vignevielle's," according to a larger
+inscription which met her eyes as she ventured in. Behind the counter,
+exchanging some last words with a busy-mannered man outside, who, in
+withdrawing, seemed bent on running over Madame Delphine, stood the man
+in blue cottonade, whom she had met in Pere Jerome's doorway. Now, for
+the first time, she saw his face, its strong, grave, human kindness
+shining softly on each and every bronzed feature. The recognition was
+mutual. He took pains to speak first, saying, in a re-assuring tone, and
+in the language he had last heard her use: "'Ow I kin serve you,
+Madame?"
+
+"Iv you pliz, to mague dad bill change, Miche."
+
+She pulled from her pocket a wad of dark cotton handkerchief, from which
+she began to untie the imprisoned note. Madame Delphine had an
+uncommonly sweet voice, and it seemed so to strike Monsieur Vignevielle.
+He spoke to her once or twice more, as he waited on her, each time in
+English, as though he enjoyed the humble melody of its tone, and
+presently, as she turned to go, he said:
+
+"Madame Carraze!"
+
+She started a little, but bethought herself instantly that he had heard
+her name in Pere Jerome's parlor. The good father might even have said a
+few words about her after her first departure; he had such an
+overflowing heart. "Madame Carraze," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "doze
+kine of note wad you '_an_' me juz now is bein' contrefit. You muz tek
+kyah from doze kine of note. You see"--He drew from his cash-drawer a
+note resembling the one he had just changed for her, and proceeded to
+point out certain tests of genuineness. The counterfeit, he said, was so
+and so.
+
+"Bud," she exclaimed, with much dismay, "dad was de manner of my bill!
+Id muz be--led me see dad bill wad I give you,--if you pliz, Miche."
+
+Monsieur Vigneville turned to engage in conversation with an employe and
+a new visitor, and gave no sign of hearing Madame Delphine's voice. She
+asked a second time, with like result, lingered timidly, and as he
+turned to give his attention to a third visitor, reiterated:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle, I wizh you pliz led"--
+
+"Madame Carraze," he said, turning so suddenly as to make the frightened
+little woman start, but extending his palm with a show of frankness, and
+assuming a look of benignant patience, "'ow I kin fine doze note now,
+mongs' all de rez? Iv you p'iz nod to mague me doze troub'."
+
+The dimmest shadow of a smile seemed only to give his words a more
+kindly authoritative import, and as he turned away again with a manner
+suggestive of finality, Madame Delphine found no choice but to depart.
+But she went away loving the ground beneath the feet of Monsieur U.L.
+Vignevielle.
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome!" she exclaimed in the corrupt French of her caste,
+meeting the little father on the street a few days later, "you told the
+truth that day in your parlor. _Mo conne li a c't heure_. I know him
+now; he is just what you called him."
+
+"Why do you not make him _your_ banker, also, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I have done so this very day!" she replied, with more happiness in her
+eyes than Pere Jerome had ever before seen there.
+
+"Madame Delphine," he said, his own eyes sparkling, "make _him_ your
+daughter's guardian; for myself, being a priest, it would not be best;
+but ask him; I believe he will not refuse you."
+
+Madame Delphine's face grew still brighter as he spoke.
+
+"It was in my mind," she said.
+
+Yet to the timorous Madame Delphine many trifles became, one after
+another, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weeks
+elapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But at
+length, one day in May, 1822, in a small private office behind Monsieur
+Vignevielle's banking-room,--he sitting beside a table, and she, more
+timid and demure than ever, having just taken a chair by the door,--she
+said, trying, with a little bashful laugh, to make the matter seem
+unimportant, and yet with some tremor of voice:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle, I bin maguing my will." (Having commenced their
+acquaintance in English, they spoke nothing else.)
+
+"'Tis a good idy," responded the banker.
+
+"I kin mague you de troub' to kib dad will fo' me Miche Vignevielle?"
+
+"Yez."
+
+She looked up with grateful re-assurance; but her eyes dropped again as
+she said:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle"--Here she choked, and began her peculiar motion of
+laying folds in the skirt of her dress, with trembling fingers. She
+lifted her eyes, and as they met the look of deep and placid kindness
+that was in his face, some courage returned, and she said:
+
+"Miche."
+
+"Wad you wand?" asked he, gently.
+
+"If it arrive to me to die"--
+
+"Yez?"
+
+Her words were scarcely audible:
+
+"I wand you teg kyah my lill' girl."
+
+"You 'ave one lill' gal, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She nodded with her face down.
+
+"An' you godd some mo' chillen?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I nevva know dad, Madame Carraze. She's a lill small gal?"
+
+Mothers forget their daughters' stature. Madame Delphine said:
+
+"Yez."  For a few moments neither spoke, and then Monsieur Vignevielle
+said:
+
+"I will do dad."
+
+"Lag she been you' h-own?" asked the mother, suffering from her own
+boldness.
+
+"She's a good lill' chile, eh?"
+
+"Miche, she's a lill' hangel!" exclaimed Madame Delphine, with a look of
+distress.
+
+"Yez; I teg kyah 'v 'er, lag my h-own. I mague you dad promise."
+
+"But"--There was something still in the way, Madame Delphine seemed to
+think.
+
+The banker waited in silence.
+
+"I suppose you will want to see my lill' girl?"
+
+He smiled; for she looked at him as if she would implore him to decline.
+
+"Oh, I tek you' word fo' hall dad, Madame Carraze. It mague no differend
+wad she loog lag; I don' wan' see 'er."
+
+Madame Delphine's parting smile--she went very shortly--was gratitude
+beyond speech.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle returned to the seat he had left, and resumed a
+newspaper,--the _Louisiana Gazette_ in all probability,--which he had
+laid down upon Madame Delphine's entrance. His eyes fell upon a
+paragraph which had previously escaped his notice. There they rested.
+Either he read it over and over unwearyingly, or he was lost in thought.
+Jean Thompson entered.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Thompson, in a suppressed tone bending a little across
+the table, and laying one palm upon a package of papers which lay in the
+other, "it is completed. You could retire, from your business any day
+inside of six hours without loss to anybody." (Both here and elsewhere,
+let it be understood that where good English is given the words were
+spoken in good French.)
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle raised his eyes and extended the newspaper to the
+attorney, who received it and read the paragraph. Its substance was that
+a certain vessel of the navy had returned from a cruise in the Gulf of
+Mexico and Straits of Florida, where she had done valuable service
+against the pirates--having, for instance, destroyed in one fortnight in
+January last twelve pirate vessels afloat, two on the stocks, and three
+establishments ashore.
+
+"United States brig _Porpoise_" repeated Jean Thompson. "Do you know
+her?"
+
+"We are acquainted," said Monsieur Vignevielle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+SHE.
+
+A quiet footstep, a grave new presence on financial sidewalks, a neat
+garb slightly out of date, a gently strong and kindly pensive face, a
+silent bow, a new sign in the Rue Toulouse, a lone figure with a cane,
+walking in meditation in the evening light under the willows of Canal
+Marigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the Rue Conti--these were
+all; a fall of dew would scarce have been more quiet than was the return
+of Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle to the precincts of his birth and early
+life.
+
+But we hardly give the event its right name. It was Capitaine Lemaitre
+who had disappeared; it was Monsieur Vignevielle who had come back. The
+pleasures, the haunts, the companions, that had once held out their
+charms to the impetuous youth, offered no enticements to Madame
+Delphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride his
+grandfather had taught him, that it had always hald him above low
+indulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knaves
+through all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done it
+loftily; but now he maintained a peaceful estrangement from all.
+Evariste and Jean, themselves, found him only by seeking.
+
+"It is the right way," he said to Pere Jerome, the day we saw him there.
+"Ursin Lemaitre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. I am his
+executor."
+
+"He is crazy," said his lawyer brother-in-law, impatiently.
+
+"On the contr-y," replied the little priest, "'e 'as come ad hisse'f."
+
+Evariste spoke.
+
+"Look at his face, Jean. Men with that kind of face are the last to go
+crazy."
+
+"You have not proved that," replied Jean, with an attorney's obstinacy.
+"You should have heard him talk the other day about that newspaper
+paragraph I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I have it with me; I
+claim the reward, but I desire to commute it to citizenship.' He is
+crazy."
+
+Of course Jean Thompson did not believe what he said; but he said it,
+and, in his vexation, repeated it, on the _banquettes_ and at the clubs;
+and presently it took the shape of a sly rumor, that the returned rover
+was a trifle snarled in his top-hamper.
+
+This whisper was helped into circulation by many trivial eccentricities
+of manner, and by the unaccountable oddness of some of his transactions
+in business.
+
+"My dear sir!" cried his astounded lawyer, one day, "you are not running
+a charitable institution!"
+
+"How do you know?" said Monsieur Vignevielle. There the conversation
+ceased.
+
+"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once," asked the
+attorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit of
+it?"
+
+"And make the end worse than the beginning,' said the banker, with a
+gentle smile, turning away to a desk of books.
+
+"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went he
+seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those
+who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but
+those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or
+gate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, you
+might see him give it a gentle push with his hand or cane It was very
+singular.
+
+He walked much alone after dark. The _gurchinangoes_ (garroters, we
+might say), at those times the city's particular terror by night, never
+crossed his path. He was one of those men for whom danger appears to
+stand aside.
+
+One beautiful summer night, when all nature seemed hushed in ecstasy,
+the last blush gone that told of the sun's parting, Monsieur
+Vignevielle, in the course of one of those contemplative, uncompanioned
+walks which it was his habit to take, came slowly along the more open
+portion of the Rue Royale, with a step which was soft without intention,
+occasionally touching the end of his stout cane gently to the ground and
+looking upward among his old acquaintances, the stars.
+
+It was one of those southern nights under whose spell all the sterner
+energies of the mind cloak themselves and lie down in bivouac, and the
+fancy and the imagination, that cannot sleep, slip their fetters and
+escape, beckoned away from behind every flowering bush and
+sweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, by
+the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was still
+again, as if the breezes lifted their expectant pinions and lowered them
+once more, awaiting the rising of the moon in a silence which fell upon
+the fields, the roads, the gardens, the walls, and the suburban and
+half-suburban streets, like a pause in worship. And anon she rose.
+
+Monsieur Vignevielle's steps were bent toward the more central part of
+the town, and he was presently passing along a high, close, board-fence,
+on the right hand side of the way, when, just within this enclosure,
+and almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a
+mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. It
+may have been only the nearness of the songster that attracted the
+passer's attention, but he paused and looked up.
+
+And then he remarked something more,--that the air where he had stopped
+was filled with the overpowering sweetness of the night-jasmine. He
+looked around; it could only be inside the fence. There was a gate just
+there. Would he push it, as his wont was? The grass was growing about it
+in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. An
+iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the
+gate-post. But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithing
+business--an eye which had later received high training as an eye for
+fastenings--fell upon that staple, and saw at a glance that the wood had
+shrunk from it, and it had sprung from its hold, though without falling
+out. The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large hand upon the
+cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate was drawn
+partly open.
+
+At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door or
+gate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image of
+whose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it had
+met him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way of
+destruction.
+
+The bird ceased. The cause of the interruption, standing within the
+opening, saw before him, much obscured by its own numerous shadows, a
+broad, ill-kept, many-flowered garden, among whose untrimmed rose-trees
+and tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell,
+the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weeds
+stood up in bloom. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There,
+very near by, was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had tempted
+him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned from him
+in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the right, and
+escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely a door of
+the house might open upon it. While he still looked, there fell upon his
+ear, from around that curve, a light footstep on the broken shells--one
+only, and then all was for a moment still again. Had he mistaken? No.
+The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a pale glimpse of robes came
+through the tangle, and then, plainly to view, appeared an outline--a
+presence--a form--a spirit--a girl!
+
+From throat to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the
+medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich
+waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two
+heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees,
+a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and her
+temples,--her arms, half hid in a snowy mist of sleeve, let down to
+guide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of the
+grass,--straight down the path she came!
+
+Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the
+deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and
+vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms,
+the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon
+tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? _Can it be_? Is this
+his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to Monsieur Vignevielle the
+unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is
+now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will
+shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to do
+that. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neck
+and throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mockingbird cannot
+withhold; he breaks into song--she turns--she turns her face--it is she,
+it is she! Madame Delphine's daughter is the girl he met on the ship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+OLIVE
+
+She was just passing seventeen--that beautiful year when the heart of
+the maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion,
+while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation of
+womanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair were
+fair without paleness, and meek without languor. She had the soft,
+lack-lustre beauty of the South; no ruddiness of coral, no waxen white,
+no pink of shell; no heavenly blue in the glance; but a face that
+seemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for the
+large, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingled
+dreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We say no color of
+shell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency, that which took its
+place being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory.
+
+This side doorway which led from Madame Delphine's house into her garden
+was over-arched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice, and
+partly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaned a
+rustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when the
+twilights were balmy or the moon was bright.
+
+"_Cherie_," said Madame Delphine on one of those evenings, "why do you
+dream so much?"
+
+She spoke in the _patois_ most natural to her, and which her daughter
+had easily learned.
+
+The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped her
+glance to the hands in her own lap; which were listlessly handling the
+end of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Her
+dress was white again; this was but one night since that in which
+Monsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He had
+not been discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leaving
+it as he had found it.
+
+Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in the
+moonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chaste
+drapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion was
+again laying aside to re-assume the medaeval bondage of the staylace;
+for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphine
+and her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue,
+of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside her
+hands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentle
+admiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden.
+
+Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, and
+on that account repeated her question:
+
+"What are you thinking about?"
+
+The dreamer took the hand that was laid upon hers between her own palms,
+bowed her head, and gave them a soft kiss.
+
+The mother submitted. Wherefore, in the silence which followed, a
+daughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, and
+Olive presently said, as the pair sat looking up into the sky:
+
+"I was thinking of Pere Jerome's sermon."
+
+Madame Delphine had feared so. Olive had lived on it ever since the day
+it was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having ever
+afforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become of
+secondary value to her daughter; she fed upon the sermon.
+
+Olive felt her mother's thought and knew that her mother knew her own;
+but now that she had confessed, she would ask a question:
+
+"Do you think, _maman_, that Pere Jerome knows it was I who gave that
+missal?"
+
+"No," said Madame Delphine, "I am sure he does not."
+
+Another question came more timidly:
+
+"Do--do you think he knows _him_?"
+
+"Yes, I do. He said in his sermon he did."
+
+Both remained for a long time very still, watching the moon gliding in
+and through among the small dark-and-white clouds. At last the daughter
+spoke again.
+
+"I wish I was Pere--I wish I was as good as Pere Jerome."
+
+"My child," said Madame Delphine, her tone betraying a painful summoning
+of strength to say what she had lacked the courage to utter,--"my child,
+I pray the good God you will not let your heart go after one whom you
+may never see in this world!"
+
+The maiden turned her glance, and their eyes met. She cast her arms
+about her mother's neck, laid her cheek upon it for a moment, and then,
+feeling the maternal tear, lifted her lips, and, kissing her, said:
+
+"I will not! I will not!"
+
+But the voice was one, not of willing consent, but of desperate
+resolution.
+
+"It would be useless, anyhow," said the mother, laying her arm around
+her daughter's waist.
+
+Olive repeated the kiss, prolonging it passionately.
+
+"I have nobody but you," murmured the girl; "I am a poor quadroone!"
+
+She threw back her plaited hair for a third embrace, when a sound in the
+shrubbery startled them.
+
+"_Qui ci pa?_" called Madame Delphine, in a frightened voice, as the
+two stood up, holding to each other.
+
+No answer.
+
+"It was only the dropping of a twig," she whispered, after a long
+holding of the breath. But they went into the house and barred it
+everywhere.
+
+It was no longer pleasant to sit up. They retired, and in course of
+time, but not soon, they fell asleep, holding each other very tight, and
+fearing, even in their dreams, to hear another twig fall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+BIRDS.
+
+Monsieur Vigneville looked in at no more doors or windows; but if the
+disappearance of this symptom was a favorable sign, others came to
+notice which were especially bad,--for instance, wakefulness. At
+well-nigh any hour of the night, the city guard, which itself dared not
+patrol singly, would meet him on his slow, unmolested, sky-gazing walk.
+
+"Seems to enjoy it," said Jean Thompson; "the worst sort of evidence. If
+he showed distress of mind, it would not be so bad; but his
+calmness,--ugly feature."
+
+The attorney had held his ground so long that he began really to believe
+it was tenable.
+
+By day, it is true, Monsieur Vignevielle was at his post in his quiet
+"bank." Yet here, day by day, he was the source of more and more vivid
+astonishment to those who held preconceived notions of a banker's
+calling. As a banker, at least, he was certainly out of balance; while
+as a promenader, it seemed to those who watched him that his ruling idea
+had now veered about, and that of late he was ever on the quiet alert,
+not to find, but to evade, somebody.
+
+"Olive, my child," whispered Madame Delphine one morning, as the pair
+were kneeling side by side on the tiled floor of the church, "yonder is
+Miche Vignevielle! If you will only look at once--he is just passing a
+little in--Ah, much too slow again; he stepped out by the side door."
+
+The mother thought it a strange providence that Monsieur Vignevielle
+should always be disappearing whenever Olive was with her.
+
+One early dawn, Madame Delphine, with a small empty basket on her arm,
+stepped out upon the _banquette_ in front of her house, shut and
+fastened the door very softly, and stole out in the direction whence you
+could faintly catch, in the stillness of the daybreak, the songs of the
+Gascon butchers and the pounding of their meat-axes on the stalls of the
+distant market-house. She was going to see if she could find some birds
+for Olive,--the child's appetite was so poor; and, as she was out, she
+would drop an early prayer at the cathedral. Faith and works.
+
+"One must venture something, sometimes, in the cause of religion,"
+thought she, as she started timorously on her way. But she had not gone
+a dozen steps before she repented her temerity. There was some one
+behind her.
+
+There should not be any thing terrible in a footstep merely because it
+is masculine; but Madame Delphine's mind was not prepared to consider
+that. A terrible secret was haunting her. Yesterday morning she had
+found a shoe-track in the garden. She had not disclosed the discovery to
+Olive, but she had hardly closed her eyes the whole night.
+
+The step behind her now might be the fall of that very shoe. She
+quickened her pace, but did not leave the sound behind. She hurried
+forward almost at a run; yet it was still there--no farther, no nearer.
+Two frights were upon her at once--one for herself, another for Olive,
+left alone in the house; but she had but the one prayer--"God protect my
+child!" After a fearful time she reached a place of safety, the
+cathedral. There, panting, she knelt long enough to know the pursuit
+was, at least, suspended, and then arose, hoping and praying all the
+saints that she might find the way clear for her return in all haste to
+Olive.
+
+She approached a different door from that by which she had entered, her
+eyes in all directions and her heart in her throat.
+
+"Madame Carraze."
+
+She started wildly and almost screamed, though the voice was soft and
+mild. Monsieur Vignevielle came slowly forward from the shade of the
+wall. They met beside a bench, upon which she dropped her basket.
+
+"Ah, Miche Vignevielle, I thang de good God to mid you!"
+
+"Is dad so, Madame Carraze? Fo' w'y dad is?"
+
+"A man was chase me all dad way since my 'ouse!"
+
+"Yes, Madame, I sawed him."
+
+"You sawed 'im? Oo it was?"
+
+"'Twas only one man wad is a foolizh. De people say he's crezzie.
+_Mais_, he don' goin' to meg you no 'arm."
+
+"But I was scare' fo' my lill' girl."
+
+"Noboddie don' goin' trouble you' lill' gal, Madame Carraze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked up into the speaker's strangely kind and patient
+eyes, and drew sweet reassurance from them.
+
+"Madame," said Monsieur Vignevielle, "wad pud you bout so hearly dis
+morning?"
+
+She told him her errand. She asked if he thought she would find any
+thing.
+
+"Yez," he said, "it was possible--a few lill' _becassines-de-mer_, ou
+somezin' ligue. But fo' w'y you lill' gal lose doze hapetide?"
+
+"Ah, Miche,"--Madame Delphine might have tried a thousand times again
+without ever succeeding half so well in lifting the curtain upon the
+whole, sweet, tender, old, old-fashioned truth,--"Ah, Miche, she wone
+tell me!"
+
+"Bud, anny'ow, Madame, wad you thing?"
+
+"Miche," she replied, looking up again with a tear standing in either
+eye, and then looking down once more as she began to speak, "I thing--I
+thing she's lonesome."
+
+"You thing?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Ah! Madame Carraze," he said, partly extending his hand, "you see? 'Tis
+impossible to mague you' owze shud so tighd to priv-en dad. Madame, I
+med one mizteg."
+
+"Ah, _non_, Miche!"
+
+"Yez. There har nod one poss'bil'ty fo' me to be dad guardian of you'
+daughteh!"
+
+Madame Delphine started with surprise and alarm.
+
+"There is ondly one wad can be," he continued.
+
+"But oo, Miche?"
+
+"God."
+
+"Ah, Miche Vignevielle"--She looked at him appealingly.
+
+"I don' goin' to dizzerd you, Madame Carraze," he said.
+
+She lifted her eyes. They filled. She shook her head, a tear fell, she
+bit her lip, smiled, and suddenly dropped her face into both hands, sat
+down upon the bench and wept until she shook.
+
+"You dunno wad I mean, Madame Carraze?"
+
+She did not know.
+
+"I mean dad guardian of you' daughteh godd to fine 'er now one 'uzban';
+an' noboddie are hable to do dad egceb de good God 'imsev. But, Madame,
+I tell you wad I do."
+
+She rose up. He continued:
+
+"Go h-open you' owze; I fin' you' daughteh dad uzban'."
+
+Madame Delphine was a helpless, timid thing; but her eyes showed she was
+about to resent this offer. Monsieur Vignevielle put forth his hand--it
+touched her shoulder--and said, kindly still, and without eagerness:
+
+"One w'ite man, Madame: 'tis prattycabble. I know 'tis prattycabble. One
+w'ite jantleman, Madame. You can truz me. I goin' fedge 'im. H-ondly you
+go h-open you' owze."
+
+Madame Delphine looked down, twining her handkerchief among her fingers.
+
+He repeated his proposition.
+
+"You will come firz by you'se'f?" she asked.
+
+"Iv you wand."
+
+She lifted up once more her eye of faith. That was her answer.
+
+"Come," he said, gently, "I wan' sen' some bird ad you' lill' gal."
+
+And they went away, Madame Delphine's spirit grown so exaltedly bold
+that she said as they went, though a violent blush followed her words:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle, I thing Pere Jerome mighd be ab'e to tell you
+someboddie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+FACE TO FACE.
+
+Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.
+
+"_Ah! ma, piti sans popa_! Ah I my little fatherless one!" Her faded
+bonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, and
+her dropped basket, with its "few lill' _becassines-de-mer_" dangling
+from the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "_Ma
+piti_! kiss!--kiss!--kiss!"
+
+"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth or
+fifth time.
+
+"_Dieu sait, ma cere; mo pas conne!_"--God knows, my darling; I cannot
+tell!
+
+The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, and
+burst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and wept
+afresh.
+
+"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn,
+fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother's
+bonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"
+
+"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing--I am such a fool."
+
+The girl's eyes filled. The mother looked up into her face and said:
+
+"No, it is nothing, nothing, only that"--turning her head from side to
+side with a slow, emotional emphasis, "Miche Vignevielle is the
+best--_best_ man on the good Lord's earth!"
+
+Olive drew a chair close to her mother, sat down and took the little
+yellow hands into her own white lap, and looked tenderly into her eyes.
+Madame Delphine felt herself yielding; she must make a show of telling
+something:
+
+"He sent you those birds!"
+
+The girl drew her face back a little. The little woman turned away,
+trying in vain to hide her tearful smile, and they laughed together,
+Olive mingling a daughter's fond kiss with her laughter.
+
+"There is something else," she said, "and you shall tell me."
+
+"Yes," replied Madame Delphine, "only let me get composed."
+
+But she did not get so. Later in the morning she came to Olive with the
+timid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could to
+brighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified and
+troubled, but consented, and thereupon the mother's spirits rose.
+
+The work began, and presently ensued all the thumping, the trundling,
+the lifting and letting down, the raising and swallowing of dust, and
+the smells of turpentine, brass, pumice and woollen rags that go to
+characterize a housekeeper's _emeute_; and still, as the work
+progressed, Madame Delphine's heart grew light, and her little black
+eyes sparkled.
+
+"We like a clean parlor, my daughter, even though no one is ever coming
+to see us, eh?" she said, as entering the apartment she at last sat
+down, late in the afternoon. She had put on her best attire.
+
+Olive was not there to reply. The mother called but got no answer. She
+rose with an uneasy heart, and met her a few steps beyond the door that
+opened into the garden, in a path which came up from an old latticed
+bower. Olive was approaching slowly, her face pale and wild. There was
+an agony of hostile dismay in the look, and the trembling and appealing
+tone with which, taking the frightened mother's cheeks between her
+palms, she said:
+
+"_Ah! ma mere, qui vini 'ci ce soir_?"--Who is coming here this evening?
+
+"Why, my dear child, I was just saying, we like a clean"--
+
+But the daughter was desperate:
+
+"Oh, tell me, my mother, _who_ is coming?"
+
+"My darling, it is our blessed friend, Miche Vignevielle!"
+
+"To see me?" cried the girl.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, my mother, what have you done?"
+
+"Why, Olive, my child," exclaimed the little mother, bursting into
+tears, "do you forget it is Miche Vignevielle who has promised to
+protect you when I die?"
+
+The daughter had turned away, and entered the door; but she faced around
+again, and extending her arms toward her mother, cried:
+
+"How can--he is a white man--I am a poor"--
+
+"Ah! _cherie_," replied Madame Delphine, seizing the outstretched hands,
+"it is there--it is there that he shows himself the best man alive! He
+sees that difficulty; he proposes to meet it; he says he will find you a
+suitor!"
+
+Olive freed her hands violently, motioned her mother back, and stood
+proudly drawn up, flashing an indignation too great for speech; but the
+next moment she had uttered a cry, and was sobbing on the floor.
+
+The mother knelt beside her and threw an arm about her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, my sweet daughter, you must not cry! I did not want to tell you at
+all! I did not want to tell you! It isn't fair for you to cry so hard.
+Miche Vignevielle says you shall have the one you wish, or none at all,
+Olive, or none at all."
+
+"None at all! none at all! None, none, none!"
+
+"No, no, Olive," said the mother, "none at all. He brings none with him
+to-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter."
+
+Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went alone
+to their chamber in the half-story.
+
+Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window to
+door, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemed
+dismal beyond degree. There was a great Argand lamp in one corner. How
+she had labored that day to prepare it for evening illumination! A
+little beyond it, on the wall, hung a crucifix. She knelt under it, with
+her eyes fixed upon it, and thus silently remained until its outline was
+indistinguishable in the deepening shadows of evening.
+
+She arose. A few minutes later, as she was trying to light the lamp, an
+approaching step on the sidewalk seemed to pause. Her heart stood still.
+She softly laid the phosphorus-box out of her hands. A shoe grated
+softly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beating in
+great thuds, without waiting for a knock, opened the door, bowed low,
+and exclaimed in a soft perturbed voice:
+
+"Miche Vignevielle!"
+
+He entered, hat in hand, and with that almost noiseless tread which we
+have noticed. She gave him a chair and closed the door; then hastened,
+with words of apology, back to her task of lighting the lamp. But her
+hands paused in their work again,--Olive's step was on the stairs; then
+it came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there was
+the whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowy
+figure in the door. She was dressed for the evening.
+
+"Maman?"
+
+Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at that
+moment it responded with a tiny bead of light.
+
+"I am here, my daughter."
+
+She hastened to the door, and Olive, all unaware of a third presence,
+lifted her white arms, laid them about her mother's neck, and, ignoring
+her effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips. The crystal
+of the lamp sent out a faint gleam; it grew; it spread on every side;
+the ceiling, the walls lighted up; the crucifix, the furniture of the
+room came back into shape.
+
+"Maman!" cried Olive, with a tremor of consternation.
+
+"It is Miche Vignevielle, my daughter"--
+
+The gloom melted swiftly away before the eyes of the startled maiden, a
+dark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expanding
+to the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face of
+Capitaine Lemaitre.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+THE MOTHER BIRD.
+
+One afternoon, some three weeks after Capitaine Lemaitre had called on
+Madame Delphine, the priest started to make a pastoral call and had
+hardly left the gate of his cottage, when a person, overtaking him,
+plucked his gown:
+
+"Pere Jerome"--
+
+He turned.
+
+The face that met his was so changed with excitement and distress that
+for an instant he did not recognize it.
+
+"Why, Madame Delphine"--
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome! I wan' see you so bad, so bad! _Mo oule dit
+quic'ose_,--I godd some' to tell you."
+
+The two languages might be more successful than one, she seemed to
+think.
+
+"We had better go back to my parlor," said the priest, in their native
+tongue.
+
+They returned
+
+Madame Delphine's very step was altered,--nervous and inelastic. She
+swung one arm as she walked, and brandished a turkey-tail fan.
+
+"I was glad, yass, to kedge you," she said, as they mounted the front,
+outdoor stair; following her speech with a slight, unmusical laugh, and
+fanning herself with unconscious fury.
+
+"_Fe chaud_," she remarked again, taking the chair he offered and
+continuing to ply the fan.
+
+Pere Jerome laid his hat upon a chest of drawers, sat down opposite her,
+and said, as he wiped his kindly face:
+
+"Well, Madame Carraze?"
+
+Gentle as the tone was, she started, ceased fanning, lowered the fan to
+her knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.
+
+"Pere Jerome"--She gnawed her lip and shook her head.
+
+"Well?"
+
+She burst into tears.
+
+The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did it
+slowly--as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her face
+with sudden energy, and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twas
+me! 'Twas me!"
+
+The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumbly
+turned away her face. Pere Jerome waited a little before replying; then
+he said, very gently:
+
+"I suppose dad muss 'ave been by accyden', Madame Delphine?"
+
+The little father felt a wish--one which he often had when weeping women
+were before him--that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough to
+press the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God would
+not let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments more
+to pass, and then asked:
+
+"_N'est-ce-pas_, Madame Delphine? Daz ze way, ain't it?'
+
+"No, Pere Jerome, no. My daughter--oh, Pere Jerome, I bethroath my lill'
+girl--to a w'ite man!" And immediately Madame Delphine commenced
+savagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one trembling
+hand, while she drove the fan with the other. "Dey goin' git marry."
+
+On the priest's face came a look of pained surprise. He slowly said:
+
+"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"
+
+"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again,
+"Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yaas, 'tis tru'."
+
+He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in the
+Creole dialect:
+
+"Is he a good man--without doubt?"
+
+"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturous
+smile.
+
+"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are being
+deceived by somebody."
+
+There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone and
+smile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:
+
+"Ah-h, no-o-o, Miche! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"
+
+Pere Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at his
+back and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.
+
+"He _is_ a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. At
+length he halted before the woman "Madame Delphine"--
+
+The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps was
+lifted to his eyes.
+
+"Suppose dad should be true w'at doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."
+
+"_Qui ci ca_? What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan.
+
+"Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie."
+
+"Ah, Pere Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, and
+putting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm,
+suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God--_I
+wizh to God_--de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank,
+trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," she continued, shaking her
+head, "'tis not Miche Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with
+sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad _law_! Dad _law_ is crezzie! Dad law is a
+fool!"
+
+A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is--the
+law; but Pere Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this very
+response. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:
+
+"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can I
+help you?"
+
+A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained a
+piteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:
+
+"_Mais, pou'quoi ye, fe cette mechanique la?_"--What business had they
+to make that contraption?
+
+His answer was a shrug with his palms extended and a short, disclamatory
+"Ah." He started to resume his walk, but turned to her again and said:
+"Why did they make that law? Well, they made it to keep the two races
+separate."
+
+Madame Delphine startled the speaker with a loud, harsh, angry laugh.
+Fire came from her eyes and her lip curled with scorn.
+
+"Then they made a lie, Pere Jerome! Separate! No-o-o! They do not
+want to keep us separated; no, no! But they _do_ want to keep us
+despised!" She laid her hand on her heart, and frowned upward with
+physical pain. "But, very well! from which race do they want to
+keep my daughter separate? She is seven parts white! The law did
+not stop her from being that; and now, when she wants to be a white
+man's good and honest wife, shall that law stop her? Oh, no!" She
+rose up. "No; I will tell you what that law is made for. It is made
+to--punish--my--child--for--not--choosing--her--father! Pere Jerome--my
+God, what a law!" She dropped back into her seat. The tears came in a
+flood, which she made no attempt to restrain.
+
+"No," she began again--and here she broke into English--"fo' me I don'
+kyare; but, Pere Jerome,--'tis fo' dat I came to tell you,--dey _shall
+not_ punizh my daughter!" She was on her feet again, smiting her heaving
+bosom with the fan. "She shall marrie oo she want!"
+
+Pere Jerome had heard her out, not interrupting by so much as a motion
+of the hand. Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly with
+the ends of his fingers.
+
+"Madame Delphine, I want you to go at 'ome Go at 'ome."
+
+"Wad you goin' mague?" she asked.
+
+"Nottin'. But go at 'ome. Kip quite; don put you'se'f sig. I goin' see
+Ursin. We trah to figs dat aw fo' you."
+
+"You kin figs dad!" she cried, with a gleam of joy.
+
+"We goin' to try, Madame Delphine. Adieu!"
+
+He offered his hand. She seized and kissed it thrice, covering it with
+tears, at the same time lifting up her eyes to his and murmuring:
+
+"De bez man God evva mague!"
+
+At the door she turned to offer a more conventional good-by; but he was
+following her out, bareheaded. At the gate they paused an instant, and
+then parted with a simple adieu, she going home and he returning for his
+hat, and starting again upon his interrupted business.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before he came back to his own house, he stopped at the lodgings of
+Monsieur Vignevielle, but did not find him in.
+
+"Indeed," the servant at the door said, "he said he might not return for
+some days or weeks."
+
+So Pere Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward the
+residence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employes.
+
+"Yes," said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, as
+far as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Every thing is in
+another name." And then he whispered:
+
+"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from some
+of the prisoners taken months ago by the United States brig _Porpoise_.
+But"--a still softer whisper--"have no fear; they will never find him:
+Jean Thompson and Evariste Varrillat have hid him away too well for
+that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+TRIBULATION.
+
+The Saturday following was a very beautiful day. In the morning a light
+fall of rain had passed across the town, and all the afternoon you could
+see signs, here and there upon the horizon, of other showers. The ground
+was dry again, while the breeze was cool and sweet, smelling of wet
+foliage and bringing sunshine and shade in frequent and very pleasing
+alternation.
+
+There was a walk in Pere Jerome's little garden, of which we have not
+spoken, off on the right side of the cottage, with his chamber window at
+one end, a few old and twisted, but blossom-laden, crape-myrtles on
+either hand, now and then a rose of some unpretending variety and some
+bunches of rue, and at the other end a shrine, in whose blue niche stood
+a small figure of Mary, with folded hands and uplifted eyes. No other
+window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often a great
+comfort to Pere Jerome.
+
+Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priest
+was walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sitting
+in the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He was
+thinking of Ursin. The officers of the Government had not found him, nor
+had Pere Jerome seen him; yet he believed they had, in a certain
+indirect way, devised a simple project by which they could at any time
+"figs dad law," providing only that these Government officials would
+give over their search; for, though he had not seen the fugitive, Madame
+Delphine had seen him, and had been the vehicle of communication between
+them. There was an orange-tree, where a mocking-bird was wont to sing
+and a girl in white to walk, that the detectives wot not of. The law was
+to be "figs" by the departure of the three frequenters of the
+jasmine-scented garden in one ship to France, where the law offered no
+obstacles.
+
+It seemed moderately certain to those in search of Monsieur Vignevielle
+(and it was true) that Jean and Evariste were his harborers; but for all
+that the hunt, even for clews, was vain. The little banking
+establishment had not been disturbed. Jean Thompson had told the
+searchers certain facts about it, and about its gentle proprietor as
+well, that persuaded them to make no move against the concern, if the
+same relations did not even induce a relaxation of their efforts for his
+personal discovery.
+
+Pere Jerome was walking to and fro, with his hands behind him, pondering
+these matters. He had paused a moment at the end of the walk farthest
+from his window, and was looking around upon the sky, when, turning, he
+beheld a closely veiled female figure standing at the other end, and
+knew instantly that it was Olive.
+
+She came forward quickly and with evident eagerness.
+
+"I came to confession," she said, breathing hurriedly, the excitement in
+her eyes shining through her veil, "but I find I am too late."
+
+"There is no too late or too early for that; I am always ready," said
+the priest. "But how is your mother?"
+
+"Ah!"--
+
+Her voice failed.
+
+"More trouble?"
+
+"Ah, sir, I have made trouble. Oh, Pere Jerome, I am bringing so much
+trouble upon my poor mother!"
+
+Pere Jerome moved slowly toward the house, with his eyes cast down, the
+veiled girl at his side.
+
+"It is not your fault," he presently said. And after another pause: "I
+thought it was all arranged."
+
+He looked up and could see, even through the veil, her crimson blush.
+
+"Oh, no," she replied, in a low, despairing voice, dropping her face.
+
+"What is the difficulty?" asked the priest, stopping in the angle of the
+path, where it turned toward the front of the house.
+
+She averted her face, and began picking the thin scales of bark from a
+crape-myrtle.
+
+"Madame Thompson and her husband were at our house this morning. _He_
+had told Monsieur Thompson all about it. They were very kind to me at
+first, but they tried"--She was weeping.
+
+"What did they try to do?" asked the priest.
+
+"They tried to make me believe he is insane."
+
+She succeeded in passing her handkerchief up under her veil.
+
+"And I suppose then your poor mother grew angry, eh?"
+
+"Yes; and they became much more so, and said if we did not write, or
+send a writing, to _him_, within twenty-four hours, breaking the"--
+
+"Engagement," said Pere Jerome.
+
+"They would give him up to the Government. Oh, Pere Jerome, what shall I
+do? It is killing my mother!"
+
+She bowed her head and sobbed.
+
+"Where is your mother now?"
+
+"She has gone to see Monsieur Jean Thompson. She says she has a plan
+that will match them all. I do not know what it is. I begged her not to
+go; but oh, sir, _she is_ crazy,--and I am no better."
+
+"My poor child," said Pere Jerome, "what you seem to want is not
+absolution, but relief from persecution."
+
+"Oh, father, I have committed mortal sin,--I am guilty of pride and
+anger."
+
+"Nevertheless," said the priest, starting toward his front gate, "we
+will put off your confession. Let it go until to-morrow morning; you
+will find me in my box just before mass; I will hear you then. My child,
+I know that in your heart, now, you begrudge the time it would take; and
+that is right. There are moments when we are not in place even on
+penitential knees. It is so with you now. We must find your mother Go
+you at once to your house; if she is there, comfort her as best you can,
+and _keep her in, if possible_, until I come. If she is not there, stay;
+leave me to find her; one of you, at least, must be where I can get word
+to you promptly. God comfort and uphold you. I hope you may find her at
+home; tell her, for me, not to fear,"--he lifted the gate-latch,--"that
+she and her daughter are of more value than many sparrows; that God's
+priest sends her that word from Him. Tell her to fix her trust in the
+great Husband of the Church and she shall yet see her child receiving
+the grace-giving sacrament of matrimony. Go; I shall, in a few minutes,
+be on my way to Jean Thompson's, and shall find her, either there or
+wherever she is. Go; they shall not oppress you. Adieu!"
+
+A moment or two later he was in the street himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+BY AN OATH.
+
+Pere Jerome, pausing on a street-corner in the last hour of sunlight,
+had wiped his brow and taken his cane down from under his arm to start
+again, when somebody, coming noiselessly from he knew not where, asked,
+so suddenly as to startle him:
+
+"_Miche, commin ye pelle la rie ici_?--how do they call this street
+here?"
+
+It was by the bonnet and dress, disordered though they were, rather than
+by the haggard face which looked distractedly around, that he recognized
+the woman to whom he replied in her own _patois_:
+
+"It is the Rue Burgundy. Where are you going, Madame Delphine?"
+
+She almost leaped from the ground.
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome! _mo pas conne_,--I dunno. You know w'ere's dad 'ouse
+of Miche Jean Tomkin? _Mo courri 'ci, mo courri la,--mo pas capabe li
+trouve_. I go (run) here--there--I cannot find it," she gesticulated.
+
+"I am going there myself," said he; "but why do you want to see Jean
+Thompson, Madame Delphine?"
+
+"I _'blige'_ to see 'im!" she replied, jerking herself half around away,
+one foot planted forward with an air of excited pre-occupation; "I godd
+some' to tell 'im wad I _'blige'_ to tell 'im!"
+
+"Madame Delphine"--
+
+"Oh! Pere Jerome, fo' de love of de good God, show me dad way to de
+'ouse of Jean Tomkin!"
+
+Her distressed smile implored pardon for her rudeness.
+
+"What are you going to tell him?" asked the priest.
+
+"Oh, Pere Jerome,"--in the Creole _patois_ again,--"I am going to put an
+end to all this trouble--only I pray you do not ask me about it now;
+every minute is precious!"
+
+He could not withstand her look of entreaty.
+
+"Come," he said, and they went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jean Thompson and Doctor Varrillat lived opposite each other on the
+Bayou road, a little way beyond the town limits as then prescribed. Each
+had his large, white-columned, four-sided house among the magnolias,
+--his huge live-oak overshadowing either corner of the darkly shaded
+garden, his broad, brick walk leading down to the tall, brick-pillared
+gate, his square of bright, red pavement on the turf-covered sidewalk,
+and his railed platform spanning the draining-ditch, with a pair of
+green benches, one on each edge, facing each other crosswise of the
+gutter. There, any sunset hour, you were sure to find the householder
+sitting beside his cool-robed matron, two or three slave nurses in white
+turbans standing at hand, and an excited throng of fair children, nearly
+all of a size.
+
+Sometimes, at a beckon or call, the parents on one side of the way would
+join those on the other, and the children and nurses of both families
+would be given the liberty of the opposite platform and an ice-cream
+fund! Generally the parents chose the Thompson platform, its outlook
+being more toward the sunset.
+
+Such happened to be the arrangement this afternoon. The two husbands sat
+on one bench and their wives on the other, both pairs very quiet,
+waiting respectfully for the day to die, and exchanging only occasional
+comments on matters of light moment as they passed through the memory.
+During one term of silence Madame Varrillat, a pale, thin-faced, but
+cheerful-looking lady, touched Madame Thompson, a person of two and a
+half times her weight, on her extensive and snowy bare elbow, directing
+her attention obliquely up and across the road.
+
+About a hundred yards distant, in the direction of the river, was a
+long, pleasantly shaded green strip of turf, destined in time for a
+sidewalk. It had a deep ditch on the nearer side, and a fence of rough
+cypress palisades on the farther, and these were overhung, on the one
+hand, by a row of bitter-orange-trees inside the enclosure, and, on the
+other, by a line of slanting china-trees along the outer edge of the
+ditch. Down this cool avenue two figures were approaching side by side.
+They had first attracted Madame Varrillat's notice by the bright play of
+sunbeams which, as they walked, fell upon them in soft, golden flashes
+through the chinks between the palisades.
+
+Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction from
+her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoitring
+general.
+
+"_Pere Jerome et cette milatraise_."
+
+All eyes were bent toward them.
+
+"She walks like a man," said Madame Varrillat, in the language with
+which the conversation had opened.
+
+"No," said the physician, "like a woman in a state of high nervous
+excitement."
+
+Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said:
+
+"She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State of
+Louisiana,"--as near as the pun can be translated. The company laughed.
+Jean Thompson looked at his wife, whose applause he prized, and she
+answered by an asseverative toss of the head, leaning back and
+contriving, with some effort, to get her arms folded. Her laugh was
+musical and low, but enough to make the folded arms shake gently up and
+down.
+
+"Pere Jerome is talking to her," said one. The priest was at that moment
+endeavoring, in the interest of peace, to say a good word for the four
+people who sat watching his approach. It was in the old strain:
+
+"Blame them one part, Madame Delphine, and their fathers, mothers,
+brothers, and fellow-citizens the other ninety-nine."
+
+But to every thing she had the one amiable answer which Pere Jerome
+ignored:
+
+"I am going to arrange it to satisfy everybody, all together. _Tout a
+fait_."
+
+"They are coming here," said Madame Varrillat, half articulately.
+
+"Well, of course," murmured another; and the four rose up, smiling
+courteously, the doctor and attorney advancing and shaking hands with
+the priest.
+
+No--Pere Jerome thanked them--he could not sit down.
+
+"This, I believe you know, Jean, is Madame Delphine"--
+
+The quadroone courtesied.
+
+"A friend of mine," he added, smiling kindly upon her, and turning, with
+something imperative in his eye, to the group. "She says she has an
+important private matter to communicate."
+
+"To me?" asked Jean Thompson.
+
+"To all of you; so I will--Good-evening." He responded nothing to the
+expressions of regret, but turned to Madame Delphine. She murmured
+something.
+
+"Ah! yes, certainly." He addressed the company "She wishes me to speak
+for her veracity; it is unimpeachable. Well, good-evening." He shook
+hands and departed.
+
+The four resumed their seats, and turned their eyes upon the standing
+figure.
+
+"Have you something to say to us?" asked Jean Thompson, frowning at her
+law-defying bonnet.
+
+"Oui," replied the woman, shrinking to one side, and laying hold of one
+of the benches, "_mo oule di' tou' c'ose_"--I want to tell every thing.
+"_Miche Vignevielle la plis bon homme di moune_"--the best man in the
+world; "_mo pas capabe li fe tracas_"--I cannot give him trouble. "_Mo
+pas capable, non; m'ole di' tous c'ose_." She attempted to fan herself,
+her face turned away from the attorney, and her eyes rested on the
+ground.
+
+"Take a seat," said Doctor Varrillat, with some suddenness, starting
+from his place and gently guiding her sinking form into the corner of
+the bench. The ladies rose up; somebody had to stand; the two races
+could not both sit down at once--at least not in that public manner.
+
+"Your salts," said the physician to his wife. She handed the vial.
+Madame Delphine stood up again.
+
+"We will all go inside," said Madame Thompson, and they passed through
+the gate and up the walk, mounted the steps, and entered the deep, cool
+drawing-room.
+
+
+Madame Thompson herself bade the quadroone be seated.
+
+"Well?" said Jean Thompson, as the rest took chairs.
+
+"_C'est drole_"--it's funny--said Madame Delphine, with a piteous effort
+to smile, "that nobody thought of it. It is so plain. You have only to
+look and see. I mean about Olive." She loosed a button in the front of
+her dress and passed her hand into her bosom. "And yet, Olive herself
+never thought of it. She does not know a word."
+
+The hand came out holding a miniature. Madame Varrillat passed it to
+Jean Thompson.
+
+"_Ouala so popa_," said Madame Delphine. "That is her father."
+
+It went from one to another, exciting admiration and murmured praise.
+
+"She is the image of him," said Madame Thompson, in an austere
+undertone, returning it to her husband.
+
+Doctor Varrillat was watching Madame Delphine. She was very pale. She
+had passed a trembling hand into a pocket of her skirt, and now drew out
+another picture, in a case the counterpart of the first. He reached out
+for it, and she handed it to him. He looked at it a moment, when his
+eyes suddenly lighted up and he passed it to the attorney.
+
+"_Et la_"--Madame Delphine's utterance failed--"_et la ouala sa moman_.
+That is her mother."
+
+The three others instantly gathered around Jean Thompson's chair. They
+were much impressed.
+
+"It is true beyond a doubt!" muttered Madame Thompson.
+
+Madame Varrillat looked at her with astonishment.
+
+"The proof is right there in the faces," said Madame Thompson.
+
+"Yes! yes!" said Madame Delphine, excitedly; "the proof is there! You do
+not want any better! I am willing to swear to it! But you want no better
+proof! That is all anybody could want! My God! you cannot help but see
+it!"
+
+Her manner was wild.
+
+Jean Thompson looked at her sternly.
+
+"Nevertheless you say you are willing to take your solemn oath to this."
+
+"Certainly"--
+
+"You will have to do it."
+
+"Certainly, Miche Thompson, _of course_ I shall; you will make out the
+paper and I will swear before God that it is true! Only"--turning to the
+ladies--"do not tell Olive; she will never believe it. It will break her
+heart! It"--
+
+A servant came and spoke privately to Madame Thompson, who rose quickly
+and went to the hall Madame Delphine continued, rising unconsciously:
+
+"You see, I have had her with me from a baby. She knows no better. He
+brought her to me only two months old. Her mother had died in the ship,
+coming out here. He did not come straight from home here. His people
+never knew he was married!"
+
+The speaker looked around suddenly with a startled glance. There was a
+noise of excited speaking in the hall.
+
+"It is not true, Madame Thompson!" cried a girl's voice.
+
+Madame Delphine's look became one of wildest distress and alarm, and she
+opened her lips in a vain attempt to utter some request, when Olive
+appeared a moment in the door, and then flew into her arms.
+
+"My mother! my mother! my mother!"
+
+Madame Thompson, with tears in her eyes, tenderly drew them apart and
+let Madame Delphine down into her chair, while Olive threw herself upon
+her knees, continuing to cry:
+
+"Oh, my mother! Say you are my mother!"
+
+Madame Delphine looked an instant into the upturned face, and then
+turned her own away, with a long, low cry of pain, looked again, and
+laying both hands upon the suppliant's head, said:
+
+"_Oh, chere piti a moin, to pa' ma fie_!"--Oh, my darling little one,
+you are not my daughter!--Her eyes closed, and her head sank back; the
+two gentlemen sprang to her assistance, and laid her upon a sofa
+unconscious.
+
+When they brought her to herself, Olive was kneeling at her head
+silently weeping.
+
+"_Maman, chere maman_!" said the girl softly, kissing her lips.
+
+"_Ma courri c'ez moin_"--I will go home--said the mother, drearily.
+
+"You will go home with me," said Madame Varrillat, with great kindness
+of manner--"just across the street here; I will take care of you till
+you feel better. And Olive will stay here with Madame Thompson. You will
+be only the width of the street apart."
+
+But Madame Delphine would go nowhere but to her home. Olive she would
+not allow to go with her. Then they wanted to send a servant or two to
+sleep in the house with her for aid and protection; but all she would
+accept was the transient service of a messenger to invite two of her
+kinspeople--man and wife--to come and make their dwelling with her.
+
+In course of time these two--a poor, timid, helpless pair--fell heir to
+the premises. Their children had it after them; but, whether in those
+hands or these, the house had its habits and continued in them; and to
+this day the neighbors, as has already been said, rightly explain its
+close-sealed, uninhabited look by the all-sufficient statement that the
+inmates "is quadroons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+KYRIE ELEISON.
+
+The second Saturday afternoon following was hot and calm. The lamp
+burning before the tabernacle in Pere Jerome's little church might have
+hung with as motionless a flame in the window behind. The lilies of St.
+Joseph's wand, shining in one of the half opened panes, were not more
+completely at rest than the leaves on tree and vine without, suspended
+in the slumbering air. Almost as still, down under the organ-gallery,
+with a single band of light falling athwart his box from a small door
+which stood ajar, sat the little priest, behind the lattice of the
+confessional, silently wiping away the sweat that beaded on his brow and
+rolled down his face. At distant intervals the shadow of some one
+entering softly through the door would obscure, for a moment, the band
+of light, and an aged crone, or a little boy, or some gentle presence
+that the listening confessor had known only by the voice for many years,
+would kneel a few moments beside his waiting ear, in prayer for blessing
+and in review of those slips and errors which prove us all akin.
+
+The day had been long and fatiguing. First, early mass; a hasty meal;
+then a business call upon the archbishop in the interest of some
+projected charity; then back to his cottage, and so to the banking-house
+of "Vignevielle," in the Rue Toulouse. There all was open, bright, and
+re-assured, its master virtually, though not actually, present. The
+search was over and the seekers gone, personally wiser than they would
+tell, and officially reporting that (to the best of their knowledge and
+belief, based on evidence, and especially on the assurances of an
+unexceptionable eye-witness, to wit, Monsieur Vignevielle, banker)
+Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding
+in the little church. Its scenes lingered before Pere Jerome's vision
+now--the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of
+man, strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and
+feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome
+eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots
+of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean
+Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his
+tightly buttoned coat; the physician and his wife, sharing one
+expression of amiable consent; and last--yet first--one small, shrinking
+female figure, here at one side, in faded robes and dingy bonnet. She
+sat as motionless as stone, yet wore a look of apprehension, and in the
+small, restless black eyes which peered out from the pinched and wasted
+face, betrayed the peacelessness of a harrowed mind; and neither the
+recollection of bride, nor of groom, nor of potential friends behind,
+nor the occupation of the present hour, could shut out from the tired
+priest the image of that woman, or the sound of his own low words of
+invitation to her, given as the company left the church--"Come to
+confession this afternoon."
+
+By and by a long time passed without the approach of any step, or any
+glancing of light or shadow, save for the occasional progress from
+station to station of some one over on the right who was noiselessly
+going the way of the cross. Yet Pere Jerome tarried.
+
+"She will surely come," he said to himself; "she promised she would
+come."
+
+A moment later, his sense, quickened by the prolonged silence, caught a
+subtle evidence or two of approach, and the next moment a penitent knelt
+noiselessly at the window of his box, and the whisper came tremblingly,
+in the voice he had waited to hear:
+
+"_Benissez-moin, mo' Pere, pa'ce que mo peche._" (Bless me, father, for
+I have sinned.)
+
+He gave his blessing.
+
+"Ainsi soit-il--Amen," murmured the penitent, and then, in the soft
+accents of the Creole _patois_, continued:
+
+"'I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to
+blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
+Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned
+exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, _through my fault, through my
+fault, through my most grievous fault._' I confessed on Saturday, three
+weeks ago, and received absolution, and I have performed the penance
+enjoined. Since then"--There she stopped.
+
+There was a soft stir, as if she sank slowly down, and another as if she
+rose up again, and in a moment she said:
+
+"Olive _is_ my child. The picture I showed to Jean Thompson is the
+half-sister of my daughter's father, dead before my child was born. She
+is the image of her and of him; but, O God! Thou knowest! Oh, Olive, my
+own daughter!"
+
+She ceased, and was still. Pere Jerome waited, but no sound came. He
+looked through the window. She was kneeling, with her forehead resting
+on her arms--motionless.
+
+He repeated the words of absolution. Still she did not stir.
+
+"My daughter," he said, "go to thy home in peace." But she did not move.
+
+He rose hastily, stepped from the box, raised her in his arms, and
+called her by name:
+
+"Madame Delphine!" Her head fell back in his elbow; for an instant there
+was life in the eyes--it glimmered--it vanished, and tears gushed from
+his own and fell upon the gentle face of the dead, as he looked up to
+heaven and cried:
+
+"Lord, lay not this sin to her charge!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CAFE DES EXILES.
+
+
+That which in 1835--I think he said thirty-five--was a reality in the
+Rue Burgundy--I think he said Burgundy--is now but a reminiscence. Yet
+so vividly was its story told me, that at this moment the old Cafe des
+Exiles appears before my eye, floating in the clouds of revery, and I
+doubt not I see it just as it was in the old times.
+
+An antiquated story-and-a-half Creole cottage sitting right down on the
+banquette, as do the Choctaw squaws who sell bay and sassafras and
+life-everlasting, with a high, close board-fence shutting out of view
+the diminutive garden on the southern side. An ancient willow droops
+over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored stucco,
+which keeps dropping off into the garden as though the old cafe was
+stripping for the plunge into oblivion--disrobing for its execution. I
+see, well up in the angle of the broad side gable, shaded by its rude
+awning of clapboards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her
+wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh for the image of the maiden,
+were it but for one moment, leaning out of the casement to hang her
+mocking-bird and looking down into the garden,--where, above the barrier
+of old boards, I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of
+bananas, the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two
+orange-trees holding up their bands toward the window, heavy with the
+promises of autumn; the broad, crimson mass of the many-stemmed
+oleander, and the crisp boughs of the pomegranate loaded with freckled
+apples, and with here and there a lingering scarlet blossom.
+
+The Cafe des Exiles, to use a figure, flowered, bore fruit, and dropped
+it long ago--or rather Time and Fate, like some uncursed Adam and Eve,
+came side by side and cut away its clusters, as we sever the golden
+burden of the banana from its stem; then, like a banana which has borne
+its fruit, it was razed to the ground and made way for a newer, brighter
+growth. I believe it would set every tooth on edge should I go by there
+now,--now that I have heard the story,--and see the old site covered by
+the "Shoo-fly Coffee-house." Pleasanter far to close my eyes and call to
+view the unpretentious portals of the old cafe, with her children--for
+such those exiles seem to me--dragging their rocking-chairs out, and
+sitting in their wonted group under the long, out-reaching eaves which
+shaded the banquette of the Rue Burgundy.
+
+It was in 1835 that the Cafe des Exiles was, as one might say, in full
+blossom. Old M. D'Hemecourt, father of Pauline and host of the cafe,
+himself a refugee from San Domingo, was the cause--at least the human
+cause--of its opening. As its white-curtained, glazed doors expanded,
+emitting a little puff of his own cigarette smoke, it was like the
+bursting of catalpa blossoms, and the exiles came like bees, pushing
+into the tiny room to sip its rich variety of tropical sirups, its
+lemonades, its orangeades, its orgeats, its barley-waters, and its
+outlandish wines, while they talked of dear home--that is to say, of
+Barbadoes, of Martinique, of San Domingo, and of Cuba.
+
+There were Pedro and Benigno, and Fernandez and Francisco, and Benito.
+Benito was a tall, swarthy man, with immense gray moustachios, and hair
+as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes. When he could spare his
+cigarette from his lips, he would tell you in a cavernous voice, and
+with a wrinkled smile that he was "a-t-thorty-seveng."
+
+There was Martinez of San Domingo, yellow as a canary, always sitting
+with one leg curled under him and holding the back of his head in his
+knitted fingers against the back of his rocking-chair. Father, mother,
+brother, sisters, all, had been massacred in the struggle of '21 and
+'22; he alone was left to tell the tale, and told it often, with that
+strange, infantile insensibility to the solemnity of his bereavement so
+peculiar to Latin people.
+
+But, besides these, and many who need no mention, there were two in
+particular, around whom all the story of the Cafe des Exiles, of old M.
+D'Hemecourt and of Pauline, turns as on a double centre. First, Manuel
+Mazaro, whose small, restless eyes were as black and bright as those of
+a mouse, whose light talk became his dark girlish face, and whose
+redundant locks curled so prettily and so wonderfully black under the
+fine white brim of his jaunty Panama. He had the hands of a woman, save
+that the nails were stained with the smoke of cigarettes. He could play
+the guitar delightfully, and wore his knife down behind his coat-collar.
+
+The second was "Major" Galahad Shaughnessy. I imagine I can see him, in
+his white duck, brass-buttoned roundabout, with his sabreless belt
+peeping out beneath, all his boyishness in his sea-blue eyes, leaning
+lightly against the door-post of the Cafe des Exiles as a child leans
+against his mother, running his fingers over a basketful of fragrant
+limes, and watching his chance to strike some solemn Creole under the
+fifth rib with a good old Irish joke.
+
+Old D'Hemecourt drew him close to his bosom. The Spanish Creoles were,
+as the old man termed it, both cold and hot, but never warm. Major
+Shaughnessy was warm, and it was no uncommon thing to find those two
+apart from the others, talking in an undertone, and playing at
+confidantes like two schoolgirls. The kind old man was at this time
+drifting close up to his sixtieth year. There was much he could tell of
+San Domingo, whither he had been carried from Martinique in his
+childhood, whence he had become a refugee to Cuba, and thence to New
+Orleans in the flight of 1809.
+
+It fell one day to Manuel Mazaro's lot to discover, by sauntering within
+earshot, that to Galahad Shaughnessy only, of all the children of the
+Cafe des Exiles, the good host spoke long and confidentially concerning
+his daughter. The words, half heard and magnified like objects seem in a
+fog, meaning Manuel Mazaro knew not what, but made portentous by his
+suspicious nature, were but the old man's recital of the grinding he had
+got between the millstones of his poverty and his pride, in trying so
+long to sustain, for little Pauline's sake, that attitude before society
+which earns respect from a surface-viewing world. It was while he was
+telling this that Manuel Mazaro drew near; the old man paused in an
+embarrassed way; the Major, sitting sidewise in his chair, lifted his
+cheek from its resting-place on his elbow; and Mazaro, after standing an
+awkward moment, turned away with such an inward feeling as one may guess
+would arise in a heart full of Cuban blood, not unmixed with Indian.
+
+As he moved off, M. D'Hemecourt resumed: that in a last extremity he had
+opened, partly from dire want, partly for very love to homeless souls,
+the Cafe des Exiles. He had hoped that, as strong drink and high words
+were to be alike unknown to it, it might not prejudice sensible people;
+but it had. He had no doubt they said among themselves, "She is an
+excellent and beautiful girl and deserving all respect;" and respect
+they accorded, but their _respects_ they never came to pay.
+
+"A cafe is a cafe," said the old gentleman. "It is nod possib' to ezcape
+him, aldough de Cafe des Exiles is differen from de rez."
+
+"It's different from the Cafe des Refugies," suggested the Irishman.
+
+"Differen' as possib'," replied M. D'Hemecourt He looked about upon the
+walls. The shelves were luscious with ranks of cooling sirups which he
+alone knew how to make. The expression of his face changed from sadness
+to a gentle pride, which spoke without words, saying--and let our story
+pause a moment to hear it say:
+
+"If any poor exile, from any island where guavas or mangoes or plantains
+grow, wants a draught which will make him see his home among the
+cocoa-palms, behold the Cafe des Exiles ready to take the poor child up
+and give him the breast! And if gold or silver he has them not, why
+Heaven and Santa Maria, and Saint Christopher bless him! It makes no
+difference. Here is a rocking-chair, here a cigarette, and here a light
+from the host's own tinder. He will pay when he can."
+
+As this easily pardoned pride said, so it often occurred; and if the
+newly come exile said his father was a Spaniard--"Come!" old M.
+D'Hemecourt would cry; "another glass; it is an innocent drink; my
+mother was a Castilian." But, if the exile said his mother was a
+Frenchwoman, the glasses would be forthcoming all the same, for "My
+father," the old man would say, "was a Frenchman of Martinique, with
+blood as pure as that wine and a heart as sweet as this honey; come, a
+glass of orgeat;" and he would bring it himself in a quart tumbler.
+
+Now, there are jealousies and jealousies. There are people who rise up
+quickly and kill, and there are others who turn their hot thoughts over
+silently in their minds as a brooding bird turns her eggs in the nest.
+Thus did Manuel Mazaro, and took it ill that Galahad should see a vision
+in the temple while he and all the brethren tarried without. Pauline had
+been to the Cafe des Exiles in some degree what the image of the Virgin
+was to their churches at home; and for her father to whisper her name to
+one and not to another was, it seemed to Mazaro, as if the old man, were
+he a sacristan, should say to some single worshiper, "Here, you may have
+this madonna; I make it a present to you." Or, if such was not the
+handsome young Cuban's feeling, such, at least, was the disguise his
+jealousy put on. If Pauline was to be handed down from her niche, why,
+then, farewell Cafe des Exiles. She was its preserving influence, she
+made the place holy; she was the burning candles on the altar. Surely
+the reader will pardon the pen that lingers in the mention of her.
+
+And yet I know not how to describe the forbearing, unspoken tenderness
+with which all these exiles regarded the maiden. In the balmy
+afternoons, as I have said, they gathered about their mother's knee,
+that is to say, upon the banquette outside the door. There, lolling back
+in their rocking-chairs, they would pass the evening hours with
+oft-repeated tales of home; and the moon would come out and glide among
+the clouds like a silver barge among islands wrapped in mist, and they
+loved the silently gliding orb with a sort of worship, because from her
+soaring height she looked down at the same moment upon them and upon
+their homes in the far Antilles. It was somewhat thus that they looked
+upon Pauline as she seemed to them held up half way to heaven, they knew
+not how. Ah, those who have been pilgrims; who have wandered out beyond
+harbor and light; whom fate hath led in lonely paths strewn with thorns
+and briers not of their own sowing; who, homeless in a land of homes,
+see windows gleaming and doors ajar, but not for them,--it is they who
+well understand what the worship is that cries to any daughter of our
+dear mother Eve whose footsteps chance may draw across the path, the
+silent, beseeching cry, "Stay a little instant that I may look upon you.
+Oh, woman, beautifier of the earth! Stay till I recall the face of my
+sister; stay yet a moment while I look from afar, with helpless-hanging
+hands, upon the softness of thy cheek, upon the folded coils of thy
+shining hair; and my spirit shall fall down and say those prayers which
+I may never again--God knoweth--say at home."
+
+She was seldom seen; but sometimes, when the lounging exiles would be
+sitting in their afternoon circle under the eaves, and some old man
+would tell his tale of fire and blood and capture and escape, and the
+heads would lean forward from the chair-backs and a great stillness
+would follow the ending of the story, old M. D'Hemecourt would all at
+once speak up and say, laying his hands upon the narrator's knee,
+"Comrade, your throat is dry, here are fresh limes; let my dear child
+herself come and mix you a lemonade." Then the neighbors over the way,
+sitting about their doors, would by and by softly say, "See, see! there
+is Pauline!" and all the exiles would rise from their rocking-chairs,
+take off their hats and stand as men stand in church, while Pauline came
+out like the moon from a cloud, descended the three steps of the cafe
+door, and stood with waiter and glass, a new Rebecca with her pitcher,
+before the swarthy wanderer.
+
+What tales that would have been tear-compelling, nay, heart-rending, had
+they not been palpable inventions, the pretty, womanish Mazaro from time
+to time poured forth, in the ever ungratified hope that the goddess
+might come down with a draught of nectar for him, it profiteth not to
+recount; but I should fail to show a family feature of the Cafe des
+Exiles did I omit to say that these make-believe adventures were heard
+with every mark of respect and credence; while, on the other hand, they
+were never attempted in the presence of the Irishman. He would have
+moved an eyebrow, or made some barely audible sound, or dropped some
+seemingly innocent word, and the whole company, spite of themselves,
+would have smiled. Wherefore, it may be doubted whether at any time the
+curly-haired young Cuban had that playful affection for his Celtic
+comrade, which a habit of giving little velvet taps to Galahad's cheek
+made a show of.
+
+Such was the Cafe des Exiles, such its inmates, such its guests, when
+certain apparently trivial events began to fall around it as germs of
+blight fall upon corn, and to bring about that end which cometh to all
+things.
+
+The little seed of jealousy, dropped into the heart of Manuel Mazaro, we
+have already taken into account.
+
+Galahad Shaughnessy began to be specially active in organizing a society
+of Spanish Americans, the design of which, as set forth in its
+manuscript constitution, was to provide proper funeral honors to such of
+their membership as might be overtaken by death; and, whenever it was
+practicable, to send their ashes to their native land. Next to Galahad
+in this movement was an elegant old Mexican physician, Dr.--,--his name
+escapes me--whom the Cafe des Exiles sometimes took upon her lap--that
+is to say door-step--but whose favorite resort was the old Cafe des
+Refugies in the Rue Royale (Royal Street, as it was beginning to be
+called). Manuel Mazaro was made secretary.
+
+It was for some reason thought judicious for the society to hold its
+meetings in various places, now here, now there; but the most frequent
+rendezvous was the Cafe des Exiles; it was quiet; those Spanish Creoles,
+however they may afterward cackle, like to lay their plans noiselessly,
+like a hen in a barn. There was a very general confidence in this old
+institution, a kind of inward assurance that "mother wouldn't tell;"
+though, after all, what great secrets could there be connected with a
+mere burial society?
+
+Before the hour of meeting, the Cafe des Exiles always sent away her
+children and closed her door. Presently they would commence returning,
+one by one, as a flock of wild fowl will do, that has been startled up
+from its accustomed haunt. Frequenters of the Cafe des Refugies also
+would appear. A small gate in the close garden-fence let them into a
+room behind the cafe proper, and by and by the apartment would be full
+of dark-visaged men conversing in the low, courteous tone common to
+their race. The shutters of doors and windows were closed and the chinks
+stopped with cotton; some people are so jealous of observation.
+
+On a certain night after one of these meetings had dispersed in its
+peculiar way, the members retiring two by two at intervals, Manuel
+Mazaro and M. D'Hemecourt were left alone, sitting close together in the
+dimly lighted room, the former speaking, the other, with no pleasant
+countenance, attending. It seemed to the young Cuban a proper
+precaution--he was made of precautions--to speak in English. His voice
+was barely audible.
+
+"---- sayce to me, 'Manuel, she t-theeng I want-n to marry hore.' Senor,
+you shouth 'ave see' him laugh!"
+
+M. D'Hemecourt lifted up his head, and laid his hand upon the young
+man's arm.
+
+"Manuel Mazaro," he began, "iv dad w'ad you say is nod"--
+
+The Cuban interrupted.
+
+"If is no' t-thrue you will keel Manuel Mazaro?--a' r-r-right-a!"
+
+"No," said the tender old man, "no, bud h-I am positeef dad de Madjor
+will shood you."
+
+Mazaro nodded, and lifted one finger for attention.
+
+"---- sayce to me, 'Manuel, you goin' tell-a Senor D'Hemecourt, I fin'-a
+you some nigh' an' cut-a you' heart ou'. An' I sayce to heem-a, 'Boat-a
+if Senor D'Hemecourt he fin'-in' ou' frone Pauline'"--
+
+"_Silence!_" fiercely cried the old man. "My God! 'Sieur Mazaro, neider
+you, neider somebody helse s'all h'use de nem of me daughter. It is nod
+possib' dad you s'all spick him! I cannot pearmid thad."
+
+While the old man was speaking these vehement words, the Cuban was
+emphatically nodding approval.
+
+"Co-rect-a, co-rect-a, Senor," he replied. "Senor, you' r-r-right-a;
+escuse-a me, Senor, escuse-a me. Senor D'Hemecourt, Mayor Shanghness',
+when he talkin' wi' me he usin' hore-a name o the t-thime-a!"
+
+"My fren'," said M. D'Hemecourt, rising and speaking with labored
+control, "I muz tell you good nighd. You 'ave sooprise me a verry gred
+deal. I s'all _in_vestigade doze ting; an', Manuel Mazaro, h-I am a hole
+man; bud I will requez you, iv dad wad you say is nod de true, my God!
+not to h-ever ritturn again ad de Cafe des Exiles."
+
+Mazaro smiled and nodded. His host opened the door into the garden, and,
+as the young man stepped out, noticed even then how handsome was his
+face and figure, and how the odor of the night jasmine was filling the
+air with an almost insupportable sweetness. The Cuban paused a moment,
+as if to speak, but checked himself, lifted his girlish face, and looked
+up to where the daggers of the palmetto-tree were crossed upon the face
+of the moon, dropped his glance, touched his Panama, and silently
+followed by the bare-headed old man, drew open the little garden-gate,
+looked cautiously out, said good-night, and stepped into the street.
+
+As M. D'Hemecourt returned to the door through which he had come, he
+uttered an ejaculation of astonishment. Pauline stood before him. She
+spoke hurriedly in French.
+
+"Papa, papa, it is not true."
+
+"No, my child," he responded, "I am sure it is not true: I am sure it is
+all false; but why do I find you out of bed so late, little bird? The
+night is nearly gone."
+
+He laid his hand upon her cheek.
+
+"Ah, papa, I cannot deceive you. I thought Manuel would tell you
+something of this kind, and I listened."
+
+The father's face immediately betrayed a new and deeper distress.
+
+"Pauline, my child," he said with tremulous voice, "if Manuel's story is
+all false, in the name of Heaven how could you think he was going to
+tell it?"
+
+He unconsciously clasped his hands. The good child had one trait which
+she could not have inherited from her father; she was quick-witted and
+discerning; yet now she stood confounded.
+
+"Speak, my child," cried the alarmed old man; "speak! let me live, and
+not die."
+
+"Oh, papa," she cried, "I do not know!"
+
+The old man groaned.
+
+"Papa, papa," she cried again, "I felt it; I know not how; something
+told me."
+
+"Alas!" exclaimed the old man, "if it was your conscience!"
+
+"No, no, no, papa," cried Pauline, "but I was afraid of Manuel Mazaro,
+and I think he hates him--and I think he will hurt him in any way he
+can--and I _know_ he will even try to kill him. Oh! my God!"
+
+She struck her hands together above her head, and burst into a flood of
+tears. Her father looked upon her with such sad sternness as his tender
+nature was capable of. He laid hold of one of her arms to draw a hand
+from the face whither both hands had gone.
+
+"You know something else," he said; "you know that the Major loves you,
+or you think so: is it not true?"
+
+She dropped both hands, and, lifting her streaming eyes that had nothing
+to hide straight to his, suddenly said:
+
+"I would give worlds to think so!" and sunk upon the floor.
+
+He was melted and convinced in one instant.
+
+"Oh, my child, my child," he cried, trying to lift her. "Oh, my poor
+little Pauline, your papa is not angry. Rise, my little one; so; kiss
+me; Heaven bless thee. Pauline, treasure, what shall I do with thee?
+Where shall I hide thee?"
+
+"You have my counsel already, papa."
+
+"Yes, my child, and you were right. The Cafe des Exiles never should
+have been opened. It is no place for you; no place at all."
+
+"Let us leave it," said Pauline.
+
+"Ah! Pauline, I would close it to-morrow if I could, but now it is too
+late; I cannot."
+
+"Why?" asked Pauline, pleadingly.
+
+She had cast an arm about his neck. Her tears sparkled with a smile.
+
+"My daughter, I cannot tell you; you must go now to bed; good-night--or
+good-morning; God keep you!"
+
+"Well, then, papa," she said, "have no fear; you need not hide me; I
+have my prayer-book, and my altar, and my garden, and my window; my
+garden is my fenced city, and my window my watch-tower; do you see?"
+
+"Ah! Pauline," responded the father, "but I have been letting the enemy
+in and out at pleasure."
+
+"Good-night," she answered, and kissed him three times on either cheek;
+"the blessed Virgin will take care of us; good-night; _he_ never said
+those things; not he; good-night."
+
+The next evening Galahad Shaughnessy and Manuel Mazaro met at that "very
+different" place, the Cafe des Refugies. There was much free talk going
+on about Texan annexation, about chances of war with Mexico, about San
+Domingan affairs, about Cuba and many et-ceteras. Galahad was in his
+usual gay mood. He strode about among a mixed company of Louisianais,
+Cubans, and Americains, keeping them in a great laugh with his account
+of one of Ole Bull's concerts, and how he had there extorted an
+invitation from M. and Mme. Devoti to attend one of their famous
+children's fancy dress balls.
+
+"Halloo!" said he as Mazaro approached, "heer's the etheerial Angelica
+herself. Look-ut heer, sissy, why ar'n't ye in the maternal arms of the
+Cafe des Exiles?"
+
+Mazaro smiled amiably and sat down. A moment after, the Irishman,
+stepping away from his companions, stood before the young Cuban, and
+asked with a quiet business air:
+
+"D'ye want to see me, Mazaro?"
+
+The Cuban nodded, and they went aside. Mazaro, in a few quick words,
+looking at his pretty foot the while, told the other on no account to go
+near the Cafe des Exiles, as there were two men hanging about there,
+evidently watching for him, and--
+
+"Wut's the use o' that?" asked Galahad; "I say, wut's the use o' that?"
+
+Major Shaughnessy's habit of repeating part of his words arose from
+another, of interrupting any person who might be speaking.
+
+"They must know--I say they must know that whenever I'm nowhurs else I'm
+heer. What do they want?"
+
+Mazaro made a gesture, signifying caution and secrecy, and smiled, as if
+to say, "You ought to know."
+
+"Aha!" said the Irishman softly. "Why don't they come here?"
+
+"Z-afrai'," said Mazaro; "d'they frai' to do an'teen een d-these-a
+crowth."
+
+"That's so," said the Irishman; "I say, that's so. If I don't feel very
+much like go-un, I'll not go; I say, I'll not go. We've no business
+to-night, eh Mazaro?"
+
+"No, Senor."
+
+A second evening was much the same, Mazaro repeating his warning. But
+when, on the third evening, the Irishman again repeated his willingness
+to stay away from the Cafe des Exiles unless he should feel strongly
+impelled to go, it was with the mental reservation that he did feel very
+much in that humor, and, unknown to Mazaro, should thither repair, if
+only to see whether some of those deep old fellows were not contriving a
+practical joke.
+
+"Mazaro," said he, "I'm go-un around the caurnur a bit; I want ye to
+wait heer till I come back. I say I want ye to wait heer till I come
+back; I'll be gone about three-quarters of an hour."
+
+Mazaro assented. He saw with satisfaction the Irishman start in a
+direction opposite that in which lay the Cafe des Exiles, tarried
+fifteen or twenty minutes, and then, thinking he could step around to
+the Cafe des Exiles and return before the expiration of the allotted
+time, hurried out.
+
+Meanwhile that peaceful habitation sat in the moonlight with her
+children about her feet. The company outside the door was somewhat
+thinner than common. M. D'Hemecourt was not among them, but was sitting
+in the room behind the cafe. The long table which the burial society
+used at their meetings extended across the apartment, and a lamp had
+been placed upon it. M. D'Hemecourt sat by the lamp. Opposite him was a
+chair, which seemed awaiting an expected occupant. Beside the old man
+sat Pauline. They were talking in cautious undertones, and in French.
+
+"No," she seemed to insist; "we do not know that he refuses to come. We
+only know that Manuel says so."
+
+The father shook his head sadly. "When has he ever staid away three
+nights together before?" he asked. "No, my child; it is intentional.
+Manuel urges him to come, but he only sends poor excuses."
+
+"But," said the girl, shading her face from the lamp and speaking with
+some suddenness, "why have you not sent word to him by some other
+person?"
+
+M. D'Hemecourt looked up at his daughter a moment, and then smiled at
+his own simplicity.
+
+"Ah!" he said. "Certainly; and that is what I will--run away, Pauline.
+There is Manuel, now, ahead of time!"
+
+A step was heard inside the cafe. The maiden, though she knew the step
+was not Mazaro's, rose hastily, opened the nearest door, and
+disappeared. She had barely closed it behind her when Galahad
+Shaughnessy entered the apartment.
+
+M'Hemecourt rose up, both surprised and confused.
+
+"Good-evening, Munsher D'Himecourt," said the Irishman. "Munsher
+D'Himecourt, I know it's against rules--I say, I know it's against rules
+to come in here, but"--smiling,--"I want to have a private wurd with ye.
+I say, I want to have a private wurd with ye."
+
+In the closet of bottles the maiden smiled triumphantly. She also wiped
+the dew from her forehead, for the place was very close and warm.
+
+With her father was no triumph. In him sadness and doubt were so mingled
+with anger that he dared not lift his eyes, but gazed at the knot in the
+wood of the table, which looked like a caterpillar curled up.
+
+Mazaro, he concluded, had really asked the Major to come.
+
+"Mazaro tol' you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," answered the Irishman. "Mazaro told me I was watched, and
+asked"--
+
+"Madjor," unluckily interrupted the old man, suddenly looking up and
+speaking with subdued fervor, "for w'y--iv Mazaro tol' you--for w'y you
+din come more sooner? Dad is one 'eavy charge again' you."
+
+"Didn't Mazaro tell ye why I didn't come?" asked the other, beginning to
+be puzzled at his host's meaning.
+
+"Yez," replied M. D'Hemecourt, "bud one brev zhenteman should not be
+afraid of"--
+
+The young man stopped him with a quiet laugh, "Munsher D'Himecourt,"
+said he, "I'm nor afraid of any two men living--I say I'm nor afraid of
+any two men living, and certainly not of the two that's bean a-watchin'
+me lately, if they're the two I think they are."
+
+M. D'Hemecourt flushed in a way quite incomprehensible to the speaker,
+who nevertheless continued:
+
+"It was the charges," he said, with some slyness in his smile. "They
+_are_ heavy, as ye say, and that's the very reason--I say that's the
+very reason why I staid away, ye see, eh? I say that's the very reason I
+staid away."
+
+Then, indeed, there was a dew for the maiden to wipe from her brow,
+unconscious that every word that was being said bore a different
+significance in the mind of each of the three. The old man was agitated.
+"Bud, sir," he began, shaking his head and lifting his hand.
+
+"Bless yer soul, Munsher D'Himecourt," interrupted the Irishman. "Wut's
+the use o' grapplin' two cut-throats, when"--
+
+"Madjor Shaughnessy!" cried M. D'Hemecourt, losing all self-control.
+"H-I am nod a cud-troad, Madjor Shaughnessy, h-an I 'ave a r-r-righd to
+wadge you."
+
+The Major rose from his chair.
+
+"What d'ye mean?" he asked vacantly, and then: "Look-ut here, Munsher
+D'Himecourt, one of uz is crazy. I say one"--
+
+"No, sar-r-r!" cried the other, rising and clenching his trembling fist.
+"H-I am not crezzy. I 'ave de righd to wadge dad man wad mague rimark
+aboud me dotter."
+
+"I never did no such a thing."
+
+"You did."
+
+"I never did no such a thing."
+
+"Bud you 'ave jus hacknowledge'--"
+
+"I never did no such a _thing_, I tell ye, and the man that's told ye so
+is a liur!"
+
+"Ah-h-h-h!" said the old man, wagging his finger "Ah-h-h-h! You call
+Manuel Mazaro one liar?"
+
+The Irishman laughed out.
+
+"Well, I should say so!"
+
+He motioned the old man into his chair, and both sat down again.
+
+"Why, Munsher D'Himecourt, Mazaro's been keepin' me away from heer with
+a yarn about two Spaniards watchin' for me. That's what I came in to ask
+ye about. My dear sur, do ye s'pose I wud talk about the goddess--I
+mean, yer daughter--to the likes o' Mazaro--I say to the likes o'
+Mazaro?"
+
+To say the old man was at sea would be too feeble an expression--he was
+in the trough of the sea, with a hurricane of doubts and fears whirling
+around him. Somebody had told a lie, and he, having struck upon its
+sunken surface, was dazed and stunned. He opened his lips to say he knew
+not what, when his ear caught the voice of Manuel Mazaro, replying to
+the greeting of some of his comrades outside the front door.
+
+"He is comin'!" cried the old man. "Mague you'sev hide, Madjor; do not
+led 'im kedge you, Mon Dieu!"
+
+The Irishman smiled.
+
+"The little yellow wretch!" said he quietly, his blue eyes dancing. "I'm
+goin' to catch _him_."
+
+A certain hidden hearer instantly made up her mind to rush out between
+the two young men and be a heroine.
+
+"_Non, non!_" exclaimed M. D'Hemecourt excitedly. "Nod in de Cafe des
+Exiles--nod now, Madjor. Go in dad door, hif you pliz, Madjor. You will
+heer 'im w'at he 'ave to say. Mague you'sev de troub'. Nod dad door--diz
+one."
+
+The Major laughed again and started toward the door indicated, but in an
+instant stopped.
+
+"I can't go in theyre," he said. "That's yer daughter's room."
+
+"_Oui, oui, mais!_" cried the other softly, but Mazaro's step was near.
+
+"I'll just slip in heer," and the amused Shaughnessy tripped lightly to
+the closet door, drew it open in spite of a momentary resistance from
+within which he had no time to notice, stepped into a small recess full
+of shelves and bottles, shut the door, and stood face to face--the broad
+moonlight shining upon her through a small, high-grated opening on one
+side--with Pauline. At the same instant the voice of the young Cuban
+sounded in the room.
+
+Pauline was in a great tremor. She made as if she would have opened the
+door and fled, but the Irishman gave a gesture of earnest protest and
+re-assurance. The re-opened door might make the back parlor of the Cafe
+des Exiles a scene of blood. Thinking of this, what could she do? She
+staid.
+
+"You goth a heap-a thro-vle, Senor," said Manuel Mazaro, taking the seat
+so lately vacated. He had patted M. D'Hemecourt tenderly on the back and
+the old gentleman had flinched; hence the remark, to which there was no
+reply.
+
+"Was a bee crowth a' the _Cafe the Refugies_," continued the young man.
+
+"Bud, w'ere dad Madjor Shaughnessy?" demanded M. D'Hemecourt, with the
+little sternness he could command.
+
+"Mayor Shaughness'--yez-a; was there; boat-a," with a disparaging smile
+and shake of the head, "_he_ woon-a come-a to you. Senor, oh' no."
+
+The old man smiled bitterly.
+
+"_Non?_" he asked.
+
+"Oh, no, Senor!" Mazaro drew his chair closer. "Senor;" he paused,--"eez
+a-vary bath-a fore-a you thaughter, eh?"
+
+"W'at?" asked the host, snapping like a tormented dog.
+
+"D-theze talkin' 'bou'," answered the young man; "d-theze coffee-howces
+noth a goo' plaze-a fore hore, eh?"
+
+The Irishman and the maiden looked into each other's eyes an instant, as
+people will do when listening; but Pauline's immediately fell, and when
+Mazaro's words were understood, her blushes became visible even by
+moonlight.
+
+"He's r-right!" emphatically whispered Galahad.
+
+She attempted to draw back a step, but found herself against the
+shelves. M. D'Hemecourt had not answered. Mazaro spoke again.
+
+"Boat-a you canno' help-a, eh? I know, 'out-a she gettin' marry, eh?"
+
+Pauline trembled. Her father summoned all his force and rose as if to
+ask his questioner to leave him; but the handsome Cuban motioned him
+down with a gesture that seemed to beg for only a moment more.
+
+"Senor, if a-was one man whath lo-va you' thaughter, all is possiblee to
+lo-va."
+
+Pauline, nervously braiding some bits of wire which she had
+unconsciously taken from a shelf, glanced up--against her will,--into
+the eyes of Galahad. They were looking so steadily down upon her that
+with a great leap of the heart for joy she closed her own and half
+turned away. But Mazaro had not ceased.
+
+"All is possiblee to lo-va, Senor, you shouth-a let marry hore an' tak'n
+'way frone d'these plaze, Senor."
+
+"Manuel Mazaro," said M. D'Hemecourt, again rising, "you 'ave say
+enough."
+
+"No, no, Senor; no, no; I want tell-a you--is a-one man--_whath lo-va_
+you' thaughter; an' I _knowce_ him!"
+
+Was there no cause for quarrel, after all? Could it be that Mazaro was
+about to speak for Galahad? The old man asked in his simplicity:
+
+"Madjor Shaughnessy?"
+
+Mazaro smiled mockingly.
+
+"Mayor Shaughness'," he said; "oh, no; not Mayor Shaughness'!"
+
+Pauline could stay no longer; escape she must, though it be in Manuel
+Mazaro's very face. Turning again and looking up into Galahad's face in
+a great fright, she opened her lips to speak, but--
+
+"Mayor Shaughness'," continued the Cuban; "_he_ nev'r-a lo-va you'
+thaughter."
+
+Galahad was putting the maiden back from the door with his hand.
+
+"Pauline," he said, "it's a lie!"
+
+"An', Senor," pursued the Cuban, "if a was possiblee you' thaughter to
+lo-va heem, a-wouth-a be worse-a kine in worlt; but, Senor, _I_"--
+
+M. D'Hemecourt made a majestic sign for silence. He had resumed his
+chair, but be rose up once more, took the Cuban's hat from the table and
+tendered it to him.
+
+"Manuel Mazaro, you 'ave"--
+
+"Senor, I goin' tell you"--
+
+"Manuel Mazaro, you"--
+
+"Boat-a Senor"--
+
+"Bud, Manuel Maz"--
+
+"Senor, escuse-a me"--
+
+"Huzh!" cried the old man. "Manuel Mazaro, you ave deceive' me! You 'ave
+_mocque_ me, Manu"--
+
+"Senor," cried Mazaro, "I swear-a to you that all-a what I sayin'
+ees-a"--
+
+He stopped aghast. Galahad and Pauline stood before him.
+
+"Is what?" asked the blue-eyed man, with a look of quiet delight on his
+face, such as Mazaro instantly remembered to have seen on it one night
+when Galahad was being shot at in the Sucking Calf Restaurant in St.
+Peter Street.
+
+The table was between them, but Mazaro's hand went upward toward the
+back of his coat-collar.
+
+"Ah, ah!" cried the Irishman, shaking his head with a broader smile and
+thrusting his hand threateningly into his breast; "don't ye do that!
+just finish yer speech."
+
+"Was-a notthin'," said the Cuban, trying to smile back.
+
+"Yer a liur," said Galahad.
+
+"No," said Mazaro, still endeavoring to smile through his agony; "z-was
+on'y tellin' Senor D'Hemecourt someteen z-was t-thrue."
+
+"And I tell ye," said Galahad, "ye'r a liur, and to be so kind an' get
+yersel' to the front stoop, as I'm desiruz o' kickin' ye before the
+crowd."
+
+"Madjor!" cried D'Hemecourt--
+
+"Go," said Galahad, advancing a step toward the Cuban.
+
+Had Manuel Mazaro wished to personate the prince of darkness, his
+beautiful face had the correct expression for it. He slowly turned,
+opened the door into the cafe, sent one glowering look behind, and
+disappeared.
+
+Pauline laid her hand upon her lover's arm.
+
+"Madjor," began her father.
+
+"Oh, Madjor and Madjor," said the Irishman; "Munsher D'Hemecourt, just
+say 'Madjor, heer's a gude wife fur ye,' and I'll let the little serpent
+go."
+
+Thereupon, sure enough, both M. D'Hemecourt and his daughter, rushing
+together, did what I have been hoping all along, for the reader's sake,
+they would have dispensed with; they burst into tears; whereupon the
+Major, with his Irish appreciation of the ludicrous, turned away to hide
+his smirk and began good-humoredly to scratch himself first on the
+temple and then on the thigh.
+
+Mazaro passed silently through the group about the door-steps, and not
+many minutes afterward, Galahad Shaughnessy, having taken a place among
+the exiles, rose with the remark that the old gentleman would doubtless
+be willing to tell them good-night. Good-night was accordingly said, the
+Cafe des Exiles closed her windows, then her doors, winked a moment or
+two through the cracks in the shutters and then went fast asleep.
+
+The Mexican physician, at Galahad's request, told Mazaro that at the
+next meeting of the burial society he might and must occupy his
+accustomed seat without fear of molestation; and he did so.
+
+The meeting took place some seven days after the affair in the back
+parlor, and on the same ground. Business being finished, Galahad, who
+presided, stood up, looking, in his white duck suit among his
+darkly-clad companions, like a white sheep among black ones, and begged
+leave to order "dlasses" from the front room. I say among black sheep;
+yet, I suppose, than that double row of languid, effeminate faces, one
+would have been taxed to find a more harmless-looking company. The
+glasses were brought and filled.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Galahad, "comrades, this may be the last time we ever
+meet together an unbroken body."
+
+Martinez of San Domingo, he of the horrible experience, nodded with a
+lurking smile, curled a leg under him and clasped his fingers behind his
+head.
+
+"Who knows," continued the speaker, "but Senor Benito, though strong and
+sound and har'ly thirty-seven"--here all smiled--"may be taken ill
+tomorrow?"
+
+Martinez smiled across to the tall, gray Benito on Galahad's left, and
+he, in turn, smilingly showed to the company a thin, white line of teeth
+between his moustachios like distant reefs.
+
+"Who knows," the young Irishman proceeded to inquire, "I say, who knows
+but Pedro, theyre, may be struck wid a fever?"
+
+Pedro, a short, compact man of thoroughly mixed blood, and with an
+eyebrow cut away, whose surname no one knew, smiled his acknowledgments.
+
+"Who knows?" resumed Galahad, when those who understood English had
+explained in Spanish to those who did not, "but they may soon need the
+services not only of our good doctor heer, but of our society; and that
+Fernandez and Benigno, and Gonzalez and Dominguez, may not be chosen to
+see, on that very schooner lying at the Picayune Tier just now, their
+beloved remains and so forth safely delivered into the hands and lands
+of their people. I say, who knows bur it may be so!"
+
+The company bowed graciously as who should say, "Well-turned phrases,
+Senor--well-turned."
+
+"And _amigos_, if so be that such is their approoching fate, I will
+say:"
+
+He lifted his glass, and the rest did the same.
+
+"I say, I will say to them, Creoles, countrymen, and lovers, boun
+voyadge an' good luck to ye's."
+
+For several moments there was much translating, bowing, and murmured
+acknowledgments; Mazaro said: "_Bueno!_" and all around among the long
+double rank of moustachioed lips amiable teeth were gleaming, some
+white, some brown, some yellow, like bones in the grass.
+
+"And now, gentlemen," Galahad recommenced, "fellow-exiles, once more.
+Munsher D'Himecourt, it was yer practice, until lately, to reward a good
+talker with a dlass from the hands o' yer daughter." (_Si, si!_) "I'm
+bur a poor speaker." (_Si, si, Senor, z-a-fine-a kin'-a can be; si!_)
+"However, I'll ask ye, not knowun bur it may be the last time we all
+meet together, if ye will not let the goddess of the Cafe des Exiles
+grace our company with her presence for just about one minute?" (_Yez-a,
+Senor; si; yez-a; oui._)
+
+Every head was turned toward the old man, nodding the echoed request.
+
+"Ye see, friends," said Galahad in a true Irish whisper, as M.
+D'Hemecourt left the apartment, "her poseetion has been a-growin' more
+and more embarrassin' daily, and the operaytions of our society were
+likely to make it wurse in the future; wherefore I have lately taken
+steps--I say I tuke steps this morn to relieve the old gentleman's
+distresses and his daughter's"--
+
+He paused. M. D'Hemecourt entered with Pauline, and the exiles all rose
+up. Ah!--but why say again she was lovely?
+
+Galahad stepped forward to meet her, took her hand, led her to the head
+of the board, and turning to the company, said:
+
+"Friends and fellow-patriots, Misthress Shaughnessy."
+
+There was no outburst of astonishment--only the same old bowing,
+smiling, and murmuring of compliment. Galahad turned with a puzzled look
+to M. D'Hemecourt, and guessed the truth. In the joy of an old man's
+heart he had already that afternoon told the truth to each and every man
+separately, as a secret too deep for them to reveal, but too sweet for
+him to keep. The Major and Pauline were man and wife.
+
+The last laugh that was ever heard in the Cafe des Exiles sounded softly
+through the room.
+
+"Lads," said the Irishman. "Fill yer dlasses. Here's to the Cafe des
+Exiles, God bless her!"
+
+And the meeting slowly adjourned.
+
+Two days later, signs and rumors of sickness began to find place about
+the Cafe des Refugies, and the Mexican physician made three calls in one
+day. It was said by the people around that the tall Cuban gentleman
+named Benito was very sick in one of the back rooms. A similar frequency
+of the same physician's calls was noticed about the Cafe des Exiles.
+
+"The man with one eyebrow," said the neighbors, "is sick. Pauline left
+the house yesterday to make room for him."
+
+"Ah! is it possible?"
+
+"Yes, it is really true; she and her husband. She took her mocking-bird
+with her; he carried it; he came back alone."
+
+On the next afternoon the children about the Cafe des Refugies enjoyed
+the spectacle of the invalid Cuban moved on a trestle to the Cafe des
+Exiles, although he did not look so deathly sick as they could have
+liked to see him, and on the fourth morning the doors of the Cafe des
+Exiles remained closed. A black-bordered funeral notice, veiled with
+crape, announced that the great Caller-home of exiles had served his
+summons upon Don Pedro Hernandez (surname borrowed for the occasion),
+and Don Carlos Mendez y Benito.
+
+The hour for the funeral was fixed at four P.M. It never took place.
+Down at the Picayune Tier on the river bank there was, about two o'clock
+that same day, a slight commotion, and those who stood aimlessly about a
+small, neat schooner, said she was "seized." At four there suddenly
+appeared before the Cafe des Exiles a squad of men with silver crescents
+on their breasts--police officers. The old cottage sat silent with
+closed doors, the crape hanging heavily over the funeral notice like a
+widow's veil, the little unseen garden sending up odors from its hidden
+censers, and the old weeping-willow bending over all.
+
+"Nobody here?" asks the leader.
+
+The crowd which has gathered stares without answering.
+
+As quietly and peaceably as possible the officers pry open the door.
+They enter, and the crowd pushes in after. There are the two coffins,
+looking very heavy and solid, lying in state but unguarded.
+
+The crowd draws a breath of astonishment. "Are they going to wrench the
+tops off with hatchet and chisel?"
+
+Bap, rap, rap; wrench, rap, wrench. Ah! the cases come open.
+
+"Well kept?" asks the leader flippantly.
+
+"Oh, yes," is the reply. And then all laugh.
+
+One of the lookers-on pushes up and gets a glimpse within.
+
+"What is it?" ask the other idlers.
+
+He tells one quietly.
+
+"What did he say?" ask the rest, one of another.
+
+"He says they are not dead men, but new muskets"--
+
+"Here, clear out!" cries an officer, and the loiterers fall back and by
+and by straggle off.
+
+The exiles? What became of them, do you ask? Why, nothing; they were not
+troubled, but they never all came together again. Said a chief-of-police
+to Major Shaughnessy years afterward:
+
+"Major, there was only one thing that kept your expedition from
+succeeding--you were too sly about it. Had you come out flat and said
+what you were doing, we'd never a-said a word to you. But that little
+fellow gave us the wink, and then we had to stop you."
+
+And was no one punished? Alas! one was. Poor, pretty, curly-headed
+traitorous Mazaro! He was drawn out of Carondelet Canal--cold, dead! And
+when his wounds were counted--they were just the number of the Cafe des
+Exiles' children, less Galahad. But the mother--that is, the old
+cafe--did not see it; she had gone up the night before in a chariot of
+fire.
+
+In the files of the old "Picayune" and "Price-Current" of 1837 may be
+seen the mention of Galahad Shaughnessy among the merchants--"our
+enterprising and accomplished fellow-townsman," and all that. But old M.
+D'Hemecourt's name is cut in marble, and his citizenship is in "a city
+whose maker and builder is God."
+
+Only yesterday I dined with the Shaughnessys--fine old couple and
+handsome. Their children sat about them and entertained me most
+pleasantly. But there isn't one can tell a tale as their father
+can--'twas he told me this one, though here and there my enthusiasm may
+have taken liberties. He knows the history of every old house in the
+French Quarter; or, if he happens not to know a true one, he can make
+one up as he goes along.
+
+
+
+
+BELLES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION.
+
+
+The original grantee was Count----, assume the name to be De Charleu;
+the old Creoles never forgive a public mention. He was the French king's
+commissary. One day, called to France to explain the lucky accident of
+the commissariat having burned down with his account-books inside, he
+left his wife, a Choctaw Comptesse, behind.
+
+Arrived at court, his excuses were accepted, and that tract granted him
+where afterwards stood Belles Demoiselles Plantation. A man cannot
+remember every thing! In a fit of forgetfulness he married a French
+gentlewoman, rich and beautiful, and "brought her out." However, "All's
+well that ends well;" a famine had been in the colony, and the Choctaw
+Comptesse had starved, leaving nought but a half-caste orphan family
+lurking on the edge of the settlement, bearing our French gentlewoman's
+own new name, and being mentioned in Monsieur's will.
+
+And the new Comptesse--she tarried but a twelvemonth, left Monsieur a
+lovely son, and departed, led out of this vain world by the swamp-fever.
+
+From this son sprang the proud Creole family of De Charleu. It rose
+straight up, up, up, generation after generation, tall, branchless,
+slender, palm-like; and finally, in the time of which I am to tell,
+flowered with all the rare beauty of a century-plant, in Artemise,
+Innocente, Felicite, the twins Marie and Martha, Leontine and little
+Septima; the seven beautiful daughters for whom their home had been
+fitly named Belles Demoiselles.
+
+The Count's grant had once been a long Pointe, round which the
+Mississippi used to whirl, and seethe, and foam, that it was horrid to
+behold. Big whirlpools would open and wheel about in the savage eddies
+under the low bank, and close up again, and others open, and spin, and
+disappear. Great circles of muddy surface would boil up from hundreds of
+feet below, and gloss over, and seem to float away,--sink, come back
+again under water, and with only a soft hiss surge up again, and again
+drift off, and vanish. Every few minutes the loamy bank would tip down a
+great load of earth upon its besieger, and fall back a foot,--sometimes
+a yard,--and the writhing river would press after, until at last the
+Pointe was quite swallowed up, and the great river glided by in a
+majestic curve, and asked no more; the bank stood fast, the "caving"
+became a forgotten misfortune, and the diminished grant was a long,
+sweeping, willowy bend, rustling with miles of sugar-cane.
+
+Coming up the Mississippi in the sailing craft of those early days,
+about the time one first could descry the white spires of the old St.
+Louis Cathedral, you would be pretty sure to spy, just over to your
+right under the levee, Belles Demoiselles Mansion, with its broad
+veranda and red painted cypress roof, peering over the embankment, like
+a bird in the nest, half hid by the avenue of willows which one of the
+departed De Charleus,--he that married a Marot,--had planted on the
+levee's crown.
+
+The house stood unusually near the river, facing eastward, and standing
+four-square, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight of
+steps in front spreading broadly downward, as we open arms to a child.
+From the veranda nine miles of river were seen; and in their compass,
+near at hand, the shady garden full of rare and beautiful flowers;
+farther away broad fields of cane and rice, and the distant quarters of
+the slaves, and on the horizon everywhere a dark belt of cypress forest.
+
+The master was old Colonel De Charleu,--Jean Albert Henri Joseph De
+Charleu-Marot, and "Colonel" by the grace of the first American
+governor. Monsieur,--he would not speak to any one who called him
+"Colonel,"--was a hoary-headed patriarch. His step was firm, his form
+erect, his intellect strong and clear, his countenance classic, serene,
+dignified, commanding, his manners courtly, his voice musical,
+--fascinating. He had had his vices,--all his life; but had borne them,
+as his race do, with a serenity of conscience and a cleanness of mouth
+that left no outward blemish on the surface of the gentleman. He had
+gambled in Royal Street, drunk hard in Orleans Street, run his adversary
+through in the duelling-ground at Slaughter-house Point, and danced and
+quarrelled at the St. Philippe-street-theatre quadroon balls. Even now,
+with all his courtesy and bounty, and a hospitality which seemed to be
+entertaining angels, he was bitter-proud and penurious, and deep down in
+his hard-finished heart loved nothing but himself, his name, and his
+motherless children. But these!--their ravishing beauty was all but
+excuse enough for the unbounded idolatry of their father. Against these
+seven goddesses he never rebelled. Had they even required him to defraud
+old De Carlos--
+
+I can hardly say.
+
+Old De Carlos was his extremely distant relative on the Choctaw side.
+With this single exception, the narrow thread-like line of descent from
+the Indian wife, diminished to a mere strand by injudicious alliances,
+and deaths in the gutters of old New Orleans, was extinct. The name, by
+Spanish contact, had become De Carlos; but this one surviving bearer of
+it was known to all, and known only, as Injin Charlie.
+
+One thing I never knew a Creole to do. He will not utterly go back on
+the ties of blood, no matter what sort of knots those ties may be. For
+one reason, he is never ashamed of his or his father's sins; and for
+another,--he will tell you--he is "all heart!"
+
+So the different heirs of the De Charleu estate had always strictly
+regarded the rights and interests of the De Carloses, especially their
+ownership of a block of dilapidated buildings in a part of the city,
+which had once been very poor property, but was beginning to be
+valuable. This block had much more than maintained the last De Carlos
+through a long and lazy lifetime, and, as his household consisted only
+of himself, and an aged and crippled negress, the inference was
+irresistible that he "had money." Old Charlie, though by _alias_ an
+"Injin," was plainly a dark white man, about as old as Colonel De
+Charleu, sunk in the bliss of deep ignorance, shrewd, deaf, and, by
+repute at least, unmerciful.
+
+The Colonel and he always conversed in English. This rare
+accomplishment, which the former had learned from his Scotch wife,--the
+latter from up-river traders,--they found an admirable medium of
+communication, answering, better than French could, a similar purpose to
+that of the stick which we fasten to the bit of one horse and
+breast-gear of another, whereby each keeps his distance. Once in a
+while, too, by way of jest, English found its way among the ladies of
+Belles Demoiselles, always signifying that their sire was about to have
+business with old Charlie.
+
+Now a long-standing wish to buy out Charlie troubled the Colonel. He had
+no desire to oust him unfairly; he was proud of being always fair; yet
+he did long to engross the whole estate under one title. Out of his
+luxurious idleness he had conceived this desire, and thought little of
+so slight an obstacle as being already somewhat in debt to old Charlie
+for money borrowed, and for which Belles Demoiselles was, of course,
+good, ten times over. Lots, buildings, rents, all, might as well be his,
+he thought, to give, keep, or destroy. "Had he but the old man's
+heritage. Ah! he might bring that into existence which his _belles
+demoiselles_ had been begging for, 'since many years;' a home,--and such
+a home,--in the gay city. Here he should tear down this row of cottages,
+and make his garden wall; there that long rope-walk should give place to
+vine-covered ardors; the bakery yonder should make way for a costly
+conservatory; that wine warehouse should come down, and the mansion go
+up. It should be the finest in the State. Men should never pass it, but
+they should say--'the palace of the De Charleus; a family of grand
+descent, a people of elegance and bounty, a line as old as France, a
+fine old man, and seven daughters as beautiful as happy; whoever dare
+attempt to marry there must leave his own name behind him!'
+
+"The house should be of stones fitly set, brought down in ships from the
+land of 'les Yankees,' and it should have an airy belvedere, with a
+gilded image tiptoeing and shining on its peak, and from it you should
+see, far across the gleaming folds of the river, the red roof of Belles
+Demoiselles, the country-seat. At the big stone gate there should be a
+porter's lodge, and it should be a privilege even to see the ground."
+
+Truly they were a family fine enough, and fancy-free enough to have fine
+wishes, yet happy enough where they were, to have had no wish but to
+live there always.
+
+To those, who, by whatever fortune, wandered into the garden of Belles
+Demoiselles some summer afternoon as the sky was reddening towards
+evening, it was lovely to see the family gathered out upon the tiled
+pavement at the foot of the broad front steps, gayly chatting and
+jesting, with that ripple of laughter that comes so pleasingly from a
+bevy of girls. The father would be found seated in their midst, the
+centre of attention and compliment, witness, arbiter, umpire, critic, by
+his beautiful children's unanimous appointment, but the single vassal,
+too, of seven absolute sovereigns.
+
+Now they would draw their chairs near together in eager discussion of
+some new step in the dance, or the adjustment of some rich adornment.
+Now they would start about him with excited comments to see the eldest
+fix a bunch of violets in his button-hole. Now the twins would move down
+a walk after some unusual flower, and be greeted on their return with
+the high pitched notes of delighted feminine surprise.
+
+As evening came on they would draw more quietly about their paternal
+centre. Often their chairs were forsaken, and they grouped themselves on
+the lower steps, one above another, and surrendered themselves to the
+tender influences of the approaching night. At such an hour the passer
+on the river, already attracted by the dark figures of the broad-roofed
+mansion, and its woody garden standing against the glowing sunset, would
+hear the voices of the hidden group rise from the spot in the soft
+harmonies of an evening song; swelling clearer and clearer as the thrill
+of music warmed them into feeling, and presently joined by the deeper
+tones of the father's voice; then, as the daylight passed quite away,
+all would be still, and he would know that the beautiful home had
+gathered its nestlings under its wings.
+
+And yet, for mere vagary, it pleased them not to be pleased.
+
+"Arti!" called one sister to another in the broad hall, one
+morning,--mock amazement hi her distended eyes,--"something is goin' to
+took place!"
+
+"_Comm-e-n-t?_"--long-drawn perplexity.
+
+"Papa is goin' to town!"
+
+The news passed up stairs.
+
+"Inno!"--one to another meeting in a doorway,--"something is goin' to
+took place!"
+
+"_Qu'est-ce-que c'est!_"--vain attempt at gruffness.
+
+"Papa is goin' to town!"
+
+The unusual tidings were true. It was afternoon of the same day that the
+Colonel tossed his horse's bridle to his groom, and stepped up to old
+Charlie, who was sitting on his bench under a China-tree, his head as
+was his fashion, bound in a Madras handkerchief The "old man" was
+plainly under the effect of spirits and smiled a deferential salutation
+without trusting himself to his feet.
+
+"Eh, well Charlie!"--the Colonel raised his voice to suit his kinsman's
+deafness,--"how is those times with my friend Charlie?"
+
+"Eh?" said Charlie, distractedly.
+
+"Is that goin' well with my friend Charlie?"
+
+"In de house,--call her,"--making a pretence of rising.
+
+"_Non, non!_ I don't want,"--the speaker paused to breathe--"ow is
+collection?"
+
+"Oh!" said Charlie, "every day he make me more poorer!"
+
+"What do you hask for it?" asked the planter indifferently, designating
+the house by a wave of his whip.
+
+"Ask for w'at?" said Injin Charlie.
+
+"De _house!_ What you ask for it?"
+
+"I don't believe," said Charlie.
+
+"What you would _take_ for it!" cried the planter.
+
+"Wait for w'at?"
+
+"What you would _take_ for the whole block?"
+
+"I don't want to sell him!"
+
+"I'll give you _ten thousand dollah_ for it."
+
+"Ten t'ousand dollah for dis house? Oh, no, dat is no price. He is blame
+good old house,--dat old house." (Old Charlie and the Colonel never
+swore in presence of each other.) "Forty years dat old house didn't had
+to be paint! I easy can get fifty t'ousand dollah for dat old house."
+
+"Fifty thousand picayunes; yes," said the Colonel.
+
+"She's a good house. Can make plenty money," pursued the deaf man.
+
+"That's what make you so rich, eh, Charlie?"
+
+"_Non_, I don't make nothing. Too blame clever, me, dat's de troub'.
+She's a good house,--make money fast like a steamboat,--make a barrel
+full in a week! Me, I lose money all de days. Too blame clever."
+
+"Charlie!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Tell me what you'll take."
+
+"Make? I don't make _nothing_. Too blame clever."
+
+"What will you _take?_"
+
+"Oh! I got enough already,--half drunk now."
+
+"What will you take for the 'ouse?"
+
+"You want to buy her?"
+
+"I don't know,"--(shrug),--"may_be_,--if you sell it cheap."
+
+"She's a bully old house."
+
+There was a long silence. By and by old Charlies commenced--
+
+"Old Injin Charlie is a low-down dog."
+
+"_C'est vrai, oui!_" retorted the Colonel in an undertone.
+
+"He's got Injin blood in him."
+
+"But he's got some blame good blood, too, ain't it?"
+
+The Colonel nodded impatiently.
+
+"_Bien!_ Old Charlie's Injin blood says, 'sell de house, Charlie, you
+blame old fool!' _Mais_, old Charlie's good blood says, 'Charlie! if you
+sell dat old house, Charlie, you low-down old dog, Charlie, what de
+Compte De Charleu make for you grace-gran'muzzer, de dev' can eat you,
+Charlie, I don't care.'"
+
+"No!" And the _no_ rumbled off in muttered oaths like thunder out on the
+Gulf. The incensed old Colonel wheeled and started off.
+
+"Curl!" (Colonel) said Charlie, standing up unsteadily.
+
+The planter turned with an inquiring frown.
+
+"I'll trade with you!" said Charlie.
+
+The Colonel was tempted. "'Ow'l you trade?" he asked.
+
+"My house for yours!"
+
+The old Colonel turned pale with anger. He walked very quickly back, and
+came close up to his kinsman.
+
+"Charlie!" he said.
+
+"Injin Charlie,"--with a tipsy nod.
+
+But by this time self-control was returning. "Sell Belles Demoiselles to
+you?" he said in a high key, and then laughed "Ho, ho, ho!" and rode
+away.
+
+A cloud, but not a dark one, overshadowed the spirits of Belles
+Demoiselles' plantation. The old master, whose beaming presence had
+always made him a shining Saturn, spinning and sparkling within the
+bright circle of his daughters, fell into musing fits, started out of
+frowning reveries, walked often by himself, and heard business from his
+overseer fretfully.
+
+No wonder. The daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to
+it his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,--so to call
+them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew,
+it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to
+drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper
+was a burden. _Ennui_ was turned into capital; every headache was
+interpreted a premonition of ague; and when the native exuberance of a
+flock of ladies without a want or a care burst out in laughter in the
+father's face, they spread their French eyes, rolled up their little
+hands, and with rigid wrists and mock vehmence vowed and vowed again
+that they only laughed at their misery, and should pine to death unless
+they could move to the sweet city. "Oh! the theatre! Oh! Orleans Street!
+Oh! the masquerade! the Place d'Armes! the ball!" and they would call
+upon Heaven with French irreverence, and fall into each other's arms,
+and whirl down the hall singing a waltz, end with a grand collision and
+fall, and, their eyes streaming merriment, lay the blame on the slippery
+floor, that would some day be the death of the whole seven.
+
+Three times more the fond father, thus goaded, managed, by
+accident,--business accident,--to see old Charlie and increase his
+offer; but in vain. He finally went to him formally.
+
+"Eh?" said the deaf and distant relative. "For what you want him, eh?
+Why you don't stay where you halways be 'appy? Dis is a blame old
+rat-hole,--good for old Injin Charlie,--da's all. Why you don't stay
+where you be halways 'appy? Why you don't buy somewheres else?"
+
+"That's none of yonr business," snapped the planter. Truth was, his
+reasons were unsatisfactory even to himself.
+
+A sullen silence followed. Then Charlie spoke:
+
+"Well, now, look here; I sell you old Charlie's house."
+
+"_Bien!_ and the whole block," said the Colonel.
+
+"Hold on," said Charlie. "I sell you de 'ouse and de block. Den I go and
+git drunk, and go to sleep de dev' comes along and says, 'Charlie! old
+Charlie, you blame low-down old dog, wake up! What you doin' here?
+Where's de 'ouse what Monsieur le Compte give your grace-gran-muzzer?
+Don't you see dat fine gentyman, De Charleu, done gone and tore him down
+and make him over new, you blame old fool, Charlie, you low-down old
+Injin dog!'"
+
+"I'll give you forty thousand dollars," said the Colonel.
+
+"For de 'ouse?"
+
+"For all."
+
+The deaf man shook his head.
+
+"Forty-five!" said the Colonel.
+
+"What a lie? For what you tell me 'What a lie?' I don't tell you no
+lie."
+
+"_Non, non!_ I give you _forty-five!_" shouted the Colonel.
+
+Charlie shook his head again.
+
+"Fifty!"
+
+He shook it again.
+
+The figures rose and rose to--
+
+"Seventy-five!"
+
+The answer was an invitation to go away and let the owner alone, as he
+was, in certain specified respects, the vilest of living creatures, and
+no company for a fine gentyman.
+
+The "fine gentyman" longed to blaspheme--but before old Charlie!--in the
+name of pride, how could he? He mounted and started away.
+
+"Tell you what I'll make wid you," said Charlie.
+
+The other, guessing aright, turned back without dismounting, smiling.
+
+"How much Belles Demoiselles hoes me now?" asked the deaf one.
+
+"One hundred and eighty thousand dollars," said the Colonel, firmly.
+
+"Yass," said Charlie. "I don't want Belle Demoiselles."
+
+The old Colonel's quiet laugh intimated it made no difference either
+way.
+
+"But me," continued Charlie, "me,--I'm got le Compte De Charleu's blood
+in me, any'ow,--a litt' bit, any'ow, ain't it?"
+
+The Colonel nodded that it was.
+
+"_Bien!_ If I go out of dis place and don't go to Belles Demoiselles, de
+peoples will say,--dey will say, 'Old Charlie he been all doze time tell
+a blame _lie!_ He ain't no kin to his old grace-gran-muzzer, not a blame
+bit! He don't got nary drop of De Charleu blood to save his blame
+low-down old Injin soul!' No, sare! What I want wid money, den? No,
+sare! My place for yours!"
+
+He turned to go into the house, just too soon to see the Colonel make an
+ugly whisk at him with his riding-whip. Then the Colonel, too, moved
+off.
+
+Two or three times over, as he ambled homeward, laughter broke through
+his annoyance, as he recalled old Charlie's family pride and the
+presumption of his offer. Yet each time he could but think better
+of--not the offer to swap, but the preposterous ancestral loyalty. It
+was so much better than he could have expected from his "low-down"
+relative, and not unlike his own whim withal--the proposition which went
+with it was forgiven.
+
+This last defeat bore so harshly on the master of Belles Demoiselles,
+that the daughters, reading chagrin in his face, began to repent. They
+loved their father as daughters can, and when they saw their pretended
+dejection harassing him seriously they restrained their complaints,
+displayed more than ordinary tenderness, and heroically and
+ostentatiously concluded there was no place like Belles Demoiselles. But
+the new mood touched him more than the old, and only refined his
+discontent. Here was a man, rich without the care of riches, free from
+any real trouble, happiness as native to his house as perfume to his
+garden, deliberately, as it were with premeditated malice, taking joy by
+the shoulder and bidding her be gone to town, whither he might easily
+have followed, only that the very same ancestral nonsense that kept
+Injin Charlie from selling the old place for twice its value prevented
+him from choosing any other spot for a city home.
+
+But by and by the charm of nature and the merry hearts around him
+prevailed; the fit of exalted sulks passed off, and after a while the
+year flared up at Christmas, flickered, and went out.
+
+New Year came and passed; the beautiful garden of Belles Demoiselles put
+on its spring attire; the seven fair sisters moved from rose to rose;
+the cloud of discontent had warmed into invisible vapor in the rich
+sunlight of family affection, and on the common memory the only scar of
+last year's wound was old Charlie's sheer impertinence in crossing the
+caprice of the De Charleus. The cup of gladness seemed to fill with the
+filling of the river.
+
+How high that river was! Its tremendous current rolled and tumbled and
+spun along, hustling the long funeral flotillas of drift,--and how near
+shore it came! Men were out day and night, watching the levee. On windy
+nights even the old Colonel took part, and grew light-hearted with
+occupation and excitement, as every minute the river threw a white arm
+over the levee's top, as though it would vault over. But all held fast,
+and, as the summer drifted in, the water sunk down into its banks and
+looked quite incapable of harm.
+
+On a summer afternoon of uncommon mildness, old Colonel Jean Albert
+Henri Joseph De Charleu-Marot, being in a mood for revery, slipped the
+custody of his feminine rulers and sought the crown of the levee, where
+it was his wont to promenade. Presently he sat upon a stone bench,--a
+favorite seat. Before him lay his broad-spread fields; near by, his
+lordly mansion; and being still,--perhaps by female contact,--somewhat
+sentimental, he fell to musing on his past. It was hardly worthy to be
+proud of. All its morning was reddened with mad frolic, and far toward
+the meridian it was marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept him
+well-nigh useless, and despised the honors won by valor; gaming had
+dimmed prosperity; death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous ease
+had mortgaged his lands; and yet his house still stood, his
+sweet-smelling fields were still fruitful, his name was fame enough; and
+yonder and yonder, among the trees and flowers, like angels walking in
+Eden, were the seven goddesses of his only worship.
+
+Just then a slight sound behind him brought him to his feet. He cast his
+eyes anxiously to the outer edge of the little strip of bank between the
+levee's base and the river. There was nothing visible. He paused, with
+his ear toward the water, his face full of frightened expectation. Ha!
+There came a single plashing sound, like some great beast slipping into
+the river, and little waves in a wide semi-circle came out from under
+the bank and spread over the water!
+
+"My God!"
+
+He plunged down the levee and bounded through the low weeds to the edge
+of the bank. It was sheer, and the water about four feet below. He did
+not stand quite on the edge, but fell upon his knees a couple of yards
+away, wringing his hands, moaning and weeping, and staring through his
+watery eyes at a fine, long crevice just discernible under the matted
+grass, and curving outward on either hand toward the river.
+
+"My God!" he sobbed aloud; "my God!" and even while he called, his God
+answered: the tough Bermuda grass stretched and snapped, the crevice
+slowly became a gape, and softly, gradually, with no sound but the
+closing of the water at last, a ton or more of earth settled into the
+boiling eddy and disappeared.
+
+At the same instant a pulse of the breeze brought from the garden
+behind, the joyous, thoughtless laughter of the fair mistresses of
+Belles Demoiselles.
+
+The old Colonel sprang up and clambered over the levee. Then forcing
+himself to a more composed movement he hastened into the house and
+ordered his horse.
+
+"Tell my children to make merry while I am gone," he left word. "I shall
+be back to-night," and the horse's hoofs clattered down a by-road
+leading to the city.
+
+"Charlie," said the planter, riding up to a window, from which the old
+man's nightcap was thrust out, "what you say, Charlie,--my house for
+yours, eh, Charlie--what you say?"
+
+"Ello!" said Charlie; "from where you come from dis time of to-night?"
+
+"I come from the Exchange in St. Louis Street." (A small fraction of the
+truth.)
+
+"What you want?" said matter-of-fact Charlie.
+
+"I come to trade."
+
+The low-down relative drew the worsted off his ears. "Oh! yass," he said
+with an uncertain air.
+
+"Well, old man Charlie, what you say: my house for yours,--like you
+said,--eh, Charlie?"
+
+"I dunno," said Charlie; "it's nearly mine now. Why you don't stay dare
+youse'f?"
+
+"_Because I don't want!_" said the Colonel savagely. "Is dat reason
+enough for you? You better take me in de notion, old man, I tell
+you,--yes!"
+
+Charlie never winced; but how his answer delighted the Colonel! Quoth
+Charlie:
+
+"I don't care--I take him!--_mais_, possession give right off."
+
+"Not the whole plantation, Charlie; only"--
+
+"I don't care," said Charlie; "we easy can fix dat _Mais_, what for you
+don't want to keep him? I don't want him. You better keep him."
+
+"Don't you try to make no fool of me, old man," cried the planter.
+
+"Oh, no!" said the other. "Oh, no! but you make a fool of yourself,
+ain't it?"
+
+The dumbfounded Colonel stared; Charlie went on:
+
+"Yass! Belles Demoiselles is more wort' dan tree block like dis one. I
+pass by dare since two weeks. Oh, pritty Belles Demoiselles! De cane was
+wave in de wind, de garden smell like a bouquet, de white-cap was jump
+up and down on de river; seven _belles demoiselles_ was ridin' on
+horses. 'Pritty, pritty, pritty!' says old Charlie. Ah! _Monsieur le
+Pere_, 'ow 'appy, 'appy, 'appy!"
+
+"Yass!" he continued--the Colonel still staring--"le Compte De Charleu
+have two familie. One was low-down Choctaw, one was high up _noblesse_.
+He gave the low-down Choctaw dis old rat-hole; he give Belles
+Demoiselles to you gran-fozzer; and now you don't be _satisfait_. What
+I'll do wid Belles Demoiselles? She'll break me in two years, yass. And
+what you'll do wid old Charlie's house, eh? You'll tear her down and
+make you'se'f a blame old fool. I rather wouldn't trade!"
+
+The planter caught a big breathful of anger, but Charlie went straight
+on:
+
+"I rather wouldn't, _mais_ I will do it for you;--just the same, like
+Monsieur le Compte would say, 'Charlie, you old fool, I want to shange
+houses wid you.'"
+
+So long as the Colonel suspected irony he was angry, but as Charlie
+seemed, after all, to be certainly in earnest, he began to feel
+conscience-stricken. He was by no means a tender man, but his
+lately-discovered misfortune had unhinged him, and this strange,
+undeserved, disinterested family fealty on the part of Charlie touched
+his heart. And should he still try to lead him into the pitfall he had
+dug? He hesitated;--no, he would show him the place by broad daylight,
+and if he chose to overlook the "caving bank," it would be his own
+fault;--a trade's a trade.
+
+"Come," said the planter, "come at my house to-night; to-morrow we look
+at the place before breakfast, and finish the trade."
+
+"For what?" said Charlie.
+
+"Oh, because I got to come in town in the morning."
+
+"I don't want," said Charlie. "How I'm goin' to come dere?"
+
+"I git you a horse at the liberty stable."
+
+"Well--anyhow--I don't care--I'll go." And they went.
+
+When they had ridden a long time, and were on the road darkened by
+hedges of Cherokee rose, the Colonel called behind him to the "low-down"
+scion:
+
+"Keep the road, old man."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Keep the road."
+
+"Oh, yes; all right; I keep my word; we don't goin' to play no tricks,
+eh?"
+
+But the Colonel seemed not to hear. His ungenerous design was beginning
+to be hateful to him. Not only old Charlie's unprovoked goodness was
+prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of
+an intense love for his beautiful home. True, if he held to it, the
+caving of the bank, at its present fearful speed, would let the house
+into the river within three months; but were it not better to lose it
+so, than sell his birthright? Again,--coming back to the first
+thought,--to betray his own blood! It was only Injin Charlie; but had
+not the De Charleu blood just spoken out in him? Unconsciously he
+groaned.
+
+After a time they struck a path approaching the plantation in the rear,
+and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they came
+in sight of the villa. It looked so like a gem, shining through its dark
+grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant of
+luxury and gayety, that the poor master, from an overflowing heart,
+groaned again.
+
+"What?" asked Charlie.
+
+The Colonel only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically,
+contemplated the sight before him. The high, arched doors and windows
+were thrown wide to the summer air; from every opening the bright light
+of numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of magnolia
+and bay, and here and there in the spacious verandas a colored lantern
+swayed in the gentle breeze. A sound of revel fell on the ear, the music
+of harps; and across one window, brighter than the rest, flitted, once
+or twice, the shadows of dancers. But oh! the shadows flitting across
+the heart of the fair mansion's master!
+
+"Old Charlie," said he, gazing fondly at his house, "You and me is both
+old, eh?"
+
+"Yaas," said the stolid Charlie.
+
+"And we has both been bad enough in our times eh, Charlie?"
+
+Charlie, surprised at the tender tone, repeated "Yaas."
+
+"And you and me is mighty close?"
+
+"Blame close, yaas."
+
+"But you never know me to cheat, old man!"
+
+"No,"--impassively.
+
+"And do you think I would cheat you now?"
+
+"I dunno," said Charlie. "I don't believe."
+
+"Well, old man, old man,"--his voice began to quiver,--"I sha'n't cheat
+you now. My God!--old man, I tell you--you better not make the trade!"
+
+"Because for what?" asked Charlie in plain anger; but both looked
+quickly toward the house! The Colonel tossed his hands wildly in the
+air, rushed forward a step or two, and giving one fearful scream of
+agony and fright, fell forward on his face in the path. Old Charlie
+stood transfixed with horror. Belles Demoiselles, the realm of maiden
+beauty, the home of merriment, the house of dancing, all in the tremor
+and glow of pleasure, suddenly sunk, with one short, wild wail of
+terror--sunk, sunk, down, down, down, into the merciless, unfathomable
+flood of the Mississippi.
+
+Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father;
+when they were only half gone, he took his bed; and every day, and every
+night, old Charlie, the "low-down," the "fool," watched him tenderly,
+tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his misfortunes, and his
+broken heart. No woman's step crossed the floor of the sick-chamber,
+whose western dormer-windows overpeered the dingy architecture of old
+Charlie's block; Charlie and a skilled physician, the one all interest,
+the other all gentleness, hope, and patience--these only entered by the
+door; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine,
+transplanted from the caving bank of Belles Demoiselles. It caught the
+rays of sunset in its flowery net and let then softly in upon the sick
+man's bed; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight, and
+often wakened the sleeper to look, with his mindless eyes, upon their
+pretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor.
+
+By and by there seemed--there was--a twinkling dawn of returning reason.
+Slowly, peacefully, with an increase unseen from day to day, the light
+of reason came into the eyes, and speech became coherent; but withal
+there came a failing of the wrecked body, and the doctor said that
+monsieur was both better and worse.
+
+One evening, as Charlie sat by the vine-clad window with his fireless
+pipe in his hand, the old Colonel's eyes fell full upon his own, and
+rested there.
+
+"Charl--," he said with an effort, and his delighted nurse hastened to
+the bedside and bowed his best ear. There was an unsuccessful effort or
+two, and then he whispered, smiling with sweet sadness,--
+
+"We didn't trade."
+
+The truth, in this case, was a secondary matter to Charlie; the main
+point was to give a pleasing answer. So he nodded his head decidedly, as
+who should say--"Oh yes, we did, it was a bona-fide swap!" but when he
+saw the smile vanish, he tried the other expedient and shook his head
+with still more vigor, to signify that they had not so much as
+approached a bargain; and the smile returned.
+
+Charlie wanted to see the vine recognized. He stepped backward to the
+window with a broad smile, shook the foliage, nodded and looked smart.
+
+"I know," said the Colonel, with beaming eyes,"--many weeks."
+
+The next day--
+
+"Charl--"
+
+The best ear went down.
+
+"Send for a priest."
+
+The priest came, and was alone with him a whole afternoon. When he left,
+the patient was very haggard and exhausted, but smiled and would not
+suffer the crucifix to be removed from his breast.
+
+One more morning came. Just before dawn Charlie, lying on a pallet in
+the room, thought he was called, and came to the bedside.
+
+"Old man," whispered the failing invalid, "is it caving yet?"
+
+Charlie nodded.
+
+"It won't pay you out."
+
+"Oh, dat makes not'ing," said Charlie. Two big tears rolled down his
+brown face. "Dat makes not'in."
+
+The Colonel whispered once more:
+
+"_Mes belles demoiselles!_ in paradise;--in the garden--I shall be with
+them at sunrise;" and so it was.
+
+
+
+
+
+"POSSON JONE'." [1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Published in Appletons' Journal. Republished by
+permission.]
+
+
+
+To Jules St.-Ange--elegant little heathen--there yet remained at manhood
+a remembrance of having been to school, and of having been taught by a
+stony-headed Capuchin that the world is round--for example, like a
+cheese. This round world is a cheese to be eaten through, and Jules had
+nibbled quite into his cheese-world already at twenty-two.
+
+He realized this as he idled about one Sunday morning where the
+intersection of Royal and Conti Streets some seventy years ago formed a
+central corner of New Orleans. Yes, yes, the trouble was he had been
+wasteful and honest. He discussed the matter with that faithful friend
+and confidant, Baptiste, his yellow body-servant. They concluded that,
+papa's patience and _tante's_ pin-money having been gnawed away quite to
+the rind, there were left open only these few easily-enumerated resorts:
+to go to work--they shuddered; to join Major Innerarity's filibustering
+expedition; or else--why not?--to try some games of confidence. At
+twenty-two one must begin to be something. Nothing else tempted; could
+that avail? One could but try. It is noble to try; and, besides, they
+were hungry. If one could "make the friendship" of some person from the
+country, for instance, with money, not expert at cards or dice, but, as
+one would say, willing to learn, one might find cause to say some "Hail
+Marys."
+
+The sun broke through a clearing sky, and Baptiste pronounced it good
+for luck. There had been a hurricane in the night. The weed-grown
+tile-roofs were still dripping, and from lofty brick and low adobe walls
+a rising steam responded to the summer sunlight. Up-street, and across
+the Rue du Canal, one could get glimpses of the gardens in Faubourg
+Ste.-Marie standing in silent wretchedness, so many tearful Lucretias,
+tattered victims of the storm. Short remnants of the wind now and then
+came down the narrow street in erratic puffs heavily laden with odors of
+broken boughs and torn flowers, skimmed the little pools of rain-water
+in the deep ruts of the unpaved street, and suddenly went away to
+nothing, like a juggler's butterflies or a young man's money.
+
+It was very picturesque, the Rue Royale. The rich and poor met together.
+The locksmith's swinging key creaked next door to the bank; across the
+way, crouching, mendicant-like, in the shadow of a great
+importing-house, was the mud laboratory of the mender of broken combs.
+Light balconies overhung the rows of showy shops and stores open for
+trade this Sunday morning, and pretty Latin faces of the higher class
+glanced over their savagely-pronged railings upon the passers below. At
+some windows hung lace certains, flannel duds at some, and at others
+only the scraping and sighing one-hinged shutter groaning toward Paris
+after its neglectful master.
+
+M. St.-Ange stood looking up and down the street for nearly an hour. But
+few ladies, only the inveterate mass-goers, were out. About the entrance
+of the frequent _cafes_ the masculine gentility stood leaning on canes,
+with which now one and now another beckoned to Jules, some even adding
+pantomimic hints of the social cup.
+
+M. St.-Ange remarked to his servant without turning his head that
+somehow he felt sure he should soon return those _bons_ that the mulatto
+had lent him.
+
+"What will you do with them?"
+
+"Me!" said Baptiste, quickly; "I will go and see the bull-fight in the
+Place Congo."
+
+"There is to be a bull-fight? But where is M. Cayetano?"
+
+"Ah, got all his affairs wet in the tornado. Instead of his circus, they
+are to have a bull-fight--not an ordinary bull-fight with sick horses,
+but a buffalo-and-tiger fight. I would not miss it"--
+
+Two or three persons ran to the opposite corner, and commenced striking
+at something with their canes. Others followed. Can M. St.-Ange and
+servant, who hasten forward--can the Creoles, Cubans, Spaniards, San
+Domingo refugees, and other loungers--can they hope it is a fight? They
+hurry forward. Is a man in a fit? The crowd pours in from the
+side-streets. Have they killed a so-long snake? Bareheaded shopmen leave
+their wives, who stand upon chairs. The crowd huddles and packs. Those
+on the outside make little leaps into the air, trying to be tall.
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"Have they caught a real live rat?"
+
+"Who is hurt?" asks some one in English.
+
+"_Personne_," replies a shopkeeper; "a man's hat blow' in the gutter;
+but he has it now. Jules pick' it. See, that is the man, head and
+shoulders on top the res'."
+
+"He in the homespun?" asks a second shopkeeper. "Humph! an
+_Americain_--a West-Floridian; bah!"
+
+"But wait; 'st! he is speaking; listen!"
+
+"To who is he speak----?"
+
+"Sh-sh-sh! to Jules."
+
+"Jules who?"
+
+"Silence, you! To Jules St.-Ange, what howe me a bill since long time.
+Sh-sh-sh!"
+
+Then the voice was heard.
+
+Its owner was a man of giant stature, with a slight stoop in his
+shoulders, as if he was making a constant, good-natured attempt to
+accommodate himself to ordinary doors and ceilings. His bones were those
+of an ox. His face was marked more by weather than age, and his narrow
+brow was bald and smooth. He had instantaneously formed an opinion of
+Jules St.-Ange, and the multitude of words, most of them lingual
+curiosities, with which he was rasping the wide-open ears of his
+listeners, signified, in short, that, as sure as his name was Parson
+Jones, the little Creole was a "plum gentleman."
+
+M. St.-Ange bowed and smiled, and was about to call attention, by both
+gesture and speech, to a singular object on top of the still uncovered
+head, when the nervous motion of the _Americain_ anticipated him, as,
+throwing up an immense hand, he drew down a large roll of bank-notes.
+The crowd laughed, the West-Floridian joining, and began to disperse.
+
+"Why, that money belongs to Smyrny Church," said the giant.
+
+"You are very dengerous to make your money expose like that, Misty
+Posson Jone'," said St.-Ange, counting it with his eyes.
+
+The countryman gave a start and smile of surprise.
+
+"How d'dyou know my name was Jones?" he asked; but, without pausing for
+the Creole's answer, furnished in his reckless way some further
+specimens of West-Floridian English; and the conciseness with which he
+presented full intelligence of his home, family, calling, lodging-house,
+and present and future plans, might have passed for consummate art, had
+it not been the most run-wild nature. "And I've done been to Mobile, you
+know, on busi_ness_ for Bethesdy Church. It's the on'yest time I ever
+been from home; now you wouldn't of believed that, would you? But I
+admire to have saw you, that's so. You've got to come and eat with me.
+Me and my boy ain't been fed yit. What might one call yo' name? Jools?
+Come on, Jools. Come on, Colossus. That's my niggah--his name's Colossus
+of Rhodes. Is that yo' yallah boy, Jools? Fetch him along, Colossus. It
+seems like a special provi_dence_.--Jools, do you believe in a special
+provi_dence?_"
+
+Jules said he did.
+
+The new-made friends moved briskly off, followed by Baptiste and a
+short, square, old negro, very black and grotesque, who had introduced
+himself to the mulatto, with many glittering and cavernous smiles, as
+"d'body-sarvant of d'Rev'n' Mr. Jones."
+
+Both pairs enlivened their walk with conversation. Parson Jones
+descanted upon the doctrine he had mentioned, as illustrated in the
+perplexities of cotton-growing, and concluded that there would always be
+"a special provi_dence_ again' cotton untell folks quits a-pressin' of
+it and haulin' of it on Sundays!"
+
+"_Je dis_," said St.-Ange, in response, "I thing you is juz right. I
+believe, me, strong-strong in the improvidence, yes. You know my papa he
+hown a sugah-plantation, you know. 'Jules, me son,' he say one time to
+me, 'I goin' to make one baril sugah to fedge the moze high price in New
+Orleans.' Well, he take his bez baril sugah--I nevah see a so careful
+man like me papa always to make a so beautiful sugah _et sirop_. 'Jules,
+go at Father Pierre an' ged this lill pitcher fill with holy water, an'
+tell him sen' his tin bucket, and I will make it fill with _quitte_.' I
+ged the holy-water; my papa sprinkle it over the baril, an' make one
+cross on the 'ead of the baril."
+
+"Why, Jools," said Parson Jones, "that didn't do no good."
+
+"Din do no good! Id broughd the so great value! You can strike me dead
+if thad baril sugah din fedge the more high cost than any other in the
+city. _Parce-que_, the man what buy that baril sugah he make a mistake
+of one hundred pound"--falling back--"_Mais_ certainlee!"
+
+"And you think that was growin' out of the holy-water?" asked the
+parson.
+
+"_Mais_, what could make it else? Id could not be the _quitte_, because
+my papa keep the bucket, an' forget to sen' the _quitte_ to Father
+Pierre."
+
+Parson Jones was disappointed.
+
+"Well, now, Jools, you know, I don't think that was right. I reckon you
+must be a plum Catholic."
+
+M. St.-Ange shrugged. He would not deny his faith.
+
+"I am a _Catholique, mais_"--brightening as he hoped to recommend
+himself anew--"not a good one."
+
+"Well, you know," said Jones--"where's Colossus? Oh! all right. Colossus
+strayed off a minute in Mobile, and I plum lost him for two days. Here's
+the place; come in. Colossus and this boy can go to the kitchen.--Now,
+Colossus, what _air_ you a-beckonin' at me faw?"
+
+He let his servant draw him aside and address him in a whisper.
+
+"Oh, go 'way!" said the parson with a jerk. "Who's goin' to throw me?
+What? Speak louder. Why, Colossus, you shayn't talk so, saw. 'Pon my
+soul, you're the mightiest fool I ever taken up with. Jest you go down
+that alley-way with this yalla boy, and don't show yo' face untell yo'
+called!"
+
+The negro begged; the master wrathily insisted.
+
+"Colossus, will you do ez I tell you, or shell I hev to strike you,
+saw?"
+
+"O Mahs Jimmy, I--I's gwine; but"--he ventured nearer--"don't on no
+account drink nothin', Mahs Jimmy."
+
+Such was the negro's earnestness that he put one foot in the gutter, and
+fell heavily against his master. The parson threw him off angrily.
+
+"Thar, now! Why, Colossus, you most of been dosted with sumthin'; yo'
+plum crazy.--Humph, come on, Jools, let's eat! Humph! to tell me that
+when I never taken a drop, exceptin' for chills, in my life--which he
+knows so as well as me!"
+
+The two masters began to ascend a stair.
+
+"_Mais_, he is a sassy; I would sell him, me," said the young Creole.
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that," replied the parson; "though there is people in
+Bethesdy who says he is a rascal. He's a powerful smart fool. Why, that
+boy's got money, Jools; more money than religion, I reckon. I'm shore he
+fallen into mighty bad company"--they passed beyond earshot.
+
+Baptiste and Colossus, instead of going to the tavern kitchen, passed to
+the next door and entered the dark rear corner of a low grocery, where,
+the law notwithstanding, liquor was covertly sold to slaves. There, in
+the quiet company of Baptiste and the grocer, the colloquial powers of
+Colossus, which were simply prodigious, began very soon to show
+themselves.
+
+"For whilst," said he, "Mahs Jimmy has eddication, you know--whilst he
+has eddication, I has 'scretion. He has eddication and I has 'scretion,
+an' so we gits along."
+
+He drew a black bottle down the counter, and, laying half his length
+upon the damp board, continued:
+
+"As a p'inciple I discredits de imbimin' of awjus liquors. De imbimin'
+of awjus liquors, de wiolution of de Sabbaf, de playin' of de fiddle,
+and de usin' of by-words, dey is de fo' sins of de conscience; an' if
+any man sin de fo' sins of de conscience, de debble done sharp his fork
+fo' dat man.--Ain't that so, boss?"
+
+The grocer was sure it was so.
+
+"Neberdeless, mind you"--here the orator brimmed his glass from the
+bottle and swallowed the contents with a dry eye--"mind you, a roytious
+man, sech as ministers of de gospel and dere body-sarvants, can take a
+_leetle_ for de weak stomach."
+
+But the fascinations of Colossus's eloquence must not mislead us; this
+is the story of a true Christian; to wit, Parson Jones.
+
+The parson and his new friend ate. But the coffee M. St.-Ange declared
+he could not touch; it was too wretchedly bad. At the French Market,
+near by, there was some noble coffee. This, however, would have to be
+bought, and Parson Jones had scruples.
+
+"You see, Jools, every man has his conscience to guide him, which it
+does so in"--
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried St.-Ange, "conscien'; thad is the bez, Posson Jone'.
+Certainlee! I am a _Catholique_, you is a _schismatique_; you thing it
+is wrong to dring some coffee--well, then, it _is_ wrong; you thing it
+is wrong to make the sugah to ged the so large price--well, then, it
+_is_ wrong; I thing it is right--well, then, it is right; it is all
+'abit; _c'est tout_. What a man thing is right, _is right_; 'tis all
+'abit. A man muz nod go again' his conscien'. My faith! do you thing I
+would go again' my conscien'? _Mais allons_, led us go and ged some
+coffee."
+
+"Jools."
+
+"W'at?"
+
+"Jools, it ain't the drinkin' of coffee, but the buyin' of it on a
+Sabbath. You must really excuse me, Jools, it's again' conscience, you
+know."
+
+"Ah!" said St.-Ange, "_c'est_ very true. For you it would be a sin,
+_mais_ for me it is only 'abit. Rilligion is a very strange; I know a
+man one time, he thing it was wrong to go to cock-fight Sunday evening.
+I thing it is all 'abit. _Mais_, come, Posson Jone'; I have got one
+friend, Miguel; led us go at his house and ged some coffee. Come; Miguel
+have no familie; only him and Joe--always like to see friend; _allons_,
+led us come yonder."
+
+"Why, Jools, my dear friend, you know," said the shamefaced parson, "I
+never visit on Sundays."
+
+"Never w'at?" asked the astounded Creole.
+
+"No," said Jones, smiling awkwardly.
+
+"Never visite?"
+
+"Exceptin' sometimes amongst church-members." said Parson Jones.
+
+"_Mais_," said the seductive St.-Ange, "Miguel and Joe is
+church-member'--certainlee! They love to talk about rilligion. Come at
+Miguel and talk about some rilligion. I am nearly expire for me coffee."
+
+Parson Jones took his hat from beneath his chair and rose up.
+
+"Jools," said the weak giant, "I ought to be in church right now."
+
+"_Mais_, the church is right yonder at Miguel', yes. Ah!" continued
+St.-Ange, as they descended the stairs, "I thing every man muz have the
+rilligion he like' the bez--me, I like the _Catholique_ rilligion the
+bez--for me it _is_ the bez. Every man will sure go to heaven if he like
+his rilligion the bez."
+
+"Jools," said the West-Floridian, laying his great hand tenderly upon
+the Creole's shoulder, as they stepped out upon the _banquette_, "do you
+think you have any shore hopes of heaven?"
+
+"Yass!" replied St.-Ange; "I am sure-sure. I thing everybody will go to
+heaven. I thing you will go, _et_ I thing Miguel will go, _et_
+Joe--everybody, I thing--_mais_, hof course, not if they not have been
+christen'. Even I thing some niggers will go."
+
+"Jools," said the parson, stopping in his walk--"Jools, I _don't_ want
+to lose my niggah."
+
+"Yon will not loose him. With Baptiste he _cannot_ ged loose."
+
+But Colossus's master was not re-assured.
+
+"Now," said he, still tarrying, "this is jest the way; had I of gone to
+church"--
+
+"Posson Jone'," said Jules.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I tell you. We goin' to church!"
+
+"Will you?" asked Jones, joyously.
+
+"_Allons_, come along," said Jules, taking his elbow.
+
+They walked down the Rue Chartres, passed several corners, and by and by
+turned into a cross street. The parson stopped an instant as they were
+turning and looked back up the street.
+
+"W'at you lookin'?" asked his companion.
+
+"I thought I saw Colossus," answered the parson, with an anxious face;
+"I reckon 'twa'n't him, though." And they went on.
+
+The street they now entered was a very quiet one. The eye of any chance
+passer would have been at once drawn to a broad, heavy, white brick
+edifice on the lower side of the way, with a flag-pole standing out like
+a bowsprit from one of its great windows, and a pair of lamps hanging
+before a large closed entrance. It was a theatre, honey-combed with
+gambling-dens. At this morning hour all was still, and the only sign of
+life was a knot of little barefoot girls gathered within its narrow
+shade, and each carrying an infant relative. Into this place the parson
+and M. St.-Ange entered, the little nurses jumping up from the sills to
+let them pass in.
+
+A half-hour may have passed. At the end of that time the whole juvenile
+company were laying alternate eyes and ears to the chinks, to gather
+what they could of an interesting quarrel going on within.
+
+"I did not, saw! I given you no cause of offence, saw! It's not so, saw!
+Mister Jools simply mistaken the house, thinkin' it was a
+Sabbath-school! No such thing, saw; I _ain't_ bound to bet! Yes, I kin
+git out. Yes, without bettin'! I hev a right to my opinion; I reckon I'm
+a _white man_, saw! No saw! I on'y said I didn't think you could get the
+game on them cards. 'Sno such thing, saw! I do _not_ know how to play! I
+wouldn't hev a rascal's money ef I should win it! Shoot, ef you dare!
+You can kill me, but you cayn't scare me! No, I shayn't bet! I'll die
+first! Yes, saw; Mr. Jools can bet for me if he admires to; I ain't his
+mostah."
+
+Here the speaker seemed to direct his words to St.-Ange.
+
+"Saw, I don't understand you, saw. I never said I'd loan you money to
+bet for me. I didn't suspicion this from you, saw. No, I won't take any
+more lemonade; it's the most notorious stuff I ever drank, saw!"
+
+M. St.-Ange's replies were in _falsetto_ and not without effect; for
+presently the parson's indignation and anger began to melt. "Don't ask
+me, Jools, I can't help you. It's no use; it's a matter of conscience
+with me, Jools."
+
+"_Mais oui!_ 'tis a matt' of conscien' wid me, the same."
+
+"But, Jools, the money's none o' mine, nohow; it belongs to Smyrny, you
+know."
+
+"If I could make jus' _one_ bet," said the persuasive St.-Ange, "I would
+leave this place, fas'-fas', yes. If I had thing--_mais_ I did not
+soupspicion this from you, Posson Jone'"--
+
+"Don't, Jools, don't!"
+
+"No! Posson Jone'."
+
+"You're bound to win?" said the parson, wavering.
+
+"_Mais certainement!_ But it is not to win that I want;'tis me
+conscien'--me honor!"
+
+"Well, Jools, I hope I'm not a-doin' no wrong. I'll loan you some of
+this money if you say you'll come right out 'thout takin' your
+winnin's."
+
+All was still. The peeping children could see the parson as he lifted
+his hand to his breast-pocket. There it paused a moment in bewilderment,
+then plunged to the bottom. It came back empty, and fell lifelessly at
+his side. His head dropped upon his breast, his eyes were for a moment
+closed, his broad palms were lifted and pressed against his forehead, a
+tremor seized him, and he fell all in a lump to the floor. The children
+ran off with their infant-loads, leaving Jules St.-Ange swearing by all
+his deceased relatives, first to Miguel and Joe, and then to the lifted
+parson, that he did not know what had become of the money "except if"
+the black man had got it.
+
+In the rear of ancient New Orleans, beyond the sites of the old rampart,
+a trio of Spanish forts, where the town has since sprung up and grown
+old, green with all the luxuriance of the wild Creole summer, lay the
+Congo Plains. Here stretched the canvas of the historic Cayetano, who
+Sunday after Sunday sowed the sawdust for his circus-ring.
+
+But to-day the great showman had fallen short of his printed promise.
+The hurricane had come by night, and with one fell swash had made an
+irretrievable sop of every thing. The circus trailed away its bedraggled
+magnificence, and the ring was cleared for the bull.
+
+Then the sun seemed to come out and work for the people. "See," said the
+Spaniards, looking up at the glorious sky with its great, white fleets
+drawn off upon the horizon--"see--heaven smiles upon the bull-fight!"
+
+In the high upper seats of the rude amphitheatre sat the gayly-decked
+wives and daughters of the Gascons, from the _metaries_ along the Ridge,
+and the chattering Spanish women of the Market, their shining hair
+un-bonneted to the sun. Next below were their husbands and lovers in
+Sunday blouses, milkmen, butchers, bakers, black-bearded fishermen,
+Sicilian fruiterers, swarthy Portuguese sailors, in little woollen caps,
+and strangers of the graver sort; mariners of England, Germany, and
+Holland. The lowest seats were full of trappers, smugglers, Canadian
+_voyageurs_, drinking and singing; _Americains_, too--more's the
+shame--from the upper rivers--who will not keep their seats--who ply the
+bottle, and who will get home by and by and tell how wicked Sodom is;
+broad-brimmed, silver-braided Mexicans, too, with their copper cheeks
+and bat's eyes and their tinkling spurred heels. Yonder, in that quieter
+section, are the quadroon women in their black lace shawls--and there is
+Baptiste; and below them are the turbaned black women, and there is--but
+he vanishes--Colossus.
+
+The afternoon is advancing, yet the sport, though loudly demanded, does
+not begin. The _Americains_ grow derisive and find pastime in gibes and
+raillery They mock the various Latins with their national inflections,
+and answer their scowls with laughter. Some of the more aggressive shout
+pretty French greetings to the women of Gascony, and one bargeman, amid
+peals of applause, stands on a seat and hurls a kiss to the quadroons.
+The mariners of England, Germany, and Holland, as spectators, like the
+fun, while the Spaniards look black and cast defiant imprecations upon
+their persecutors. Some Gascons, with timely caution, pick their women
+out and depart, running a terrible fire of gallantries.
+
+In hope of truce, a new call is raised for the bull: "The bull, the
+bull!--hush!"
+
+In a tier near the ground a man is standing and calling--standing head
+and shoulders above the rest--callimg in the _Americaine_ tongue.
+Another man, big and red, named Joe, and a handsome little Creole in
+elegant dress and full of laughter, wish to stop him, but the
+flat-boatmen, ha-ha-ing and cheering, will not suffer it. Ah, through
+some shameful knavery of the men, into whose hands he has fallen, he is
+drunk! Even the women can see that; and now he throws his arms wildly
+and raises his voice until the whole great circle hears it. He is
+preaching!
+
+Ah! kind Lord, for a special providence now! The men of his own
+nation--men from the land of the open English Bible and temperance cup
+and song are cheering him on to mad disgrace. And now another call for
+the appointed sport is drowned by the flat-boatmen singing the ancient
+tune of Mear. You can hear the words--
+
+     "Old Grimes is dead, that good old soul"
+
+--from ribald lips and throats turned brazen with laughter, from singers
+who toss their hats aloft and roll in their seats; the chorus swells to
+the accompaniment of a thousand brogans--
+
+     "He used to wear an old gray coat
+      All buttoned down before."
+
+A ribboned man in the arena is trying to be heard, and the Latins raise
+one mighty cry for silence. The big red man gets a hand over the
+parson's mouth, and the ribboned man seizes his moment.
+
+"They have been endeavoring for hours," he says, "to draw the terrible
+animals from their dens, but such is their strength and fierceness,
+that"--
+
+His voice is drowned. Enough has been heard to warrant the inference
+that the beasts cannot be whipped out of the storm-drenched cages to
+which menagerie-life and long starvation have attached them, and from
+the roar of indignation the man of ribbons flies. The noise increases.
+Men are standing up by hundreds, and women are imploring to be let out
+of the turmoil. All at once, like the bursting of a dam, the whole mass
+pours down into the ring. They sweep across the arena and over the
+showman's barriers. Miguel gets a frightful trampling. Who cares for
+gates or doors? They tear the beasts' houses bar from bar, and, laying
+hold of the gaunt buffalo, drag him forth by feet, ears, and tail; and
+in the midst of the _melee_, still head and shoulders above all, wilder,
+with the cup of the wicked, than any beast, is the man of God from the
+Florida parishes!
+
+In his arms he bore--and all the people shouted at once when they saw
+it--the tiger. He had lifted it high up with its back to his breast, his
+arms clasped under its shoulders; the wretched brute had curled up
+caterpillar-wise, with its long tail against its belly, and through its
+filed teeth grinned a fixed and impotent wrath. And Parson Jones was
+shouting:
+
+"The tiger and the buffler _shell_ lay down together! You dah to say
+they shayn't and I'll comb you with this varmint from head to foot! The
+tiger and the buffler _shell_ lay down together. They _shell!_ Now, you,
+Joe! Behold! I am here to see it done. The lion and the buffler _shell_
+lay down together!"
+
+Mouthing these words again and again, the parson forced his way through
+the surge in the wake of the buffalo. This creature the Latins had
+secured by a lariat over his head, and were dragging across the old
+rampart and into a street of the city.
+
+The northern races were trying to prevent, and there was pommelling and
+knocking down, cursing and knife-drawing, until Jules St.-Ange was quite
+carried away with the fun, laughed, clapped his hands, and swore with
+delight, and ever kept close to the gallant parson.
+
+Joe, contrariwise, counted all this child's-play an interruption. He had
+come to find Colossus and the money. In an unlucky moment he made bold
+to lay hold of the parson, but a piece of the broken barriers in the
+hands of a flat-boatman felled him to the sod, the terrible crowd swept
+over him, the lariat was cut and the giant parson hurled the tiger upon
+the buffalo's back. In another instant both brutes were dead at the
+hands of the mob; Jones was lifted from his feet, and prating of
+Scripture and the millennium, of Paul at Ephesus and Daniel in the
+"buffler's" den, was borne aloft upon the shoulders of the huzzaing
+_Americains_. Half an hour later he was sleeping heavily on the floor of
+a cell in the _calaboza_.
+
+When Parson Jones awoke, a bell was somewhere tolling for midnight.
+Somebody was at the door of his cell with a key. The lock grated, the
+door swung, the turnkey looked in and stepped back, and a ray of
+moonlight fell upon M. Jules St.-Ange. The prisoner sat upon the empty
+shackles and ring-bolt in the centre of the floor.
+
+"Misty Posson Jone'," said the visitor, softly.
+
+"O Jools!"
+
+"_Mais_, w'at de matter, Posson Jone'?"
+
+"My sins, Jools, my sins!"
+
+"Ah! Posson Jone', is that something to cry, because a man get sometime
+a litt' bit intoxicate? _Mais_, if a man keep _all the time_ intoxicate,
+I think that is again' the conscien'."
+
+"Jools, Jools, your eyes is darkened--oh I Jools, Where's my pore old
+niggah?"
+
+"Posson Jone', never min'; he is wid Baptiste."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I don' know w'ere--_mais_ he is wid Baptiste. Baptiste is a beautiful
+to take care of somebody."
+
+"Is he as good as you, Jools?" asked Parson Jones, sincerely.
+
+Jules was slightly staggered.
+
+"You know, Posson Jone', you know, a nigger cannot be good as a w'ite
+man--_mais_ Baptiste is a good nigger."
+
+The parson moaned and dropped his chin into his hands.
+
+"I was to of left for home to-morrow, sun-up, on the Isabella schooner.
+Pore Smyrny!" He deeply sighed.
+
+"Posson Jone'," said Jules, leaning against the wall and smiling, "I
+swear you is the moz funny man I ever see. If I was you I would say, me,
+'Ah! 'ow I am lucky! the money I los', it was not mine, anyhow!' My
+faith! shall a man make hisse'f to be the more sorry because the money
+he los' is not his? Me, I would say, 'it is a specious providence.'
+
+"Ah! Misty Posson Jone'," he continued, "you make a so droll sermon ad
+the bull-ring. Ha! ha! I swear I thing you can make money to preach thad
+sermon many time ad the theatre St. Philippe. Hah! you is the moz brave
+dat I never see, _mais_ ad the same time the moz rilligious man. Where
+I'm goin' to fin' one priest to make like dat? _Mais,_ why you can't
+cheer up an' be 'appy? Me, if I should be miserabl' like that I would
+kill meself."
+
+The countryman only shook his head.
+
+"_Bien,_ Posson Jone', I have the so good news for you."
+
+The prisoner looked up with eager inquiry.
+
+"Las' evening when they lock' you, I come right off at M. De Blanc's
+house to get you let out of de calaboose; M. De Blanc he is the judge.
+So soon I was entering--'Ah! Jules, me boy, juz the man to make complete
+the game!' Posson Jone', it was a specious providence! I win in t'ree
+hours more dan six hundred dollah! Look." He produced a mass of
+bank-notes, _bons_, and due-bills.
+
+"And you got the pass?" asked the parson, regarding the money with a
+sadness incomprehensible to Jules.
+
+"It is here; it take the effect so soon the daylight."
+
+"Jools, my friend, your kindness is in vain."
+
+The Creole's face became a perfect blank.
+
+"Because," said the parson, "for two reasons: firstly, I hare broken the
+laws, and ought to stand the penalty; and secondly--you must really
+excuse me, Jools, you know, but the pass has been got onfairly, I'm
+afeerd. You told the judge I was innocent; and in neither case it don't
+become a Christian (which I hope I can still say I am one) to 'do evil
+that good may come.' I muss stay."
+
+M. St.-Ange stood up aghast, and for a moment speechless, at this
+exhibition of moral heroism; but an artifice was presently hit upon.
+"_Mais_, Posson Jone'!"--in his old _falsetto_--"de order--you cannot
+read it, it is in French--compel you to go hout, sir!"
+
+"Is that so?" cried the parson, bounding up with radiant face--"is that
+so, Jools?"
+
+The young man nodded, smiling; but, though he smiled, the fountain of
+his tenderness was opened. He made the sign of the cross as the parson
+knelt in prayer, and even whispered "Hail Mary," etc., quite through,
+twice over.
+
+Morning broke in summer glory upon a cluster of villas behind the city,
+nestled under live-oaks and magnolias on the banks of a deep bayou, and
+known as Suburb St. Jean.
+
+With the first beam came the West-Floridian and the Creole out upon the
+bank below the village. Upon the parson's arm hung a pair of antique
+saddle-bags. Baptiste limped wearily behind; both his eyes were
+encircled with broad, blue rings, and one cheek-bone bore the official
+impress of every knuckle of Colossus's left hand. The "beautiful to take
+care of somebody" had lost his charge. At mention of the negro he became
+wild, and, half in English, half in the "gumbo" dialect, said murderous
+things. Intimidated by Jules to calmness, he became able to speak
+confidently on one point; he could, would, and did swear that Colossus
+had gone home to the Florida parishes; he was almost certain; in fact,
+he thought so.
+
+There was a clicking of pulleys as the three appeared upon the bayou's
+margin, and Baptiste pointed out, in the deep shadow of a great oak, the
+Isabella, moored among the bulrushes, and just spreading her sails for
+departure. Moving down to where she lay, the parson and his friend
+paused on the bank, loath to say farewell.
+
+"O Jools!" said the parson, "supposin' Colossus ain't gone home! O
+Jools, if you'll look him out for me, I'll never forget you--I'll never
+forget you, nohow, Jools. No, Jools, I never will believe he taken that
+money. Yes, I know all niggahs will steal"--he set foot upon the
+gang-plank--"but Colossus wouldn't steal from me. Good-by."
+
+"Misty Posson Jone,'" said St.-Ange, putting his hand on the parson's
+arm with genuine affection, "hol' on. You see dis money--w'at I win las'
+night? Well, I win' it by a specious providence, ain't it?"
+
+"There's no tellin'," said the humbled Jones. "Providence
+
+     'Moves in a mysterious way
+        His wonders to perform.'"
+
+"Ah!" cried the Creole, "_c'est_ very true. I ged this money in the
+mysterieuze way. _Mais_, if I keep dis money, you know where it goin' be
+to-night?"
+
+"I really can't say," replied the parson.
+
+"Goin' to de dev'," said the sweetly-smiling yonng man.
+
+The schooner-captain, leaning against the shrouds, and even Baptiste,
+laughed outright.
+
+"O Jools, you mustn't!"
+
+"Well, den, w'at I shall do wid _it?_"
+
+"Any thing!" answered the parson; "better donate it away to some poor
+man"--
+
+"Ah! Misty Posson Jone', dat is w'at I want. You los' five hondred
+dollar'--'twas me fault."
+
+"No, it wa'n't, Jools."
+
+"_Mais_, it was!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"It _was_ me fault! I _swear_ it was me fault! _Mais_, here is five
+hondred dollar'; I wish you shall take it. Here! I don't got no use for
+money.--Oh, my faith! Posson Jone', you must not begin to cry some
+more."
+
+Parson Jones was choked with tears. When he found voice he said:
+
+"O Jools, Jools, Jools! my pore, noble, dear, misguidened friend! ef you
+hed of hed a Christian raisin'! May the Lord show you your errors
+better'n I kin, and bless you for your good intentions--oh, no! I cayn't
+touch that money with a ten-foot pole; it wa'n't rightly got; you must
+really excuse me, my dear friend, but I cayn't touch it."
+
+St.-Ange was petrified.
+
+"Good-by, dear Jools," continued the parson. "I'm in the Lord's haynds,
+and he's very merciful, which I hope and trust you'll find it out.
+Good-by!"--the schooner swang slowly off before the breeze--"good-by!"
+
+St.-Ange roused himself.
+
+"Posson Jone'! make me hany'ow _dis_ promise: you never, never, _never_
+will come back to New Orleans."
+
+"Ah, Jools, the Lord willin', I'll never leave home again!"
+
+"All right!" cried the Creole; "I thing he's willin'. Adieu, Posson
+Jone'. My faith'! you are the so fighting an' moz rilligious man as I
+never saw! Adieu! Adieu!"
+
+Baptiste uttered a cry and presently ran by his master toward the
+schooner, his hands full of clods.
+
+St.-Ange looked just in time to see the sable form of Colossus of Rhodes
+emerge from the vessel's hold, and the pastor of Smyrna and Bethesda
+seize him in his embrace.
+
+"O Colossus! you outlandish old nigger! Thank the Lord! Thank the Lord!"
+
+The little Creole almost wept. He ran down the tow-path, laughing and
+swearing, and making confused allusion to the entire _personnel_ and
+furniture of the lower regions.
+
+By odd fortune, at the moment that St.-Ange further demonstrated his
+delight by tripping his mulatto into a bog, the schooner came brushing
+along the reedy bank with a graceful curve, the sails flapped, and the
+crew fell to poling her slowly along.
+
+Parson Jones was on the deck, kneeling once more in prayer. His hat had
+fallen before him; behind him knelt his slave. In thundering tones he
+was confessing himself "a plum fool," from whom "the conceit had been
+jolted out," and who had been made to see that even his "nigger had the
+longest head of the two."
+
+Colossus clasped his hands and groaned.
+
+The parson prayed for a contrite heart.
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Colossus.
+
+The master acknowledged countless mercies.
+
+"Dat's so!" cried the slave.
+
+The master prayed that they might still be "piled on."
+
+"Glory!" cried the black man, clapping his hands; "pile on!"
+
+"An' now," continued the parson, "bring this pore, backslidin' jackace
+of a parson and this pore ole fool nigger back to thar home in peace!"
+
+"Pray fo' de money!" called Colossus.
+
+But the parson prayed for Jules.
+
+"Pray fo' de _money!_" repeated the negro.
+
+"And oh, give thy servant back that there lost money!"
+
+Colossus rose stealthily, and tiptoed by his still shouting master.
+St.-Ange, the captain, the crew, gazed in silent wonder at the
+strategist. Pausing but an instant over the master's hat to grin an
+acknowledgment of his beholders' speechless interest, he softly placed
+in it the faithfully-mourned and honestly-prayed-for Smyrna fund; then,
+saluted by the gesticulative, silent applause of St.-Ange and the
+schooner-men, he resumed his first attitude behind his roaring master.
+
+"Amen!" cried Colossus, meaning to bring him to a close.
+
+"Onworthy though I be"--cried Jones.
+
+"_Amen!_" reiterated the negro.
+
+"A-a-amen!" said Parson Jones.
+
+He rose to his feet, and, stooping to take up his hat, beheld the
+well-known roll. As one stunned, he gazed for a moment upon his slave,
+who still knelt with clasped hands and rolling eyeballs; but when he
+became aware of the laughter and cheers that greeted him from both deck
+and shore, he lifted eyes and hands to heaven, and cried like the
+veriest babe. And when he looked at the roll again, and hugged and
+kissed it, St.-Ange tried to raise a second shout, but choked, and the
+crew fell to their poles.
+
+And now up runs Baptiste, covered with slime, and prepares to cast his
+projectiles. The first one fell wide of the mark; the schooner swung
+round into a long reach of water, where the breeze was in her favor;
+another shout of laughter drowned the maledictions of the muddy man; the
+sails filled; Colossus of Rhodes, smiling and bowing as hero of the
+moment, ducked as the main boom swept round, and the schooner, leaning
+slightly to the pleasant influence, rustled a moment over the bulrushes,
+and then sped far away down the rippling bayou.
+
+M. Jules St.-Ange stood long, gazing at the receding vessel as it now
+disappeared, now re-appeared beyond the tops of the high undergrowth;
+but, when an arm of the forest hid it finally from sight, he turned
+townward, followed by that fagged-out spaniel, his servant, saying, as
+he turned, "Baptiste."
+
+"_Miche?_"
+
+"You know w'at I goin' do wid dis money?"
+
+"_Non, m'sieur._"
+
+"Well, you can strike me dead if I don't goin' to pay hall my debts!
+_Allons!_"
+
+He began a merry little song to the effect that his sweetheart was a
+wine-bottle, and master and man, leaving care behind, returned to the
+picturesque Rue Royale. The ways of Providence are indeed strange. In
+all Parson Jones's after-life, amid the many painful reminiscences of
+his visit to the City of the Plain, the sweet knowledge was withheld
+from him that by the light of the Christian virtue that shone from him
+even in his great fall, Jules St.-Ange arose, and went to his father an
+honest man.
+
+
+
+
+
+JEAN-AH POQUELIN.
+
+
+In the first decade of the present century, when the newly established
+American Government was the most hateful thing in Louisiana--when the
+Creoles were still kicking at such vile innovations as the trial by
+jury, American dances, anti-smuggling laws, and the printing of the
+Governor's proclamation in English--when the Anglo-American flood that
+was presently to burst in a crevasse of immigration upon the delta had
+thus far been felt only as slippery seepage which made the Creole
+tremble for his footing--there stood, a short distance above what is now
+Canal Street, and considerably back from the line of villas which
+fringed the river-bank on Tchoupitoulas Road, an old colonial
+plantation-house half in ruin.
+
+It stood aloof from civilization, the tracts that had once been its
+indigo fields given over to their first noxious wildness, and grown up
+into one of the horridest marshes within a circuit of fifty miles.
+
+The house was of heavy cypress, lifted up on pillars, grim, solid, and
+spiritless, its massive build a strong reminder of days still earlier,
+when every man had been his own peace officer and the insurrection of
+the blacks a daily contingency. Its dark, weatherbeaten roof and sides
+were hoisted up above the jungly plain in a distracted way, like a
+gigantic ammunition-wagon stuck in the mud and abandoned by some
+retreating army. Around it was a dense growth of low water willows, with
+half a hundred sorts of thorny or fetid bushes, savage strangers alike
+to the "language of flowers" and to the botanist's Greek. They were hung
+with countless strands of discolored and prickly smilax, and the
+impassable mud below bristled with _chevaux de frise_ of the dwarf
+palmetto. Two lone forest-trees, dead cypresses, stood in the centre of
+the marsh, dotted with roosting vultures. The shallow strips of water
+were hid by myriads of aquatic plants, under whose coarse and spiritless
+flowers, could one have seen it, was a harbor of reptiles, great and
+small, to make one shudder to the end of his days.
+
+The house was on a slightly raised spot, the levee of a draining canal.
+The waters of this canal did not run; they crawled, and were full of
+big, ravening fish and alligators, that held it against all comers.
+
+Such was the home of old Jean Marie Poquelin, once an opulent indigo
+planter, standing high in the esteem of his small, proud circle of
+exclusively male acquaintances in the old city; now a hermit, alike
+shunned by and shunning all who had ever known him. "The last of his
+line," said the gossips. His father lies under the floor of the St.
+Louis Cathedral, with the wife of his youth on one side, and the wife of
+his old age on the other. Old Jean visits the spot daily. His
+half-brother--alas! there was a mystery; no one knew what had become of
+the gentle, young half brother, more than thirty years his junior, whom
+once he seemed so fondly to love, but who, seven years ago, had
+disappeared suddenly, once for all, and left no clew of his fate.
+
+They had seemed to live so happily in each other's love. No father,
+mother, wife to either, no kindred upon earth. The elder a bold, frank,
+impetuous, chivalric adventurer; the younger a gentle, studious,
+book-loving recluse; they lived upon the ancestral estate like mated
+birds, one always on the wing, the other always in the nest.
+
+There was no trait in Jean Marie Poquelin, said the old gossips, for
+which he was so well known among his few friends as his apparent
+fondness for his "little brother." "Jacques said this," and "Jacques
+said that;" he "would leave this or that, or any thing to Jacques," for
+"Jacques was a scholar," and "Jacques was good," or "wise," or "just,"
+or "far-sighted," as the nature of the case required; and "he should ask
+Jacques as soon as he got home," since Jacques was never elsewhere to be
+seen.
+
+It was between the roving character of the one brother, and the
+bookishness of the other, that the estate fell into decay. Jean Marie,
+generous gentleman, gambled the slaves away one by one, until none was
+left, man or woman, but one old African mute.
+
+The indigo-fields and vats of Louisiana had been generally abandoned as
+unremunerative. Certain enterprising men had substituted the culture of
+sugar; but while the recluse was too apathetic to take so active a
+course, the other saw larger, and, at time, equally respectable profits,
+first in smuggling, and later in the African slave-trade. What harm
+could he see in it? The whole people said it was vitally necessary, and
+to minister to a vital public necessity,--good enough, certainly, and so
+he laid up many a doubloon, that made him none the worse in the public
+regard.
+
+One day old Jean Marie was about to start upon a voyage that was to be
+longer, much longer, than any that he had yet made. Jacques had begged
+him hard for many days not to go, but he laughed him off, and finally
+said, kissing him:
+
+"_Adieu, 'tit frere_."
+
+"No," said Jacques, "I shall go with you."
+
+They left the old hulk of a house in the sole care of the African mute,
+and went away to the Guinea coast together.
+
+Two years after, old Poquelin came home without his vessel. He must have
+arrived at his house by night. No one saw him come. No one saw "his
+little brother;" rumor whispered that he, too, had returned, but he had
+never been seen again.
+
+A dark suspicion fell upon the old slave-trader. No matter that the few
+kept the many reminded of the tenderness that had ever marked his
+bearing to the missing man. The many shook their heads. "You know he has
+a quick and fearful temper;" and "why does he cover his loss with
+mystery?" "Grief would out with the truth."
+
+"But," said the charitable few, "look in his face; see that expression
+of true humanity." The many did look in his face, and, as he looked in
+theirs, he read the silent question: "Where is thy brother Abel?" The
+few were silenced, his former friends died off, and the name of Jean
+Marie Poquelin became a symbol of witchery, devilish crime, and hideous
+nursery fictions.
+
+The man and his house were alike shunned. The snipe and duck hunters
+forsook the marsh, and the wood-cutters abandoned the canal. Sometimes
+the hardier boys who ventured out there snake-shooting heard a slow
+thumping of oar-locks on the canal. They would look at each other for a
+moment half in consternation, half in glee, then rush from their sport
+in wanton haste to assail with their gibes the unoffending, withered old
+man who, in rusty attire, sat in the stern of a skiff, rowed homeward by
+his white-headed African mute.
+
+"O Jean-ah Poquelin! O Jean-ah! Jean-ah Poquelin!"
+
+It was not necessary to utter more than that. No hint of wickedness,
+deformity, or any physical or moral demerit; merely the name and tone of
+mockery: "Oh, Jean-ah Poquelin!" and while they tumbled one over another
+in their needless haste to fly, he would rise carefully from his seat,
+while the aged mute, with downcast face, went on rowing, and rolling up
+his brown fist and extending it toward the urchins, would pour forth
+such an unholy broadside of French imprecation and invective as would
+all but craze them with delight.
+
+Among both blacks and whites the house was the object of a thousand
+superstitions. Every midnight they affirmed, the _feu follet_ came out
+of the marsh and ran in and out of the rooms, flashing from window to
+window. The story of some lads, whose words in ordinary statements were
+worthless, was generally credited, that the night they camped in the
+woods, rather than pass the place after dark, they saw, about sunset,
+every window blood-red, and on each of the four chimneys an owl sitting,
+which turned his head three times round, and moaned and laughed with a
+human voice. There was a bottomless well, everybody professed to know,
+beneath the sill of the big front door under the rotten veranda; whoever
+set his foot upon that threshold disappeared forever in the depth below.
+
+What wonder the marsh grew as wild as Africa! Take all the Faubourg Ste.
+Marie, and half the ancient city, you would not find one graceless
+dare-devil reckless enough to pass within a hundred yards of the house
+after nightfall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The alien races pouring into old New Orleans began to find the few
+streets named for the Bourbon princes too strait for them. The wheel of
+fortune, beginning to whirl, threw them off beyond the ancient
+corporation lines, and sowed civilization and even trade upon the lands
+of the Graviers and Girods. Fields became roads, roads streets.
+Everywhere the leveller was peering through his glass, rodsmen were
+whacking their way through willow-brakes and rose-hedges, and the
+sweating Irishmen tossed the blue clay up with their long-handled
+shovels.
+
+"Ha! that is all very well," quoth the Jean-Baptistes, fueling the
+reproach of an enterprise that asked neither co-operation nor advice of
+them, "but wait till they come yonder to Jean Poquelin's marsh; ha! ha!
+ha!" The supposed predicament so delighted them, that they put on a mock
+terror and whirled about in an assumed stampede, then caught their
+clasped hands between their knees in excess of mirth, and laughed till
+the tears ran; for whether the street-makers mired in the marsh, or
+contrived to cut through old "Jean-ah's" property, either event would be
+joyful. Meantime a line of tiny rods, with bits of white paper in their
+split tops, gradually extended its way straight through the haunted
+ground, and across the canal diagonally.
+
+"We shall fill that ditch," said the men in mud-boots, and brushed close
+along the chained and padlocked gate of the haunted mansion. Ah, Jean-ah
+Poquelin, those were not Creole boys, to be stampeded with a little hard
+swearing.
+
+He went to the Governor. That official scanned the odd figure with no
+slight interest. Jean Poquelin was of short, broad frame, with a bronzed
+leonine face. His brow was ample and deeply furrowed. His eye, large and
+black, was bold and open like that of a war-horse, and his jaws shut
+together with the firmness of iron. He was dressed in a suit of
+Attakapas cottonade, and his shirt unbuttoned and thrown back from the
+throat and bosom, sailor-wise, showed a herculean breast; hard and
+grizzled. There was no fierceness or defiance in his look, no harsh
+ungentleness, no symptom of his unlawful life or violent temper; but
+rather a peaceful and peaceable fearlessness. Across the whole face, not
+marked in one or another feature, but as it were laid softly upon the
+countenance like an almost imperceptible veil, was the imprint of some
+great grief. A careless eye might easily overlook it, but, once seen,
+there it hung--faint, but unmistakable.
+
+The Governor bowed.
+
+"_Parlez-vous francais_?" asked the figure.
+
+"I would rather talk English, if you can do so," said the Governor.
+
+"My name, Jean Poquelin."
+
+"How can I serve you, Mr. Poquelin?"
+
+"My 'ouse is yond'; _dans le marais la-bas_."
+
+The Governor bowed.
+
+"Dat _marais_ billong to me."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"To me; Jean Poquelin; I hown 'im meself."
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"He don't billong to you; I get him from me father."
+
+"That is perfectly true, Mr. Poquelin, as far as I am aware."
+
+"You want to make strit pass yond'?"
+
+"I do not know, sir; it is quite probable; but the city will indemnify
+you for any loss you may suffer--you will get paid, you understand."
+
+"Strit can't pass dare."
+
+"You will have to see the municipal authorities about that, Mr.
+Poquelin."
+
+A bitter smile came upon the old man's face:
+
+"_Pardon, Monsieur_, you is not _le Gouverneur_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"_Mais_, yes. You har _le Gouverneur_--yes. Veh-well. I come to you. I
+tell you, strit can't pass at me 'ouse."
+
+"But you will have to see"--
+
+"I come to you. You is _le Gouverneur_. I know not the new laws. I ham a
+Fr-r-rench-a-man! Fr-rench-a-man have something _aller au contraire_--he
+come at his _Gouverneur_. I come at you. If me not had been bought from
+me king like _bossals_ in the hold time, ze king gof--France
+would-a-show _Monsieur le Gouverneur_ to take care his men to make strit
+in right places. _Mais_, I know; we billong to _Monsieur le President_.
+I want you do somesin for me, eh?"
+
+"What is it?" asked the patient Governor.
+
+"I want you tell _Monsieur le President_,
+strit--can't--pass--at--me--'ouse."
+
+"Have a chair, Mr. Poquelin;" but the old man did not stir. The Governor
+took a quill and wrote a line to a city official, introducing Mr.
+Poquelin, and asking for him every possible courtesy. He handed it to
+him, instructing him where to present it.
+
+"Mr. Poquelin," he said with a conciliatory smile, "tell me, is it your
+house that our Creole citizens tell such odd stories about?"
+
+The old man glared sternly upon the speaker, and with immovable features
+said:
+
+"You don't see me trade some Guinea nigga'?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"You don't see me make some smuggling"
+
+"No, sir; not at all."
+
+"But, I am Jean Marie Poquelin. I mine me hown bizniss. Dat all right?
+Adieu."
+
+He put his hat on and withdrew. By and by he stood, letter in hand,
+before the person to whom it was addressed. This person employed an
+interpreter.
+
+"He says," said the interpreter to the officer, "he come to make you the
+fair warning how you muz not make the street pas' at his 'ouse."
+
+The officer remarked that "such impudence was refreshing;" but the
+experienced interpreter translated freely.
+
+"He says: 'Why you don't want?'" said the interpreter.
+
+The old slave-trader answered at some length.
+
+"He says," said the interpreter, again turning to the officer, "the
+marass is a too unhealth' for peopl' to live."
+
+"But we expect to drain his old marsh; it's not going to be a marsh."
+
+"_Il dit_"--The interpreter explained in French.
+
+The old man answered tersely.
+
+"He says the canal is a private," said the interpreter.
+
+"Oh! _that_ old ditch; that's to be filled up. Tell the old man we're
+going to fix him up nicely."
+
+Translation being duly made, the man in power was amused to see a
+thunder-cloud gathering on the old man's face.
+
+"Tell him," he added, "by the time we finish, there'll not be a ghost
+left in his shanty."
+
+The interpreter began to translate, but--
+
+"_J' comprends, J' comprends_," said the old man, with an impatient
+gesture, and burst forth, pouring curses upon the United States, the
+President, the Territory of Orleans, Congress, the Governor and all his
+subordinates, striding out of the apartment as he cursed, while the
+object of his maledictions roared with merriment and rammed the floor
+with his foot.
+
+"Why, it will make his old place worth ten dollars to one," said the
+official to the interpreter.
+
+"'Tis not for de worse of de property," said the interpreter.
+
+"I should guess not," said the other, whittling his chair,--"seems to me
+as if some of these old Creoles would liever live in a crawfish hole
+than to have a neighbor"
+
+"You know what make old Jean Poquelin make like that? I will tell you.
+You know"--
+
+The interpreter was rolling a cigarette, and paused to light his tinder;
+then, as the smoke poured in a thick double stream from his nostrils, he
+said, in a solemn whisper:
+
+"He is a witch."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the other.
+
+"You don't believe it? What you want to bet?" cried the interpreter,
+jerking himself half up and thrusting out one arm while he bared it of
+its coat-sleeve with the hand of the other. "What you want to bet?"
+
+"How do you know?" asked the official.
+
+"Dass what I goin' to tell you. You know, one evening I was shooting
+some _grosbec_. I killed three, but I had trouble to fine them, it was
+becoming so dark. When I have them I start' to come home; then I got to
+pas' at Jean Poquelin's house."
+
+"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the other, throwing his leg over the arm of his
+chair.
+
+"Wait," said the interpreter. "I come along slow, not making some
+noises; still, still"--
+
+"And scared," said the smiling one.
+
+"_Mais_, wait. I get all pas' the 'ouse. 'Ah!' I say; 'all right!' Then
+I see two thing' before! Hah! I get as cold and humide, and shake like a
+leaf. You think it was nothing? There I see, so plain as can be (though
+it was making nearly dark), I see Jean--Marie--Po-que-lin walkin' right
+in front, and right there beside of him was something like a man--but
+not a man--white like paint!--I dropp' on the grass from scared--they
+pass'; so sure as I live 'twas the ghos' of Jacques Poquelin, his
+brother!"
+
+"Pooh!" said the listener.
+
+"I'll put my han' in the fire," said the interpreter.
+
+"But did you never think," asked the other, "that that might be Jack
+Poquelin, as you call him, alive and well, and for some cause hid away
+by his brother?"
+
+"But there har' no cause!" said the other, and the entrance of third
+parties changed the subject.
+
+Some months passed and the street was opened. A canal was first dug
+through the marsh, the small one which passed so close to Jean
+Poquelin's house was filled, and the street, or rather a sunny road,
+just touched a corner of the old mansion's dooryard. The morass ran dry.
+Its venomous denizens slipped away through the bulrushes; the cattle
+roaming freely upon its hardened surface trampled the superabundant
+undergrowth. The bellowing frogs croaked to westward. Lilies and the
+flower-de-luce sprang up in the place of reeds; smilax and poison-oak
+gave way to the purple-plumed iron-weed and pink spiderwort; the
+bindweeds ran everywhere blooming as they ran, and on one of the dead
+cypresses a giant creeper hung its green burden of foliage and lifted
+its scarlet trumpets. Sparrows and red-birds flitted through the bushes,
+and dewberries grew ripe beneath. Over all these came a sweet, dry smell
+of salubrity which the place had not known since the sediments of the
+Mississippi first lifted it from the sea.
+
+But its owner did not build. Over the willow-brakes, and down the vista
+of the open street, bright new houses, some singly, some by ranks, were
+prying in upon the old man's privacy. They even settled down toward his
+southern side. First a wood-cutter's hut or two, then a market
+gardener's shanty, then a painted cottage, and all at once the faubourg
+had flanked and half surrounded him and his dried-up marsh.
+
+Ah! then the common people began to hate him. "The old tyrant!" "You
+don't mean an old _tyrant_?" "Well, then, why don't he build when the
+public need demands it? What does he live in that unneighborly way for?"
+"The old pirate!" "The old kidnapper!" How easily even the most ultra
+Louisianians put on the imported virtues of the North when they could be
+brought to bear against the hermit. "There he goes, with the boys after
+him! Ah! ha! ha! Jean-ah Poquelin! Ah! Jean-ah! Aha! aha! Jean-ah Marie!
+Jean-ah Poquelin! The old villain!" How merrily the swarming Americains
+echo the spirit of persecution! "The old fraud," they say--"pretends to
+live in a haunted house, does he? We'll tar and feather him some day.
+Guess we can fix him."
+
+He cannot be rowed home along the old canal now; he walks. He has broken
+sadly of late, and the street urchins are ever at his heels. It is like
+the days when they cried: "Go up, thou bald-head," and the old man now
+and then turns and delivers ineffectual curses.
+
+To the Creoles--to the incoming lower class of superstitious Germans,
+Irish, Sicilians, and others--he became an omen and embodiment of public
+and private ill-fortune. Upon him all the vagaries of their
+superstitions gathered and grew. If a house caught fire, it was imputed
+to his machinations. Did a woman go off in a fit, he had bewitched her.
+Did a child stray off for an hour, the mother shivered with the
+apprehension that Jean Poquelin had offered him to strange gods. The
+house was the subject of every bad boy's invention who loved to contrive
+ghostly lies. "As long as that house stands we shall have bad luck. Do
+you not see our pease and beans dying, our cabbages and lettuce going to
+seed and our gardens turning to dust, while every day you can see it
+raining in the woods? The rain will never pass old Poquelin's house. He
+keeps a fetich. He has conjured the whole Faubourg St. Marie. And why,
+the old wretch? Simply because our playful and innocent children call
+after him as he passes."
+
+A "Building and Improvement Company," which had not yet got its charter,
+"but was going to," and which had not, indeed, any tangible capital yet,
+but "was going to have some," joined the "Jean-ah Poquelin" war. The
+haunted property would be such a capital site for a market-house! They
+sent a deputation to the old mansion to ask its occupant to sell. The
+deputation never got beyond the chained gate and a very barren interview
+with the African mute. The President of the Board was then empowered
+(for he had studied French in Pennsylvania and was considered qualified)
+to call and persuade M. Poquelin to subscribe to the company's stock;
+but--
+
+"Fact is, gentlemen," he said at the next meeting, "it would take us at
+least twelve months to make Mr. Pokaleen understand the rather original
+features of our system, and he wouldn't subscribe when we'd done;
+besides, the only way to see him is to stop him on the street."
+
+There was a great laugh from the Board; they couldn't help it. "Better
+meet a bear robbed of her whelps," said one.
+
+"You're mistaken as to that," said the President. "I did meet him, and
+stopped him, and found him quite polite. But I could get no satisfaction
+from him; the fellow wouldn't talk in French, and when I spoke in
+English he hoisted his old shoulders up, and gave the same answer to
+every thing I said."
+
+"And that was--?" asked one or two, impatient of the pause.
+
+"That it 'don't worse w'ile?'"
+
+One of the Board said: "Mr. President, this market-house project, as I
+take it, is not altogether a selfish one; the community is to be
+benefited by it. We may feel that we are working in the public interest
+[the Board smiled knowingly], if we employ all possible means to oust
+this old nuisance from among us. You may know that at the time the
+street was cut through, this old Poquelann did all he could to prevent
+it. It was owing to a certain connection which I had with that affair
+that I heard a ghost story [smiles, followed by a sudden dignified
+check]--ghost story, which, of course, I am not going to relate; but I
+_may_ say that my profound conviction, arising from a prolonged study of
+that story, is, that this old villain, John Poquelann, has his brother
+locked up in that old house. Now, if this is so, and we can fix it on
+him, I merely _suggest_ that we can make the matter highly useful. I
+don't know," he added, beginning to sit down, "but that it is an action
+we owe to the community--hem!"
+
+"How do you propose to handle the subject?" asked the President.
+
+"I was thinking," said the speaker, "that, as a Board of Directors, it
+would be unadvisable for us to authorize any action involving trespass;
+but if you, for instance, Mr. President, should, as it were, for mere
+curiosity, _request_ some one, as, for instance, our excellent
+Secretary, simply as a personal favor, to look into the matter--this is
+merely a suggestion."
+
+The Secretary smiled sufficiently to be understood that, while he
+certainly did not consider such preposterous service a part of his
+duties as secretary, he might, notwithstanding, accede to the
+President's request; and the Board adjourned.
+
+Little White, as the Secretary was called, was a mild, kind-hearted
+little man, who, nevertheless, had no fear of any thing, unless it was
+the fear of being unkind.
+
+"I tell you frankly," he privately said to the President, "I go into
+this purely for reasons of my own."
+
+The next day, a little after nightfall, one might have descried this
+little man slipping along the rear fence of the Poquelin place,
+preparatory to vaulting over into the rank, grass-grown yard, and
+bearing himself altogether more after the manner of a collector of rare
+chickens than according to the usage of secretaries.
+
+The picture presented to his eye was not calculated to enliven his mind.
+The old mansion stood out against the western sky, black and silent. One
+long, lurid pencil-stroke along a sky of slate was all that was left of
+daylight. No sign of life was apparent; no light at any window, unless
+it might have been on the side of the house hidden from view. No owls
+were on the chimneys, no dogs were in the yard.
+
+He entered the place, and ventured up behind a small cabin which stood
+apart from the house. Through one of its many crannies he easily
+detected the African mute crouched before a flickering pine-knot, his
+head on his knees, fast asleep.
+
+He concluded to enter the mansion, and, with that view, stood and
+scanned it. The broad rear steps of the veranda would not serve him; he
+might meet some one midway. He was measuring, with his eye, the
+proportions of one of the pillars which supported it, and estimating the
+practicability of climbing it, when he heard a footstep. Some one
+dragged a chair out toward the railing, then seemed to change his mind
+and began to pace the veranda, his footfalls resounding on the dry
+boards with singular loudness. Little White drew a step backward, got
+the figure between himself and the sky, and at once recognized the
+short, broad-shouldered form of old Jean Poquelin.
+
+He sat down upon a billet of wood, and, to escape the stings of a
+whining cloud of mosquitoes, shrouded his face and neck in his
+handkerchief, leaving his eyes uncovered.
+
+He had sat there but a moment when he noticed a strange, sickening odor,
+faint, as if coming from a distance, but loathsome and horrid.
+
+Whence could it come? Not from the cabin; not from the marsh, for it was
+as dry as powder. It was not in the air; it seemed to come from the
+ground.
+
+Rising up, he noticed, for the first time, a few steps before him a
+narrow footpath leading toward the house. He glanced down it--ha! right
+there was some one coming--ghostly white!
+
+Quick as thought, and as noiselessly, he lay down at full length against
+the cabin. It was bold strategy, and yet, there was no denying it,
+little White felt that he was frightened. "It is not a ghost," he said
+to himself. "I _know_ it cannot be a ghost;" but the perspiration burst
+out at every pore, and the air seemed to thicken with heat. "It is a
+living man," he said in his thoughts. "I hear his footstep, and I hear
+old Poquelin's footsteps, too, separately, over on the veranda. I am not
+discovered; the thing has passed; there is that odor again; what a smell
+of death! Is it coming back? Yes. It stops at the door of the cabin. Is
+it peering in at the sleeping mute? It moves away. It is in the path
+again. Now it is gone." He shuddered. "Now, if I dare venture, the
+mystery is solved." He rose cautiously, close against the cabin, and
+peered along the path.
+
+The figure of a man, a presence if not a body--but whether clad in some
+white stuff or naked the darkness would not allow him to determine--had
+turned, and now, with a seeming painful gait, moved slowly from him.
+"Great Heaven! can it be that the dead do walk?" He withdrew again the
+hands which had gone to his eyes. The dreadful object passed between two
+pillars and under the house. He listened. There was a faint sound as of
+feet upon a staircase; then all was still except the measured tread of
+Jean Poquelin walking on the veranda, and the heavy respirations of the
+mute slumbering in the cabin.
+
+The little Secretary was about to retreat; but as he looked once more
+toward the haunted Louse a dim light appeared in the crack of a closed
+window, and presently old Jean Poquelin came, dragging his chair, and
+sat down close against the shining cranny. He spoke in a low, tender
+tone in the French tongue, making some inquiry. An answer came from
+within. Was it the voice of a human? So unnatural was it--so hollow, so
+discordant, so unearthly--that the stealthy listener shuddered again
+from head to foot, and when something stirred in some bushes near
+by--though it may have been nothing more than a rat--and came scuttling
+through the grass, the little Secretary actually turned and fled. As he
+left the enclosure he moved with bolder leisure through the bushes; yet
+now and then he spoke aloud: "Oh, oh! I see, I understand!" and shut his
+eyes in his hands.
+
+How strange that henceforth little White was the champion of Jean
+Poquelin! In season and out of season--wherever a word was uttered
+against him--the Secretary, with a quiet, aggressive force that
+instantly arrested gossip, demanded upon what authority the statement or
+conjecture was made; but as he did not condescend to explain his own
+remarkable attitude, it was not long before the disrelish and suspicion
+which had followed Jean Poquelin so many years fell also upon him.
+
+It was only the next evening but one after his adventure that he made
+himself a source of sullen amazement to one hundred and fifty boys, by
+ordering them to desist from their wanton hallooing. Old Jean Poquelin,
+standing and shaking his cane, rolling out his long-drawn maledictions,
+paused and stared, then gave the Secretary a courteous bow and started
+on. The boys, save one, from pure astonishment, ceased but a ruffianly
+little Irish lad, more daring than any had yet been, threw a big
+hurtling clod, that struck old Poquelin between the shoulders and burst
+like a shell. The enraged old man wheeled with uplifted staff to give
+chase to the scampering vagabond; and--he may have tripped, or he may
+not, but he fell full length. Little White hastened to help him up, but
+he waved him off with a fierce imprecation and staggering to his feet
+resumed his way homeward. His lips were reddened with blood.
+
+Little White was on his way to the meeting of the Board. He would have
+given all he dared spend to have staid away, for he felt both too fierce
+and too tremulous to brook the criticisms that were likely to be made.
+
+"I can't help it, gentlemen; I can't help you to make a case against the
+old man, and I'm not going to."
+
+"We did not expect this disappointment, Mr. White."
+
+"I can't help that, sir. No, sir; you had better not appoint any more
+investigations. Somebody'll investigate himself into trouble. No, sir;
+it isn't a threat, it is only my advice, but I warn you that whoever
+takes the task in hand will rue it to his dying day--which may be
+hastened, too."
+
+The President expressed himself "surprised."
+
+"I don't care a rush," answered little White, wildly and foolishly. "I
+don't care a rush if you are, sir. No, my nerves are not disordered; my
+head's as clear as a bell. No, I'm _not_ excited." A Director remarked
+that the Secretary looked as though he had waked from a nightmare.
+
+"Well, sir, if you want to know the fact, I have; and if you choose to
+cultivate old Poquelin's society you can have one, too."
+
+"White," called a facetious member, but White did not notice. "White,"
+he called again.
+
+"What?" demanded White, with a scowl.
+
+"Did you see the ghost?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I did," cried White, hitting the table, and handing the
+President a paper which brought the Board to other business.
+
+The story got among the gossips that somebody (they were afraid to say
+little White) had been to the Poquelin mansion by night and beheld
+something appalling. The rumor was but a shadow of the truth, magnified
+and distorted as is the manner of shadows. He had seen skeletons
+walking, and had barely escaped the clutches of one by making the sign
+of the cross.
+
+Some madcap boys with an appetite for the horrible plucked up courage to
+venture through the dried marsh by the cattle-path, and come before the
+house at a spectral hour when the air was full of bats. Something which
+they but half saw--half a sight was enough--sent them tearing back
+through the willow-brakes and acacia bushes to their homes, where they
+fairly dropped down, and cried:
+
+"Was it white?" "No--yes--nearly so--we can't tell--but we saw it." And
+one could hardly doubt, to look at their ashen faces, that they had,
+whatever it was.
+
+"If that old rascal lived in the country we come from," said certain
+Americains, "he'd have been tarred and feathered before now, wouldn't
+he, Sanders?"
+
+"Well, now he just would."
+
+"And we'd have rid him on a rail, wouldn't we?"
+
+"That's what I allow."
+
+"Tell you what you _could_ do." They were talking to some rollicking
+Creoles who had assumed an absolute necessity for doing _something_.
+"What is it you call this thing where an old man marries a young girl,
+and you come out with horns and"--
+
+"_Charivari_?" asked the Creoles.
+
+"Yes, that's it. Why don't you shivaree him?" Felicitous suggestion.
+
+Little White, with his wife beside him, was sitting on their doorsteps
+on the sidewalk, as Creole custom had taught them, looking toward the
+sunset. They had moved into the lately-opened street. The view was not
+attractive on the score of beauty. The houses were small and scattered,
+and across the flat commons, spite of the lofty tangle of weeds and
+bushes, and spite of the thickets of acacia, they needs must see the
+dismal old Poquelin mansion, tilted awry and shutting out the declining
+sun. The moon, white and slender, was hanging the tip of its horn over
+one of the chimneys.
+
+"And you say," said the Secretary, "the old black man has been going by
+here alone? Patty, suppose old Poquelin should be concocting some
+mischief; he don't lack provocation; the way that clod hit him the other
+day was enough to have killed him. Why, Patty, he dropped as quick as
+_that_! No wonder you haven't seen him. I wonder if they haven't heard
+something about him up at the drug-store. Suppose I go and see."
+
+"Do," said his wife.
+
+She sat alone for half an hour, watching that sudden going out of the
+day peculiar to the latitude.
+
+"That moon is ghost enough for one house," she said, as her husband
+returned. "It has gone right down the chimney."
+
+"Patty," said little White, "the drug-clerk says the boys are going to
+shivaree old Poquelin to-night. I'm going to try to stop it."
+
+"Why, White," said his wife, "you'd better not. You'll get hurt."
+
+"No, I'll not."
+
+"Yes, you will."
+
+"I'm going to sit out here until they come along. They're compelled to
+pass right by here."
+
+"Why, White, it may be midnight before they start; you're not going to
+sit out here till then."
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"Well, you're very foolish," said Mrs. White in an undertone, looking
+anxious, and tapping one of the steps with her foot.
+
+They sat a very long time talking over little family matters.
+
+"What's that?" at last said Mrs. White.
+
+"That's the nine-o'clock gun," said White, and they relapsed into a
+long-sustained, drowsy silence.
+
+"Patty, you'd better go in and go to bed," said he at last.
+
+"I'm not sleepy."
+
+"Well, you're very foolish," quietly remarked little White, and again
+silence fell upon them.
+
+"Patty, suppose I walk out to the old house and see if I can find out
+any thing."
+
+"Suppose," said she, "you don't do any such--listen!"
+
+Down the street arose a great hubbub. Dogs and boys were howling and
+barking; men were laughing, shouting, groaning, and blowing horns,
+whooping, and clanking cow-bells, whinnying, and howling, and rattling
+pots and pans.
+
+"They are coming this way," said little White. "You had better go into
+the house, Patty."
+
+"So had you."
+
+"No. I'm going to see if I can't stop them."
+
+"Why, White!"
+
+"I'll be back in a minute," said White, and went toward the noise.
+
+In a few moments the little Secretary met the mob. The pen hesitates on
+the word, for there is a respectable difference, measurable only on the
+scale of the half century, between a mob and a _charivari_. Little White
+lifted his ineffectual voice. He faced the head of the disorderly
+column, and cast himself about as if he were made of wood and moved by
+the jerk of a string. He rushed to one who seemed, from the size and
+clatter of his tin pan, to be a leader. "_Stop these fellows, Bienvenu,
+stop them just a minute, till I tell them something_." Bienvenu turned
+and brandished his instruments of discord in an imploring way to the
+crowd. They slackened their pace, two or three hushed their horns and
+joined the prayer of little White and Bienvenu for silence. The throng
+halted. The hush was delicious.
+
+"Bienvenu," said little White, "don't shivaree old Poquelin to-night;
+he's"--
+
+"My fwang," said the swaying Bienvenu, "who tail you I goin' to
+chahivahi somebody, eh? Yon sink bickause I make a little playfool wiz
+zis tin pan zat I am _dhonk_?"
+
+"Oh, no, Bienvenu, old fellow, you're all right. I was afraid you might
+not know that old Poquelin was sick, you know, but you're not going
+there, are you?"
+
+"My fwang, I vay soy to tail you zat you ah dhonk as de dev'. I am
+_shem_ of you. I ham ze servan' of ze _publique_. Zese _citoyens_ goin'
+to wickwest Jean Poquelin to give to the Ursuline' two hondred fifty
+dolla'"--
+
+"_He quoi_!" cried a listener, "_Cinq cent piastres, oui_!"
+
+"_Oui_!" said Bienvenu, "and if he wiffuse we make him some lit'
+_musique_; ta-ra ta!" He hoisted a merry hand and foot, then frowning,
+added: "Old Poquelin got no bizniz dhink s'much w'isky."
+
+"But, gentlemen," said little White, around whom a circle had gathered,
+"the old man is very sick."
+
+"My faith!" cried a tiny Creole, "we did not make him to be sick. W'en
+we have say we going make _le charivari_, do you want that we hall tell
+a lie? My faith! 'sfools!"
+
+"But you can shivaree somebody else," said desperate little White.
+
+"_Oui_" cried Bienvenu, "_et chahivahi_ Jean-ah Poquelin tomo'w!"
+
+"Let us go to Madame Schneider!" cried two or three, and amid huzzas and
+confused cries, among which was heard a stentorian Celtic call for
+drinks, the crowd again began to move.
+
+"_Cent piastres pour l'hopital de charite_!"
+
+"Hurrah!"
+
+"One hongred dolla' for Charity Hospital!"
+
+"Hurrah!"
+
+"Whang!" went a tin pan, the crowd yelled, and Pandemonium gaped again.
+They were off at a right angle.
+
+Nodding, Mrs. White looked at the mantle-clock.
+
+"Well, if it isn't away after midnight."
+
+The hideous noise down street was passing beyond earshot. She raised a
+sash and listened. For a moment there was silence. Some one came to the
+door.
+
+"Is that you, White?"
+
+"Yes." He entered. "I succeeded, Patty."
+
+"Did you?" said Patty, joyfully.
+
+"Yes. They've gone down to shivaree the old Dutchwoman who married her
+step-daughter's sweetheart. They say she has got to pay a hundred
+dollars to the hospital before they stop."
+
+The couple retired, and Mrs. White slumbered. She was awakened by her
+husband snapping the lid of his watch.
+
+"What time?" she asked.
+
+"Half-past three. Patty, I haven't slept a wink. Those fellows are out
+yet. Don't you hear them?"
+
+"Why, White, they're coming this way!"
+
+"I know they are," said White, sliding out of bed and drawing on his
+clothes, "and they're coming fast. You'd better go away from that
+window, Patty. My! what a clatter!"
+
+"Here they are," said Mrs. White, but her husband was gone. Two or three
+hundred men and boys pass the place at a rapid walk straight down the
+broad, new street, toward the hated house of ghosts. The din was
+terrific. She saw little White at the head of the rabble brandishing his
+arms and trying in vain to make himself heard; but they only shook their
+heads laughing and hooting the louder, and so passed, bearing him on
+before them.
+
+Swiftly they pass out from among the houses, away from the dim oil lamps
+of the street, out into the broad starlit commons, and enter the willowy
+jungles of the haunted ground. Some hearts fail and their owners lag
+behind and turn back, suddenly remembering how near morning it is. But
+the most part push on, tearing the air with their clamor.
+
+Down ahead of them in the long, thicket-darkened way there
+is--singularly enough--a faint, dancing light. It must be very near the
+old house; it is. It has stopped now. It is a lantern, and is under a
+well-known sapling which has grown up on the wayside since the canal was
+filled. Now it swings mysteriously to and fro. A goodly number of the
+more ghost-fearing give up the sport; but a full hundred move forward at
+a run, doubling their devilish howling and banging.
+
+Yes; it is a lantern, and there are two persons under the tree. The
+crowd draws near--drops into a walk; one of the two is the old African
+mute; he lifts the lantern up so that it shines on the other; the crowd
+recoils; there is a hush of all clangor, and all at once, with a cry of
+mingled fright and horror from every throat, the whole throng rushes
+back, dropping every thing, sweeping past little White and hurrying on,
+never stopping until the jungle is left behind, and then to find that
+not one in ten has seen the cause of the stampede, and not one of the
+tenth is certain what it was.
+
+There is one huge fellow among them who looks capable of any villany. He
+finds something to mount on, and, in the Creole _patois_, calls a
+general halt. Bienvenu sinks down, and, vainly trying to recline
+gracefully, resigns the leadership. The herd gather round the speaker;
+he assures them that they have been outraged. Their right peaceably to
+traverse the public streets has been trampled upon. Shall such
+encroachments be endured? It is now daybreak. Let them go now by the
+open light of day and force a free passage of the public highway!
+
+A scattering consent was the response, and the crowd, thinned now and
+drowsy, straggled quietly down toward the old house. Some drifted ahead,
+others sauntered behind, but every one, as he again neared the tree,
+came to a stand-still. Little White sat upon a bank of turf on the
+opposite side of the way looking very stern and sad. To each new-comer
+he put the same question:
+
+"Did you come here to go to old Poquelin's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He's dead." And if the shocked hearer started away he would say: "Don't
+go away."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I want you to go to the funeral presently."
+
+If some Louisianian, too loyal to dear France or Spain to understand
+English, looked bewildered, some one would interpret for him; and
+presently they went. Little White led the van, the crowd trooping after
+him down the middle of the way. The gate, that had never been seen
+before unchained, was open. Stern little White stopped a short distance
+from it; the rabble stopped behind him. Something was moving out from
+under the veranda. The many whisperers stretched upward to see. The
+African mute came very slowly toward the gate, leading by a cord in the
+nose a small brown bull, which was harnessed to a rude cart. On the flat
+body of the cart, under a black cloth, were seen the outlines of a long
+box.
+
+"Hats off, gentlemen," said little White, as the box came in view, and
+the crowd silently uncovered.
+
+"Gentlemen," said little White, "here come the last remains of Jean
+Marie Poquelin, a better man, I'm afraid, with all his sins,--yes a
+better--a kinder man to his blood--a man of more self-forgetful
+goodness--than all of you put together will ever dare to be."
+
+There was a profound hush as the vehicle came creaking through the gate;
+but when it turned away from them toward the forest, those in front
+started suddenly. There was a backward rush, then all stood still again
+staring one way; for there, behind the bier, with eyes cast down and
+labored step, walked the living remains--all that was left--of little
+Jacques Poquelin, the long-hidden brother--a leper, as white as snow.
+
+Dumb with horror, the cringing crowd gazed upon the walking death. They
+watched, in silent awe, the slow _cortege_ creep down the long, straight
+road and lessen on the view, until by and by it stopped where a wild,
+unfrequented path branched off into the undergrowth toward the rear of
+the ancient city.
+
+"They are going to the _Terre aux Lepreux_," said one in the crowd. The
+rest watched them in silence.
+
+The little bull was set free; the mute, with the strength of an ape,
+lifted the long box to his shoulder. For a moment more the mute and the
+leper stood in sight, while the former adjusted his heavy burden; then,
+without one backward glance upon the unkind human world, turning their
+faces toward the ridge in the depths of the swamp known as the Leper's
+Land, they stepped into the jungle, disappeared, and were never seen
+again.
+
+
+
+
+
+TITE POULETTE.
+
+
+Kristian Koppig was a rosy-faced, beardless young Dutchman. He was one
+of that army of gentlemen who, after the purchase of Louisiana, swarmed
+from all parts of the commercial world, over the mountains of
+Franco-Spanish exclusiveness, like the Goths over the Pyrenees, and
+settled down in New Orleans to pick up their fortunes, with the
+diligence of hungry pigeons. He may have been a German; the distinction
+was too fine for Creole haste and disrelish.
+
+He made his home in a room with one dormer window looking out, and
+somewhat down, upon a building opposite, which still stands, flush with
+the street, a century old. Its big, round-arched windows in a long,
+second-story row, are walled up, and two or three from time to time have
+had smaller windows let into them again, with odd little latticed
+peep-holes in their batten shutters. This had already been done when
+Kristian Koppig first began to look at them from his solitary dormer
+window.
+
+All the features of the building lead me to guess that it is a remnant
+of the old Spanish Barracks, whose extensive structure fell by
+government sale into private hands a long time ago. At the end toward
+the swamp a great, oriental-looking passage is left, with an arched
+entrance, and a pair of ponderous wooden doors. You look at it, and
+almost see Count O'Reilly's artillery come bumping and trundling out,
+and dash around into the ancient Plaza to bang away at King St.
+Charles's birthday.
+
+I do not know who lives there now. You might stand about on the opposite
+_banquette_ for weeks and never find out. I suppose it is a residence,
+for it does not look like one. That is the rule in that region.
+
+In the good old times of duels, and bagatelle-clubs, and theatre-balls,
+and Cayetano's circus, Kristian Koppig rooming as described, there lived
+in the portion of this house, partly overhanging the archway, a palish
+handsome woman, by the name--or going by the name--of Madame John. You
+would hardly have thought of her being "colored." Though fading, she was
+still of very attractive countenance, fine, rather severe features,
+nearly straight hair carefully kept, and that vivid black eye so
+peculiar to her kind. Her smile, which came and went with her talk, was
+sweet and exceedingly intelligent; and something told you, as you looked
+at her, that she was one who had had to learn a great deal in this
+troublesome life.
+
+"But!"--the Creole lads in the street would say--"--her daughter!"
+and there would be lifting of arms, wringing of fingers, rolling of
+eyes, rounding of mouths, gaspings and clasping of hands. "So beautiful,
+beautiful, beautiful! White?--white like a water lily! White--like a
+magnolia!"
+
+Applause would follow, and invocation of all the saints to witness.
+
+And she could sing.
+
+"Sing?" (disdainfully)--"if a mocking-bird can _sing_! Ha!"
+
+They could not tell just how old she was; they "would give her about
+seventeen."
+
+Mother and daughter were very fond. The neighbors could hear them call
+each other pet names, and see them sitting together, sewing, talking
+happily to each other in the unceasing French way, and see them go out
+and come in together on their little tasks and errands. "'Tite
+Poulette," the daughter was called; she never went out alone.
+
+And who was this Madame John?
+
+"Why, you know!--she was"--said the wig-maker at the corner to Kristian
+Koppig--"I'll tell you. You know?--she was"--and the rest atomized off
+in a rasping whisper. She was the best yellow-fever nurse in a thousand
+yards round; but that is not what the wig-maker said.
+
+A block nearer the river stands a house altogether different from the
+remnant of old barracks. It is of frame, with a deep front gallery over
+which the roof extends. It has become a den of Italians, who sell fuel
+by daylight, and by night are up to no telling what extent of deviltry.
+This was once the home of a gay gentleman, whose first name happened to
+be John. He was a member of the Good Children Social Club. As his
+parents lived with him, his wife would, according to custom, have been
+called Madame John but he had no wife. His father died, then his mother;
+last of all, himself. As he is about to be off, in comes Madame John,
+with 'Tite Poulette, then an infant, on her arm.
+
+"Zalli," said he, "I am going."
+
+She bowed her head, and wept.
+
+"You have been very faithful to me, Zalli."
+
+She wept on.
+
+"Nobody to take care of you now, Zalli."
+
+Zalli only went on weeping.
+
+"I want to give you this house, Zalli; it is for you and the little
+one."
+
+An hour after, amid the sobs of Madame John, she and the "little one"
+inherited the house, such as it was. With the fatal caution which
+characterizes ignorance, she sold the property and placed the proceeds
+in a bank, which made haste to fail. She put on widow's weeds, and wore
+them still when 'Tite Poulette "had seventeen," as the frantic lads
+would say.
+
+How they did chatter over her. Quiet Kristian Koppig had never seen the
+like. He wrote to his mother, and told her so. A pretty fellow at the
+corner would suddenly double himself up with beckoning to a knot of
+chums; these would hasten up; recruits would come in from two or three
+other directions; as they reached the corner their countenances would
+quickly assume a genteel severity, and presently, with her mother, 'Tite
+Poulette would pass--tall, straight, lithe, her great black eyes made
+tender by their sweeping lashes, the faintest tint of color in her
+Southern cheek, her form all grace, her carriage a wonder of simple
+dignity.
+
+The instant she was gone every tongue was let slip on the marvel of her
+beauty; but, though theirs were only the loose New Orleans morals of
+over fifty years ago, their unleashed tongues never had attempted any
+greater liberty than to take up the pet name, 'Tite Poulette. And yet
+the mother was soon to be, as we shall discover, a paid dancer at the
+_Salle de Conde_.
+
+To Zalli, of course, as to all "quadroon ladies," the festivities of the
+Conde-street ball-room were familiar of old. There, in the happy days
+when dear Monsieur John was young, and the eighteenth century old, she
+had often repaired under guard of her mother--dead now, alas!--and
+Monsieur John would slip away from the dull play and dry society of
+Theatre d'Orleans, and come around with his crowd of elegant friends;
+and through the long sweet hours of the ball she had danced, and
+laughed, and coquetted under her satin mask, even to the baffling and
+tormenting of that prince of gentlemen, dear Monsieur John himself. No
+man of questionable blood dare set his foot within the door. Many noble
+gentlemen were pleased to dance with her. Colonel De ---- and General
+La ----: city councilmen and officers from the Government House. There
+were no paid dancers then. Every thing was decorously conducted indeed!
+Every girl's mother was there, and the more discreet always left before
+there was too much drinking. Yes, it was gay, gay!--but sometimes
+dangerous. Ha! more times than a few had Monsieur John knocked down some
+long-haired and long-knifed rowdy, and kicked the breath out of him for
+looking saucily at her; but that was like him, he was so brave and
+kind;--and he is gone!
+
+There was no room for widow's weeds there. So when she put these on, her
+glittering eyes never again looked through her pink and white mask, and
+she was glad of it; for never, never in her life had they so looked for
+anybody but her dear Monsieur John, and now he was in heaven--so the
+priest said--and she was a sick-nurse.
+
+Living was hard work; and, as Madame John had been brought up tenderly,
+and had done what she could to rear her daughter in the same mistaken
+way, with, of course, no more education than the ladies in society got,
+they knew nothing beyond a little music and embroidery. They struggled
+as they could, faintly; now giving a few private dancing lessons, now
+dressing hair, but ever beat back by the steady detestation of their
+imperious patronesses; and, by and by, for want of that priceless
+worldly grace known among the flippant as "money-sense," these two poor
+children, born of misfortune and the complacent badness of the times,
+began to be in want.
+
+Kristian Koppig noticed from his dormer window one day a man standing at
+the big archway opposite, and clanking the brass knocker on the wicket
+that was in one of the doors. He was a smooth man, with his hair parted
+in the middle, and his cigarette poised on a tiny gold holder. He waited
+a moment, politely cursed the dust, knocked again, threw his slender
+sword-cane under his arm, and wiped the inside of his hat with his
+handkerchief.
+
+Madame John held a parley with him at the wicket. 'Tite Poulette was
+nowhere seen. He stood at the gate while Madame John went up-stairs.
+Kristian Koppig knew him. He knew him as one knows a snake. He was the
+manager of the _Salle de Conde_. Presently Madame John returned with a
+little bundle, and they hurried off together.
+
+And now what did this mean? Why, by any one of ordinary acuteness the
+matter was easily understood, but, to tell the truth, Kristian Koppig
+was a trifle dull, and got the idea at once that some damage was being
+planned against 'Tite Poulette. It made the gentle Dutchman miserable
+not to be minding his own business, and yet--
+
+"But the woman certainly will not attempt"--said he to himself--"no, no!
+she cannot." Not being able to guess what he meant, I cannot say whether
+she could or not. I know that next day Kristian Koppig, glancing eagerly
+over the "_Ami des Lois_," read an advertisement which he had always
+before skipped with a frown. It was headed, "_Salle de Conde_," and,
+being interpreted, signified that a new dance was to be introduced, the
+_Danse de Chinois_, and that _a young lady_ would follow it with the
+famous "_Danse du Shawl_."
+
+It was the Sabbath. The young man watched the opposite window steadily
+and painfully from early in the afternoon until the moon shone bright;
+and from the time the moon shone bright until Madame John!--joy!--Madame
+John! and not 'Tite Poulette, stepped through the wicket, much dressed
+and well muffled, and hurried off toward the _Rue Conde_. Madame John
+was the "young lady;" and the young man's mind, glad to return to its
+own unimpassioned affairs, relapsed into quietude.
+
+Madame John danced beautifully. It had to be done. It brought some pay,
+and pay was bread; and every Sunday evening, with a touch here and there
+of paint and powder, the mother danced the dance of the shawl, the
+daughter remaining at home alone.
+
+Kristian Koppig, simple, slow-thinking young Dutchman, never noticing
+that he staid at home with his window darkened for the very purpose,
+would see her come to her window and look out with a little wild,
+alarmed look in her magnificent eyes, and go and come again, and again,
+until the mother, like a storm-driven bird, came panting home.
+
+Two or three months went by.
+
+One night, on the mother's return, Kristian Koppig coming to his room
+nearly at the same moment, there was much earnest conversation, which he
+could see, but not hear.
+
+"'Tite Poulette," said Madame John, "you are seventeen."
+
+"True, Maman."
+
+"Ah! my child, I see not how you are to meet the future." The voice
+trembled plaintively.
+
+"But how, Maman?"
+
+"Ah! you are not like others; no fortune, no pleasure, no friend."
+
+"Maman!"
+
+"No, no;--I thank God for it; I am glad you are not; but you will be
+lonely, lonely, all your poor life long. There is no place in this world
+for us poor women. I wish that we were either white or black!"--and the
+tears, two "shining ones," stood in the poor quadroon's eyes.
+
+Tha daughter stood up, her eyes flashing.
+
+"God made us, Maman," she said with a gentle, but stately smile.
+
+"Ha!" said the mother, her keen glance darting through her tears, "Sin
+made _me_, yes."
+
+"No," said 'Tite Poulette, "God made us. He made us Just as we are; not
+more white, not more black."
+
+"He made you, truly!" said Zalli. "You are so beautiful; I believe it
+well." She reached and drew the fair form to a kneeling posture. "My
+sweet, white daughter!"
+
+Now the tears were in the girl's eyes. "And could I be whiter than I
+am?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, no, no! 'Tite Poulette," cried the other; "but if we were only
+_real white!_--both of us; so that some gentleman might come to see me
+and say 'Madame John, I want your pretty little chick. She is so
+beautiful. I want to take her home. She is so good--I want her to be my
+wife.' Oh, my child, my child, to see that I would give my life--I would
+give my soul! Only you should take me along to be your servant. I walked
+behind two young men to-night; they ware coming home from their office;
+presently they began to talk about you."
+
+'Tite Poulette's eyes flashed fire.
+
+"No, my child, they spoke only the best things One laughed a little at
+times and kept saying 'Beware!' but the other--I prayed the Virgin to
+bless him, he spoke such kind and noble words. Such gentle pity; such a
+holy heart! 'May God defend her,' he said, _cherie_; he said, 'May God
+defend her, for I see no help for her.' The other one laughed and left
+him. He stopped in the door right across the street. Ah, my child, do
+you blush? Is that something to bring the rose to your cheek? Many fine
+gentlemen at the ball ask me often, 'How is your daughter, Madame
+John?'".
+
+The daughter's face was thrown into the mother's lap, not so well
+satisfied, now, with God's handiwork. Ah, how she wept! Sob, sob, sob;
+gasps and sighs and stifled ejaculations, her small right hand clinched
+and beating on her mother's knee; and the mother weeping over her.
+
+Kristian Koppig shut his window. Nothing but a generous heart and a
+Dutchman's phlegm could have done so at that moment. And even thou,
+Kristian Koppig!--for the window closed very slowly.
+
+He wrote to his mother, thus:
+
+"In this wicked city, I see none so fair as the poor girl who lives
+opposite me, and who, alas! though so fair, is one of those whom the
+taint of caste has cursed. She lives a lonely, innocent life in the
+midst of corruption, like the lilies I find here in the marshew, and I
+have great pity for her. 'God defend her,' I said to-night to a fellow
+clerk, 'I see no help for her.' I know there is a natural, and I think
+proper, horror of mixed blood (excuse the mention, sweet mother), and I
+feel it, too; and yet if she were in Holland today, not one of a hundred
+suitors would detect the hidden blemish."
+
+In such strain this young man wrote on trying to demonstrate the utter
+impossibility of his ever loving the lovable unfortunate, until the
+midnight tolling of the cathedral clock sent him to bed.
+
+About the same hour Zalli and 'Tite Poulette were kissing good-night.
+
+"'Tite Poulette, I want you to promise me one thing."
+
+"Well, Maman?"
+
+"If any gentleman should ever love you and ask you to marry,--not
+knowing, you know,--promise me you will not tell him you are not white."
+
+"It can never be," said 'Tite Poulette.
+
+"But if it should," said Madame John pleadingly.
+
+"And break the law?" asked 'Tite Poulette, impatiently.
+
+"But the law is unjust," said the mother.
+
+"But it is the law!"
+
+"But you will not, dearie, will you?"
+
+"I would surely tell him!" said the daughter.
+
+When Zalli, for some cause, went next morning to the window, she
+started.
+
+"'Tite Poulette!"--she called softly without moving. The daughter came.
+The young man, whose idea of propriety had actuated him to this display,
+was sitting in the dormer window, reading. Mother and daughter bent a
+steady gaze at each other. It meant in French, "If he saw us last
+night!"--
+
+"Ah! dear," said the mother, her face beaming with fun--
+
+"What can it be, Maman?"
+
+"He speaks--oh! ha, ha!--he speaks--such miserable French!"
+
+It came to pass one morning at early dawn that Zalli and 'Tite Poulette,
+going to mass, passed a cafe, just as--who should be coming out but
+Monsieur, the manager of the _Salle de Conde_. He had not yet gone to
+bed. Monsieur was astonished. He had a Frenchman's eye for the
+beautiful, and certainly there the beautiful was. He had heard of Madame
+John's daughter, and had hoped once to see her, but did not but could
+this be she?
+
+They disappeared within the cathedral. A sudden pang of piety moved him;
+he followed. 'Tite Poulette was already kneeling in the aisle. Zalli,
+still in the vestibule, was just taking her hand from the font of
+holy-water.
+
+"Madame John," whispered the manager.
+
+She courtesied.
+
+"Madame John, that young lady--is she your daughter?"
+
+"She--she--is my daughter," said Zalli, with somewhat of alarm in her
+face, which the manager misinterpreted.
+
+"I think not, Madame John." He shook his head, smiling as one too wise
+to be fooled.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, she is my daughter."
+
+"O no, Madame John, it is only make-believe, I think."
+
+"I swear she is, Monsieur de la Rue."
+
+"Is that possible?" pretending to waver, but convinced in his heart of
+hearts, by Zalli's alarm, that she was lying. "But how? Why does she not
+come to our ball-room with you?"
+
+Zalli, trying to get away from him, shrugged and smiled. "Each to his
+taste, Monsieur; it pleases her not."
+
+She was escaping, but he followed one step more. "I shall come to see
+you, Madame John."
+
+She whirled and attacked him with her eyes. "Monsieur must not give
+himself the trouble!" she said, the eyes at the same time adding, "Dare
+to come!" She turned again, and knelt to her devotions. The manager
+dipped in the font, crossed himself, and departed.
+
+Several weeks went by, and M. de la Rue had not accepted the fierce
+challenge of Madame John's eyes. One or two Sunday nights she had
+succeeded in avoiding him, though fulfilling her engagement in the
+_Salle_; but by and by pay-day,--a Saturday,--came round, and though the
+pay was ready, she was loath to go up to Monsieur's little office.
+
+It was an afternoon in May. Madame John came to her own room, and, with
+a sigh, sank into a chair. Her eyes were wet.
+
+"Did you go to his office, dear mother?" asked 'Tite Poulette.
+
+"I could not," she answered, dropping her face in her hands.
+
+"Maman, he has seen me at the window!"
+
+"While I was gone?" cried the mother.
+
+"He passed on the other side of the street. He looked up purposely, and
+saw me." The speaker's cheeks were burning red.
+
+Zalli wrung her hands.
+
+"It is nothing, mother; do not go near him."
+
+"But the pay, my child."
+
+"The pay matters not."
+
+"But he will bring it here; he wants the chance."
+
+That was the trouble, sure enough.
+
+About this time Kristian Koppig lost his position in the German
+importing house where, he had fondly told his mother, he was
+indispensable.
+
+"Summer was coming on," the senior said, "and you see our young men are
+almost idle. Yes, our engagement _was_ for a year, but ah--we could not
+foresee"--etc., etc., "besides" (attempting a parting flattery), "your
+father is a rich gentleman, and you can afford to take the summer easy.
+If we can ever be of any service to you," etc., etc.
+
+So the young Dutchman spent the afternoons at his dormer window reading
+and glancing down at the little casement opposite, where a small, rude
+shelf had lately been put out, holding a row of cigar-boxes with
+wretched little botanical specimens in them trying to die. 'Tite
+Poulette was their gardener; and it was odd to see,--dry weather or
+wet,--how many waterings per day those plants could take. She never
+looked up from her task; but I know she performed it with that
+unacknowledged pleasure which all girls love and deny, that of being
+looked upon by noble eyes.
+
+On this peculiar Saturday afternoon in May, Kristian Koppig had been
+witness of the distressful scene over the way. It occurred to 'Tite
+Poulette that such might be the case, and she stepped to the casement to
+shut it. As she did so, the marvellous delicacy of Kristian Koppig moved
+him to draw in one of his shutters. Both young heads came out at one
+moment, while at the same instant--
+
+"Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!" clanked the knocker on the wicket. The black
+eyes of the maiden and the blue over the way, from looking into each
+other for the first time in life, glanced down to the arched doorway
+upon Monsieur the manager. Then the black eyes disappeared within, and
+Kristian Koppig thought again, and re-opening his shutter, stood up at
+the window prepared to become a bold spectator of what might follow.
+
+But for a moment nothing followed.
+
+"Trouble over there," thought the rosy Dutchman, and waited. The manager
+waited too, rubbing his hat and brushing his clothes with the tips of
+his kidded fingers.
+
+"They do not wish to see him," slowly concluded the spectator.
+
+"Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!" quoth the knocker, and M. de la Rue looked up
+around at the windows opposite and noticed the handsome young Dutchman
+looking at him.
+
+"Dutch!" said the manager softly, between his teeth.
+
+"He is staring at me," said Kristian Koppig to himself;--"but then I am
+staring at him, which accounts for it."
+
+A long pause, and then another long rapping.
+
+"They want him to go away," thought Koppig.
+
+"Knock hard!" suggested a street youngster, standing by.
+
+"Rap, rap"--The manager had no sooner recommenced than several neighbors
+looked out of doors and windows.
+
+"Very bad," thought our Dutchman; "somebody should make him go off. I
+wonder what they will do."
+
+The manager stepped into the street, looked up at the closed window,
+returned to the knocker, and stood with it in his hand.
+
+"They are all gone out, Monsieur," said the street-youngster.
+
+"You lie!" said the cynosure of neighboring eyes.
+
+"Ah!" thought Kristian Koppig; "I will go down and ask him"--Here his
+thoughts lost outline; he was only convinced that he had somewhat to say
+to him, and turned to go down stairs. In going he became a little vexed
+with himself because he could not help hurrying. He noticed, too, that
+his arm holding the stair-rail trembled in a silly way, whereas he was
+perfectly calm. Precisely as he reached the street-door the manager
+raised the knocker; but the latch clicked and the wicket was drawn
+slightly ajar.
+
+Inside could just be descried Madame John. The manager bowed, smiled,
+talked, talked on, held money in his hand, bowed, smiled, talked on,
+flourished the money, smiled, bowed, talked on and plainly persisted in
+some intention to which Madame John was steadfastly opposed.
+
+The window above, too,--it was Kristian Koppig who noticed that,--opened
+a wee bit, like the shell of a terrapin; Presently the manager lifted
+his foot and put forward an arm, as though he would enter the gate by
+pushing, but as quick as gunpowder it clapped--in his face!
+
+You could hear the fleeing feet of Zalli pounding up the staircase.
+
+As the panting mother re-entered her room, "See, Maman," said 'Tite
+Poulette, peeping at the window, "the young gentleman from over the way
+has crossed!"
+
+"Holy Mary bless him!" said the mother.
+
+"I will go over," thought Kristian Koppig, "and ask him kindly if he is
+not making a mistake."
+
+"What are they doing, dear?" asked the mother, with clasped hands.
+
+"They are talking; the young man is tranquil, but 'Sieur de la Rue is
+very angry," whispered the daughter; and just then--pang! came a sharp,
+keen sound rattling up the walls on either side of the narrow way, and
+"Aha!" and laughter and clapping of female hands from two or three
+windows.
+
+"Oh! what a slap!" cried the girl, half in fright, half in glee, jerking
+herself back from the casement simultaneously with the report. But the
+"ahas" and laughter, and clapping of feminine hands, which still
+continued, came from another cause. 'Tite Poulette's rapid action had
+struck the slender cord that held up an end of her hanging garden, and
+the whole rank of cigar-boxes slid from their place, turned gracefully
+over as they shot through the air, and emptied themselves plump upon the
+head of the slapped manager. Breathless, dirty, pale as whitewash, he
+gasped a threat to be heard from again, and, getting round the corner as
+quick as he could walk, left Kristian Koppig, standing motionless, the
+most astonished man in that street.
+
+"Kristian Koppig, Kristian Koppig," said Greatheart to himself, slowly
+dragging up-stairs, "what a mischief you have done. One poor woman
+certainly to be robbed of her bitter wages, and another--so lovely!--put
+to the burning shame of being the subject of a street brawl! What will
+this silly neighborhood say? 'Has the gentleman a heart as well as a
+hand?' 'Is it jealousy?'" There he paused, afraid himself to answer the
+supposed query; and then--"Oh! Kristian Koppig, you have been such a
+dunce!" "And I cannot apologize to them. Who in this street would carry
+my note, and not wink and grin over it with low surmises? I cannot even
+make restitution. Money? They would not dare receive it. Oh! Kristian
+Koppig, why did you not mind your own business? Is she any thing to you?
+Do you love her? _Of course not_! Oh!--such a dunce!"
+
+The reader will eagerly admit that however faulty this young man's
+course of reasoning, his conclusion was correct. For mark what he did.
+
+He went to his room, which was already growing dark, shut his window,
+lighted his big Dutch lamp, and sat down to write. "Something _must_ be
+done," said he aloud, taking up his pen; "I will be calm and cool; I
+will be distant and brief; but--I shall have to be kind or I may offend.
+Ah! I shall have to write in French; I forgot that; I write it so
+poorly, dunce that I am, when all my brothers and sisters speak it so
+well." He got out his French dictionary. Two hours slipped by. He made a
+new pen, washed and refilled his inkstand, mended his "abominable!"
+chair, and after two hours more made another attempt, and another
+failure. "My head aches," said he, and lay down on his couch, the better
+to frame his phrases.
+
+He was awakened by the Sabbath sunlight. The bells of the Cathedral and
+the Ursulines' chapel were ringing for high mass, and a mocking-bird,
+perching on a chimney-top above Madame John's rooms, was carolling,
+whistling, mewing, chirping, screaming, and trilling with the ecstasy of
+a whole May in his throat. "Oh! sleepy Kristian Koppig," was the young
+man's first thought, "--such a dunce!"
+
+Madame John and daughter did not go to mass. The morning wore away, and
+their casement remained closed. "They are offended," said Kristian
+Koppig, leaving the house, and wandering up to the little Protestant
+affair known as Christ Church.
+
+"No, possibly they are not," he said, returning and finding the shutters
+thrown back.
+
+By a sad accident, which mortified him extremely, he happened to see,
+late in the afternoon,--hardly conscious that he was looking across the
+street,--that Madame John was--dressing. Could it be that she was going
+to the _Salle de Conde_? He rushed to his table, and began to write.
+
+He had guessed aright. The wages were too precious to be lost. The
+manager had written her a note. He begged to assure her that he was a
+gentleman of the clearest cut. If he had made a mistake the previous
+afternoon, he was glad no unfortunate result had followed except his
+having been assaulted by a ruffian; that the _Danse du Shawl_ was
+promised in his advertisement, and he hoped Madame John (whose wages
+were in hand waiting for her) would not fail to assist as usual. Lastly,
+and delicately put, he expressed his conviction that Mademoiselle was
+wise and discreet in declining to entertain gentlemen at her home.
+
+So, against much beseeching on the part of 'Tite Poulette, Madame John
+was going to the ball-room. "Maybe I can discover what 'Sieur de la Rue
+is planning against Monsieur over the way," she said, knowing certainly
+the slap would not be forgiven; and the daughter, though tremblingly, at
+once withdrew her objections.
+
+The heavy young Dutchman, now thoroughly electrified, was writing like
+mad. He wrote and tore up, wrote and tore up, lighted his lamp, started
+again, and at last signed his name. A letter by a Dutchman in
+French!--what can be made of it in English? We will see:
+
+"MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE:
+
+"A stranger, seeking not to be acquainted, but seeing and admiring all
+days the goodness and high honor, begs to be pardoned of them for the
+mistakes, alas! of yesterday, and to make reparation and satisfaction in
+destroying the ornaments of the window, as well as the loss of
+compensation from Monsieur the manager, with the enclosed bill of the
+_Banque de la Louisiane_ for fifty dollars ($50). And, hoping they will
+seeing what he is meaning, remains, respectfully,
+
+"KRISTIAN KOPPIG.
+
+"P.S.--Madame must not go to the ball."
+
+He must bear the missive himself. He must speak in French. What should
+the words be? A moment of study--he has it, and is off down the long
+three-story stairway. At the same moment Madame John stepped from the
+wicket, and glided off to the _Salle de Conde_, a trifle late.
+
+"I shall see Madame John, of course," thought the young man, crushing a
+hope, and rattled the knocker. 'Tite Poulette sprang up from praying for
+her mother's safety. "What has she forgotten?" she asked herself, and
+hastened down. The wicket opened. The two innocents were stunned.
+
+"Aw--aw"--said the pretty Dutchman, "aw,"--blurted out something in
+virgin Dutch, ... handed her the letter, and hurried down street.
+
+"Alas! what have I done?" said the poor girl, bending over her candle,
+and bursting into tears that fell on the unopened letter. "And what
+shall I do! It may be wrong to open it--and worse not to." Like her sex,
+she took the benefit of the doubt, and intensified her perplexity and
+misery by reading and misconstruing the all but unintelligible contents.
+What then? Not only sobs and sighs, but moaning and beating of little
+fists together, and outcries of soul-felt agony stifled against the
+bedside, and temples pressed into knitted palms, because of one who
+"sought _not to be_ acquainted," but offered money--money!--in pity to a
+poor--shame on her for saying that!--a poor _nigresse_.
+
+And now our self-confessed dolt turned back from a half-hour's walk,
+concluding there might be an answer to his note. "Surely Madame John
+will appear this time." He knocked. The shutter stirred above, and
+something white came fluttering wildly down like a shot dove. It was his
+own letter containing the fifty-dollar bill. He bounded to the wicket,
+and softly but eagerly knocked again.
+
+"Go away," said a trembling voice from above.
+
+"Madame John?" said he; but the window closed, and he heard a step, the
+same step on the stair. Step, step, every step one step deeper into his
+heart. 'Tite Poulette came to the closed door.
+
+"What will you?" said the voice within.
+
+"I--I--don't wish to see you. I wish to see Madame John."
+
+"I must pray Monsieur to go away. My mother is at the _Salle de Conde_."
+
+"At the ball!" Kristian Koppig strayed off, repeating the words for want
+of definite thought. All at once it occurred to him that at the ball he
+could make Madame John's acquaintance with impunity. "Was it courting
+sin to go?" By no means; he should, most likely, save a woman from
+trouble, and help the poor in their distress.
+
+Behold Kristian Koppig standing on the floor of the _Salle de Conde_. A
+large hall, a blaze of lamps, a bewildering flutter of fans and floating
+robes, strains of music, columns of gay promenaders, a long row of
+turbaned mothers lining either wall, gentlemen of the portlier sort
+filling the recesses of the windows, whirling waltzers gliding here and
+there--smiles and grace, smiles and grace; all fair, orderly, elegant,
+bewitching. A young Creole's laugh mayhap a little loud, and--truly
+there were many sword-canes. But neither grace nor foulness satisfied
+the eye of the zealous young Dutchman.
+
+Suddenly a muffled woman passed him, leaning on a gentleman's arm. It
+looked like--it must be, Madame John. Speak quick, Kristian Koppig; do
+not stop to notice the man!
+
+"Madame John"--bowing--"I am your neighbor, Kristian Koppig."
+
+Madame John bows low, and smiles--a ball-room smile, but is frightened,
+and her escort,--the manager,--drops her hand and slips away.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur," she whispers excitedly, "you will be killed if you stay
+here a moment. Are you armed? No. Take this." She tried to slip a dirk
+into his hands, but he would not have it.
+
+"Oh, my dear young man, go! Go quickly!" she plead, glancing furtively
+down the hall.
+
+"I wish you not to dance," said the young man.
+
+"I have danced already; I am going home. Come; be quick! we will go
+together." She thrust her arm through his, and they hastened into the
+street. When a square had been passed there came a sound of men running
+behind them.
+
+"Run, Monsieur, run!" she cried, trying to drag him; but Monsieur
+Dutchman would not.
+
+"_Run,_ Monsieur! Oh, my God! it is 'Sieur"--
+
+"_That_ for yesterday!" cried the manager, striking fiercely with his
+cane. Kristian Koppig's fist rolled him in the dirt.
+
+"_That_ for 'Tite Poulette!" cried another man dealing the Dutchman a
+terrible blow from behind.
+
+"And _that_ for me!" hissed a third, thrusting at him with something
+bright.
+
+"_That_ for yesterday!" screamed the manager, bounding like a tiger;
+"That!" "THAT!" "Ha!"
+
+Then Kristian Koppig knew that he was stabbed.
+
+"That!" and "That!" and "That!" and the poor Dutchman struck wildly here
+and there, grasped the air, shut his eyes, staggered, reeled, fell, rose
+half up, fell again for good, and they were kicking him and jumping on
+him. All at once they scampered. Zalli had found the night-watch.
+
+"Buz-z-z-z!" went a rattle. "Buz-z-z-z!" went another.
+
+"Pick him up."
+
+"Is he alive?"
+
+"Can't tell; hold him steady; lead the way, misses."
+
+"He's bleeding all over my breeches."
+
+"This way--here--around this corner."
+
+"This way now--only two squares more."
+
+"Here we are."
+
+"Rap-rap-rap!" on the old brass knocker. Curses on the narrow wicket,
+more on the dark archway, more still on the twisting stairs.
+
+Up at last and into the room.
+
+"Easy, easy, push this under his head: never mind his boots!"
+
+So he lies--on 'Tite Poulette's own bed.
+
+The watch are gone. They pause under the corner lamp to count
+profits;--a single bill--_Banque de la Louisiane_, fifty dollars.
+Providence is kind--tolerably so. Break it at the "Guillaume Tell." "But
+did you ever hear any one scream like that girl did?"
+
+And there lies the young Dutch neighbor. His money will not flutter back
+to him this time; nor will any voice behind a gate "beg Monsieur to go
+away." O, Woman!--that knows no enemy so terrible as man! Come nigh,
+poor Woman, you have nothing to fear. Lay your strange, electric touch
+upon the chilly flesh; it strikes no eager mischief along the fainting
+veins. Look your sweet looks upon the grimy face, and tenderly lay back
+the locks from the congested brows; no wicked misinterpretation lurks to
+bite your kindness. Be motherly, be sisterly, fear nought. Go, watch him
+by night; you may sleep at his feet and he will not stir. Yet he lives,
+and shall live--may live to forget you, who knows? But for all that, be
+gentle and watchful; be womanlike, we ask no more; and God reward you!
+
+Even while it was taking all the two women's strength to hold the door
+against Death, the sick man himself laid a grief upon them.
+
+"Mother," he said to Madame John, quite a master of French in his
+delirium, "dear mother, fear not; trust your boy; fear nothing. I will
+not marry 'Tite Poulette; I cannot. She is fair, dear mother, but ah!
+she is not--don't you know, mother? don't you know? The race! the race!
+Don't you know that she is jet black. Isn't it?"
+
+The poor nurse nodded "Yes," and gave a sleeping draught; but before the
+patient quite slept he started once and stared.
+
+"Take her away,"--waving his hand--"take your beauty away. She is jet
+white. Who could take a jet white wife? O, no, no, no, no!"
+
+Next morning his brain was right.
+
+"Madame," he weakly whispered, "I was delirious last night?"
+
+Zalli shrugged. "Only a very, very, wee, wee trifle of a bit."
+
+"And did I say something wrong or--foolish?"
+
+"O, no, no," she replied; "you only clasped your hands, so, and prayed,
+prayed all the time to the dear Virgin."
+
+"To the virgin?" asked the Dutchman, smiling incredulously.
+
+"And St. Joseph--yes, indeed," she insisted; "you may strike me dead."
+
+And so, for politeness' sake, he tried to credit the invention, but grew
+suspicions instead.
+
+Hard was the battle against death. Nurses are sometimes amazons, and
+such were these. Through the long, enervating summer, the contest
+lasted; but when at last the cool airs of October came stealing in at
+the bedside like long-banished little children, Kristian Koppig rose
+upon his elbow and smiled them a welcome.
+
+The physician, blessed man, was kind beyond measure; but said some
+inexplicable things, which Zalli tried in vain to make him speak in an
+undertone. "If I knew Monsieur John?" he said, "certainly! Why, we were
+chums at school. And he left you so much as that, Madame John? Ah! my
+old friend John, always noble! And you had it all in that naughty bank?
+Ah, well, Madame John, it matters little. No, I shall not tell 'Tite
+Poulette. Adieu."
+
+And another time:--"If I will let you tell me something? With pleasure,
+Madame John. No, and not tell anybody, Madame John. No, Madame, not even
+'Tite Poulette. What?"--a long whistle--"is that pos-si-ble?--and
+Monsieur John knew it?--encouraged it?--eh, well, eh, well!--But--can I
+believe you, Madame John? Oh! you have Monsieur John's sworn statement.
+Ah! very good, truly, but--you _say_ you have it; but where is it? Ah!
+to-morrow!" a sceptical shrug. "Pardon me, Madame John, I think perhaps,
+_perhaps_ you are telling the truth.
+
+"If I think you did right? Certainly! What nature keeps back, accident
+sometimes gives, Madame John; either is God's will. Don't cry. 'Stealing
+from the dead?' No! It was giving, yes! They are thanking you in heaven,
+Madame John."
+
+Kristian Koppig, lying awake, but motionless and with closed eyes, hears
+in part, and, fancying he understands, rejoices with silent intensity.
+When the doctor is gone he calls Zalli.
+
+"I give you a great deal of trouble, eh, Madame John?"
+
+"No, no; you are no trouble at all. Had you the yellow fever--ah! then!"
+
+She rolled her eyes to signify the superlative character of the
+tribulations attending yellow fever.
+
+"I had a lady and gentleman once--a Spanish lady and gentleman, just off
+the ship; both sick at once with the fever--delirious--could not tell
+their names. Nobody to help me but sometimes Monsieur John! I never had
+such a time,--never before, never since,--as that time. Four days and
+nights this head touched not a pillow."
+
+"And they died!" said Kristian Koppig.
+
+"The third night the gentleman went. Poor Senor! 'Sieur John,--he did
+not know the harm,--gave him some coffee and toast! The fourth night it
+rained and turned cool, and just before day the poor lady"--
+
+"Died!" said Koppig.
+
+Zalli dropped her arms listlessly into her lap and her eyes ran brimful.
+
+"And left an infant!" said the Dutchman, ready to shout with exultation.
+
+"Ah! no, Monsieur," said Zalli.
+
+The invalid's heart sank like a stone.
+
+"Madame John,"--his voice was all in a tremor,--"tell me the truth. Is
+'Tite Poulette your own child?"
+
+"Ah-h-h, ha! ha! what foolishness! Of course she is my child!" And
+Madame gave vent to a true Frenchwoman's laugh.
+
+It was too much for the sick man. In the pitiful weakness of his
+shattered nerves he turned his face into his pillow and wept like a
+child. Zalli passed into the next room to hide her emotion.
+
+"Maman, dear Maman," said 'Tite Poulette, who had overheard nothing, but
+only saw the tears.
+
+"Ah! my child, my child, my task--my task is too great--too great for
+me. Let me go now--another time. Go and watch at his bedside."
+
+"But, Maman,"--for 'Tite Poulette was frightened,--"he needs no care
+now."
+
+"Nay, but go, my child; I wish to be alone."
+
+The maiden stole in with averted eyes and tiptoed to the window--_that
+window_. The patient, already a man again, gazed at her till she could
+feel the gaze. He turned his eyes from her a moment to gather
+resolution. And now, stout heart, farewell; a word or two of friendly
+parting--nothing more.
+
+"'Tite Poulette."
+
+The slender figure at the window turned and came to the bedside.
+
+"I believe I owe my life to you," he said.
+
+She looked down meekly, the color rising in her cheek.
+
+"I must arrange to be moved across the street tomorrow, on a litter."
+
+She did not stir or speak.
+
+"And I must now thank you, sweet nurse, for your care. Sweet nurse!
+Sweet nurse!"
+
+She shook her head in protestation.
+
+"Heaven bless you, 'Tite Poulette!"
+
+Her face sank lower.
+
+"God has made you very beautiful, Tite Poulette!"
+
+She stirred not. He reached, and gently took her little hand, and as he
+drew her one step nearer, a tear fell from her long lashes. From the
+next room, Zalli, with a face of agonized suspense, gazed upon the pair,
+undiscovered. The young man lifted the hand to lay it upon his lips,
+when, with a mild, firm force, it was drawn away, yet still rested in
+his own upon the bedside, like some weak thing snared, that could only
+not get free.
+
+"Thou wilt not have my love, 'Tite Poulette?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Thou wilt not, beautiful?"
+
+"Cannot!" was all that she could utter, and upon their clasped hands the
+tears ran down.
+
+"Thou wrong'st me, 'Tite Poulette. Thou dost not trust me; thou fearest
+the kiss may loosen the hands. But I tell thee nay. I have struggled
+hard, even to this hour, against Love, but I yield me now; I yield; I am
+his unconditioned prisoner forever. God forbid that I ask aught but that
+you will be my wife."
+
+Still the maiden moved not, looked not up, only rained down tears.
+
+"Shall it not be, 'Tite Poulette?" He tried in vain to draw her.
+
+"'Tite Poulette?" So tenderly he called! And then she spoke.
+
+"It is against the law."
+
+"It is not!" cried Zalli, seizing her round the waist and dragging her
+forward. "Take her! she is thine. I have robbed God long enough. Here
+are the sworn papers--here! Take her; she is as white as snow--so! Take
+her, kiss her; Mary be praised! I never had a child--she is the
+Spaniard's daughter!"
+
+
+
+
+
+'SIEUR GEORGE.
+
+
+In the heart of New Orleans stands a large four-story brick building,
+that has so stood for about three-quarters of a century. Its rooms are
+rented to a class of persons occupying them simply for lack of activity
+to find better and cheaper quarters elsewhere. With its gray stucco
+peeling off in broad patches, it has a solemn look of gentility in rags,
+and stands, or, as it were, hangs, about the corner of two ancient
+streets, like a faded fop who pretends to be looking for employment.
+
+Under its main archway is a dingy apothecary-shop. On one street is the
+bazaar of a _modiste en robes et chapeaux_ and other humble shops; on
+the other, the immense batten doors with gratings over the lintels,
+barred and bolted with masses of cobwebbed iron, like the door of a
+donjon, are overhung by a creaking sign (left by the sheriff), on which
+is faintly discernible the mention of wines and liquors. A peep through
+one of the shops reveals a square court within, hung with many lines of
+wet clothes, its sides hugged by rotten staircases that seem vainly
+trying to clamber out of the rubbish.
+
+The neighborhood is one long since given up to fifth-rate shops, whose
+masters and mistresses display such enticing mottoes as "_Au gagne
+petit!_" Innumerable children swarm about, and, by some charm of the
+place, are not run over, but obstruct the sidewalks playing their
+clamorous games.
+
+The building is a thing of many windows, where passably good-looking
+women appear and disappear, clad in cotton gowns, watering little
+outside shelves of flowers and cacti, or hanging canaries' cages. Their
+husbands are keepers in wine-warehouses, rent-collectors for the agents
+of old Frenchmen who have been laid up to dry in Paris, custom-house
+supernumeraries and court-clerks' deputies (for your second-rate Creole
+is a great seeker for little offices). A decaying cornice hangs over,
+dropping bits of mortar on passers below, like a boy at a
+boarding-house.
+
+The landlord is one Kookoo, an ancient Creole of doubtful purity of
+blood, who in his landlordly old age takes all suggestions of repairs as
+personal insults. He was but a stripling when his father left him this
+inheritance, and has grown old and wrinkled and brown, a sort of
+periodically animate mummy, in the business. He smokes cascarilla, wears
+velveteen, and is as punctual as an executioner.
+
+To Kookoo's venerable property a certain old man used for many years to
+come every evening, stumbling through the groups of prattling children
+who frolicked about in the early moonlight--whose name no one knew, but
+whom all the neighbors designated by the title of 'Sieur George. It was
+his wont to be seen taking a straight--too straight--course toward his
+home, never careening to right or left, but now forcing himself slowly
+forward, as though there were a high gale in front, and now scudding
+briskly ahead at a ridiculous little dog-trot, as if there were a
+tornado behind. He would go up the main staircase very carefully,
+sometimes stopping half-way up for thirty or forty minutes' doze, but
+getting to the landing eventually, and tramping into his room in the
+second story, with no little elation to find it still there. Were it not
+for these slight symptoms of potations, he was such a one as you would
+pick out of a thousand for a miser. A year or two ago he suddenly
+disappeared.
+
+A great many years ago, when the old house was still new, a young man
+with no baggage save a small hair-trunk, came and took the room I have
+mentioned and another adjoining. He supposed he might stay fifty
+days--and he staid fifty years and over. This was a very fashionable
+neighborhood, and he kept the rooms on that account month after month.
+
+But when he had been here about a year something happened to him, so it
+was rumored, that greatly changed the tenor of his life; and from that
+time on there began to appear in him and to accumulate upon each other
+in a manner which became the profound study of Kookoo, the symptoms of a
+decay, whose cause baffled the landlord's limited powers of conjecture
+for well-nigh half a century. Hints of a duel, of a reason warped, of
+disinheritance, and many other unauthorized rumors, fluttered up and
+floated off, while he became recluse, and, some say, began incidentally
+to betray the unmanly habit which we have already noticed. His neighbors
+would have continued neighborly had he allowed them, but he never let
+himself be understood, and _les Americains_ are very droll anyhow; so,
+as they could do nothing else, they cut him.
+
+So exclusive he became that (though it may have been for economy) he
+never admitted even a housemaid, but kept his apartments himself. Only
+the merry serenaders, who in those times used to sing under the
+balconies, would now and then give him a crumb of their feast for pure
+fun's sake; and after a while, because they could not find out his full
+name, called him, at hazard, George--but always prefixing Monsieur.
+Afterward, when he began to be careless in his dress, and the fashion of
+serenading had passed away, the commoner people dared to shorten the
+title to "'Sieur George."
+
+Many seasons came and went. The city changed like a growing boy;
+gentility and fashion went uptown, but 'Sieur George still retained his
+rooms. Every one knew him slightly, and bowed, but no one seemed to know
+him well, unless it were a brace or so of those convivial fellows in
+regulation-blue at little Fort St. Charles. He often came home late,
+with one of these on either arm, all singing different tunes and
+stopping at every twenty steps to tell secrets. But by and by the fort
+was demolished, church and goverment property melted down under the warm
+demand for building-lots, the city spread like a ringworm,--and one day
+'Sieur George steps out of the old house in full regimentals!
+
+The Creole neighbors rush bareheaded into the middle of the street, as
+though there were an earthquake or a chimney on fire. What to do or say
+or think they do not know; they are at their wits' ends, therefore
+well-nigh happy. However, there is a German blacksmith's shop near by,
+and they watch to see what _Jacob_ will do. Jacob steps into the street
+with every eye upon him; he approaches Monsieur--he addresses to him a
+few remarks--they shake hands--they engage in some conversation--Monsieur
+places his hand on his sword!--now Monsieur passes.
+
+The populace crowd around the blacksmith, children clap their hands
+softly and jump up and down on tiptoes of expectation--'Sieur George is
+going to the war in Mexico!
+
+"Ah!" says a little girl in the throng, '"Sieur George's two rooms will
+be empty; I find that very droll."
+
+The landlord,--this same Kookoo,--is in the group. He hurls himself into
+the house and up the stairs. "Fifteen years pass since he have been in
+those room!" He arrives at the door--it is shut--"It is lock!"
+
+In short, further investigation revealed that a youngish lady in black,
+who had been seen by several neighbors to enter the house, but had not,
+of course, been suspected of such remarkable intentions, had, in company
+with a middle-aged slave-woman, taken these two rooms, and now, at the
+slightly-opened door, proffered a month's rent in advance. What could a
+landlord do but smile? Yet there was a pretext left "the rooms must need
+repairs?"--"No, sir; he could look in and see." Joy! he looked in. All
+was neatness. The floor unbroken, the walls cracked but a little, and
+the cracks closed with new plaster, no doubt by the jealous hand of
+'Sieur George himself Kookoo's eyes swept sharply round the two
+apartments. The furniture was all there. Moreover, there was Monsieur's
+little hair-trunk. He should not soon forget that trunk. One day,
+fifteen years or more before, he had taken hold of that trunk to assist
+Monsieur to arrange his apartment, and Monsieur had drawn his fist back
+and cried to him to "drop it!" _Mais!_ there it was, looking very
+suspicious in Kookoo's eyes, and the lady's domestic, as tidy as a
+yellow-bird, went and sat on it. Could that trunk contain treasure? It
+might, for Madame wanted to shut the door, and, in fact, did so.
+
+The lady was quite handsome--had been more so, but was still
+young--spoke the beautiful language, and kept, in the inner room, her
+discreet and taciturn mulattress, a tall, straight woman, with a fierce
+eye, but called by the young Creoles of the neighborhood "confound' good
+lookin'."
+
+Among _les Americaines_, where the new neighbor always expects to be
+called upon by the older residents, this lady might have made friends in
+spite of being as reserved as 'Sieur George; but the reverse being the
+Creole custom, and she being well pleased to keep her own company, chose
+mystery rather than society.
+
+The poor landlord was sorely troubled; it must not that any thing _de
+trop_ take place in his house. He watched the two rooms narrowly, but
+without result, save to find that Madame plied her needle for pay, spent
+her money for little else besides harpstrings, and took good care of the
+little trunk of Monsieur. This espionage was a good turn to the mistress
+and maid, for when Kookoo announced that all was proper, no more was
+said by outsiders. Their landlord never got but one question answered by
+the middle-aged maid:
+
+"Madame, he feared, was a litt' bit embarrass' _pour_ money, eh?"
+
+"_Non_; Mademoiselle [Mademoiselle, you notice!] had some property, but
+did not want to eat it up."
+
+Sometimes lady-friends came, in very elegant private carriages, to see
+her, and one or two seemed to beg her--but in vain--to go away with
+them; but these gradually dropped off, until lady and servant were alone
+in the world. And so years, and the Mexican war, went by.
+
+The volunteers came home; peace reigned, and the city went on spreading
+up and down the land; but 'Sieur George did not return. It overran the
+country like cocoa-grass. Fields, roads, woodlands, that were once
+'Sieur George's places of retreat from mankind, were covered all over
+with little one-story houses in the "Old Third," and fine residences and
+gardens up in "Lafayette." Streets went slicing like a butcher's knife,
+through old colonial estates, whose first masters never dreamed of the
+city reaching them,--and 'Sieur George was still away. The four-story
+brick got old and ugly, and the surroundings dim and dreamy. Theatres,
+processions, dry-goods stores, government establishments, banks, hotels,
+and all spirit of enterprise were gone to Canal Street and beyond, and
+the very beggars were gone with them. The little trunk got very old and
+bald, and still its owner lingered; still the lady, somewhat the worse
+for lapse of time, looked from the balcony-window in the brief southern
+twilights, and the maid every morning shook a worn rug or two over the
+dangerous-looking railing; and yet neither had made friends or enemies.
+
+The two rooms, from having been stingily kept at first, were needing
+repairs half the time, and the occupants were often moving, now into
+one, now back into the other; yet the hair-trunk was seen only by
+glimpses, the landlord, to his infinite chagrin, always being a little
+too late in offering his services, the women, whether it was light or
+heavy, having already moved it. He thought it significant.
+
+Late one day of a most bitter winter,--that season when, to the ecstatic
+amazement of a whole city-full of children, snow covered the streets
+ankle-deep,--there came a soft tap on the corridor-door of this pair of
+rooms. The lady opened it, and beheld a tall, lank, iron-gray man, a
+total stranger, standing behind--Monsieur George! Both men were
+weather-beaten, scarred, and tattered. Across 'Sieur George's crown,
+leaving a long, bare streak through his white hair, was the souvenir of
+a Mexican sabre.
+
+The landlord had accompanied them to the door: it was a magnificent
+opportunity. Mademoiselle asked them all in, and tried to furnish a seat
+to each; but failing, 'Sieur George went straight across the room and
+_sat on the hair-trunk_. The action was so conspicuous, the landlord
+laid it up in his penetrative mind.
+
+'Sieur George was quiet, or, as it appeared, quieted. The mulattress
+stood near him, and to her he addressed, in an undertone, most of the
+little he said, leaving Mademoiselle to his companion. The stranger was
+a warm talker, and seemed to please the lady from the first; but if he
+pleased, nothing else did. Kookoo, intensely curious, sought some
+pretext for staying, but found none. They were, altogether, an
+uncongenial company. The lady seemed to think Kookoo had no business
+there; 'Sieur George seemed to think the same concerning his companion;
+and the few words between Mademoiselle and 'Sieur George were cool
+enough. The maid appeared nearly satisfied, but could not avoid casting
+an anxious eye at times upon her mistress. Naturally the visit was
+short.
+
+The next day but one the two gentlemen came again in better attire.
+'Sieur George evidently disliked his companion, yet would not rid
+himself of him. The stranger was a gesticulating, stagy fellow, much
+Monsieur's junior, an incessant talker in Creole-French, always excited
+on small matters and unable to appreciate a great one. Once, as they
+were leaving, Kookoo,--accidents will happen,--was under the stairs. As
+they began to descend the tall man was speaking: "--better to bury
+it,"--the startled landlord heard him say, and held his breath, thinking
+of the trunk; but no more was uttered.
+
+A week later they came again.
+
+A week later they came again.
+
+A week later they came yet again!
+
+The landlord's eyes began to open. There must be a courtship in
+progress. It was very plain now why 'Sieur George had wished not to be
+accompanied by the rail gentleman; but since his visits had become
+regular and frequent, it was equally plain why he did not get rid of
+him;--because it would not look well to be going and coming too often
+alone. Maybe it was only this tender passion that the tall man had
+thought "better to bury." Lately there often came sounds of gay
+conversation from the first of the two rooms, which had been turned into
+a parlor; and as, week after week, the friends came down-stairs, the
+tall man was always in high spirits and anxious to embrace 'Sieur
+George, who,--"sly dog," thought the landlord,--would try to look
+grave, and only smiled in an embarrassed way. "Ah! Monsieur, you tink to
+be varry conning; _mais_ you not so conning as Kookoo, no;" and the
+inquisitive little man would shake his head and smile, and shake his
+head again, as a man has a perfect right to do under the conviction that
+he has been for twenty years baffled by a riddle and is learning to read
+it at last; he had guessed what was in 'Sieur George's head, he would by
+and by guess what was in the trunk.
+
+A few months passed quickly away, and it became apparent to every eye in
+or about the ancient mansion that the landlord's guess was not so bad;
+in fact, that Mademoiselle was to be married.
+
+On a certain rainy spring afternoon, a single hired hack drove up to the
+main entrance of the old house, and after some little bustle and the
+gathering of a crowd of damp children about the big doorway, 'Sieur
+George, muffled in a newly-repaired overcoat, jumped out and went
+up-stairs. A moment later he re-appeared, leading Mademoiselle, wreathed
+and veiled, down the stairway. Very fair was Mademoiselle still. Her
+beauty was mature,--fully ripe,--maybe a little too much so, but only a
+little; and as she came down with the ravishing odor of bridal flowers
+floating about her, she seemed the garlanded victim of a pagan
+sacrifice. The mulattress in holiday gear followed behind.
+
+The landlord owed a duty to the community. He arrested the maid on the
+last step: "Your mistress, she goin' _pour marier_ 'Sieur George? It
+make me glad, glad, glad!"
+
+"Marry 'Sieur George? Non, Monsieur."
+
+"Non? Not marrie 'Sieur George? _Mais comment_?"
+
+"She's going to marry the tall gentleman."
+
+"_Diable!_ ze long gentyman!"--With his hands upon his forehead, he
+watched the carriage trundle away. It passed out of sight through the
+rain; he turned to enter the house, and all at once tottered under the
+weight of a tremendous thought--they had left the trunk! He hurled
+himself up-stairs as he had done seven years before, but again--"Ah,
+bah!!"--the door was locked, and not a picayune of rent due.
+
+Late that night a small square man, in a wet overcoat, fumbled his way
+into the damp entrance of the house, stumbled up the cracking stairs,
+unlocked, after many languid efforts, the door of the two rooms, and
+falling over the hair-trunk, slept until the morning sunbeams climbed
+over the balcony and in at the window, and shone full on the back of his
+head. Old Kookoo, passing the door just then, was surprised to find it
+slightly ajar--pushed it open silently, and saw, within, 'Sieur George
+in the act of rising from his knees beside the mysterious trunk! He had
+come back to be once more the tenant of the two rooms.
+
+'Sieur George, for the second time, was a changed man--changed from bad
+to worse; from being retired and reticent, he had come, by reason of
+advancing years, or mayhap that which had left the terrible scar on his
+face, to be garrulous. When, once in a while, employment sought him (for
+he never sought employment), whatever remuneration he received went its
+way for something that left him dingy and threadbare. He now made a
+lively acquaintance with his landlord, as, indeed, with every soul in
+the neighborhood, and told all his adventures in Mexican prisons and
+Cuban cities; including full details of the hardships and perils
+experienced jointly with the "long gentleman" who had married
+Mademoiselle, and who was no Mexican or Cuban, but a genuine
+Louisianian.
+
+"It was he that fancied me," he said, "not I him; but once he had fallen
+in love with me I hadn't the force to cast him off. How Madame ever
+should have liked him was one of those woman's freaks that a man mustn't
+expect to understand. He was no more fit for her than rags are fit for a
+queen; and I could have choked his head off the night he hugged me round
+the neck and told me what a suicide she had committed. But other fine
+women are committing that same folly every day, only they don't wait
+until they're thirty-four or five to do it.--'Why don't I like him?'
+Well, for one reason, he's a drunkard!" Here Kookoo, whose imperfect
+knowledge of English prevented his intelligent reception of the story,
+would laugh as if the joke came in just at this point.
+
+However, with all Monsieur's prattle, he never dropped a word about the
+man he had been before he went away; and the great hair-trunk puzzle was
+still the same puzzle, growing greater every day.
+
+Thus the two rooms had been the scene of some events quite queer, if not
+really strange; but the queerest that ever they presented, I guess, was
+'Sieur George coming in there one day, crying like a little child, and
+bearing in his arms an infant--a girl--the lovely offspring of the
+drunkard whom he so detested, and poor, robbed, spirit-broken and now
+dead Madame. He took good care of the orphan, for orphan she was very
+soon. The long gentleman was pulled out of the Old Basin one morning,
+and 'Sieur George identified the body at the Treme station. He never
+hired a nurse--the father had sold the lady's maid quite out of sight;
+so he brought her through all the little ills and around all the sharp
+corners of baby-life and childhood, without a human hand to help him,
+until one evening, having persistently shut his eyes to it for weeks and
+months, like one trying to sleep in the sunshine, he awoke to the
+realization that she was a woman. It was a smoky one in November, the
+first cool day of autumn. The sunset was dimmed by the smoke of burning
+prairies, the air was full of the ashes of grass and reeds, ragged
+urchins were lugging home sticks of cordwood, and when a bit of coal
+fell from a cart in front of Kookoo's old house, a child was boxed half
+across the street and robbed of the booty by a _blanchisseuse de fin_
+from over the way.
+
+The old man came home quite steady. He mounted the stairs smartly
+without stopping to rest, went with a step unusually light and quiet to
+his chamber and sat by the window opening upon the rusty balcony.
+
+It was a small room, sadly changed from what it had been in old times;
+but then so was 'Sieur George. Close and dark it was, the walls stained
+with dampness and the ceiling full of bald places that showed the
+lathing. The furniture was cheap and meagre, including conspicuously the
+small, curious-looking hair-trunk. The floor was of wide slabs fastened
+down with spikes, and sloping up and down in one or two broad
+undulations, as if they had drifted far enough down the current of time
+to feel the tide-swell.
+
+However, the floor was clean, the bed well made, the cypress table in
+place, and the musty smell of the walls partly neutralized by a geranium
+on the window-sill.
+
+He so coming in and sitting down, an unseen person called from the room
+adjoining (of which, also, he was still the rentee), to know if he were
+he, and being answered in the affirmative, said, "Papa George guess who
+was here to-day?"
+
+"Kookoo, for the rent?"
+
+"Yes, but he will not come back."
+
+"No? why not?"
+
+"Because you will not pay him."
+
+"No? and why not?"
+
+"Because I have paid him."
+
+"Impossible! where did you get the money?"
+
+"Cannot guess?--Mother Nativity."
+
+"What, not for embroidery?"
+
+"No? and why not? _Mais oui!_"--saying which, and with a pleasant laugh,
+the speaker entered the room. She was a girl of sixteen or thereabout,
+very beautiful, with very black hair and eyes. A face and form more
+entirely out of place you could not have found in the whole city. She
+sat herself at his feet, and, with her interlocked hands upon his knee,
+and her face, full of childish innocence mingled with womanly wisdom,
+turned to his, appeared for a time to take principal part in a
+conversation which, of course, could not be overheard in the corridor
+outside.
+
+Whatever was said, she presently rose, he opened his arms, and she sat
+on his knee and kissed him. This done, there was a silence, both smiling
+pensively and gazing out over the rotten balcony into the street. After
+a while she started up, saying something about the change of weather,
+and, slipping away, thrust a match between the bars of the grate. The
+old man turned about to the fire, and she from her little room brought a
+low sewing-chair and sat beside him, laying her head on his knee, and he
+stroking her brow with his brown palm.
+
+And then, in an altered--a low, sad tone--he began a monotonous recital.
+
+Thus they sat, he talking very steadily and she listening, until all the
+neighborhood was wrapped in slumber,--all the neighbors, but not Kookoo.
+
+Kookoo in his old age had become a great eavesdropper; his ear and eye
+took turns at the keyhole that night, for he tells things that were not
+intended for outside hearers. He heard the girl sobbing, and the old man
+saying, "But you must go now. You cannot stay with me safely or
+decently, much as I wish it. The Lord only knows how I'm to bear it, or
+where you're to go; but He's your Lord, child, and He'll make a place
+for you. I was your grandfather's death; I frittered your poor, dead
+mother's fortune away: let that be the last damage I do.
+
+"I have always meant everything for the best," he added half in
+soliloquy.
+
+From all Kookoo could gather, he must have been telling her the very
+story just recounted. She had dropped quite to the floor, hiding her
+face in her hands, and was saying between her sobs, "I cannot go, Papa
+George; oh, Papa George, I cannot go!"
+
+Just then 'Sieur George, kaving kept a good resolution all day, was
+encouraged by the orphan's pitiful tones to contemplate the most
+senseless act he ever attempted to commit. He said to the sobbing girl
+that she was not of his blood; that she was nothing to him by natural
+ties; that his covenant was with her grandsire to care for his
+offspring; and though it had been poorly kept, it might be breaking it
+worse than ever to turn her out upon ever so kind a world.
+
+"I have tried to be good to you all these years. When I took you, a wee
+little baby, I took you for better or worse. I intended to do well by
+you all your childhood-days, and to do best at last. I thought surely we
+should be living well by this time, and you could choose from a world
+full of homes and a world full of friends.
+
+"I don't see how I missed it!" Here he paused a moment in meditation,
+and presently resumed with some suddenness:
+
+"I thought that education, far better than Mother Nativity has given
+you, should have afforded your sweet charms a noble setting; that good
+mothers and sisters would be wanting to count you into their families,
+and that the blossom of a happy womanhood would open perfect and full of
+sweetness.
+
+"I would have given my life for it. I did give it, such as it was; but
+it was a very poor concern, I know--my life--and not enough to buy any
+good thing.
+
+"I have had a thought of something, but I'm afraid to tell it. It didn't
+come to me to-day or yesterday; it has beset me a long time--for
+months."
+
+The girl gazed into the embers, listening intensely.
+
+"And oh! dearie, if I could only get you to think the same way, you
+might stay with me then."
+
+"How long?" she asked, without stirring.
+
+"Oh, is long as heaven should let us. But there is only one chance," he
+said, as it were feeling his way.
+
+"only one way for us to stay together. Do you understand me?"
+
+She looked up at the old man with a glance of painful inquiry.
+
+"If you could be--my wife, dearie?"
+
+She uttered a low, distressful cry, and, gliding swiftly into her room,
+for the first time in her young life turned the key between them.
+
+And the old man sat and wept.
+
+Then Kookoo, peering through the keyhole, saw that they had been looking
+into the little trunk. The lid was up, but the back was toward the door,
+and he could see no more than if it had been closed.
+
+He stooped and stared into the aperture until his dry old knees were
+ready to crack. It seemed as if 'Sieur George was stone, only stone
+couldn't weep like that.
+
+Every separate bone in his neck was hot with pain. He would have given
+ten dollars--ten sweet dollars!--to have seen 'Sieur George get up and
+turn that trunk around.
+
+There! 'Sieur George rose up--what a face!
+
+He started toward the bed, and as he came to the trunk he paused, looked
+at it, muttered something about "ruin," and something about "fortune,"
+kicked the lid down and threw himself across the bed.
+
+Small profit to old Kookoo that he went to his own couch; sleep was not
+for the little landlord. For well-nigh half a century he had suspected
+his tenant of having a treasure hidden in his house, and to-night he had
+heard his own admission that in the little trunk was a fortune. Kookoo
+had never felt so poor in all his days before. He felt a Creole's anger,
+too, that a tenant should be the holder of wealth while his landlord
+suffered poverty.
+
+And he knew very well, too, did Kookoo, what the tenant would do. If he
+did not know what he kept in the trunk, he knew what he kept behind it,
+and he knew he would take enough of it to-night to make him sleep
+soundly.
+
+No one would ever have supposed Kookoo capable of a crime. He was too
+fearfully impressed with the extra-hazardous risks of dishonesty; he was
+old, too, and weak, and, besides all, intensely a coward. Nevertheless,
+while it was yet two or three hours before daybreak, the sleep-forsaken
+little man arose, shuffled into his garments, and in his stocking-feet
+sought the corridor leading to 'Sieur George's apartment. The November
+night, as it often does in that region, had grown warm and clear; the
+stars were sparkling like diamonds pendent in the deep blue heavens, and
+at every window and lattice and cranny the broad, bright moon poured
+down its glittering beams upon the hoary-headed thief, as he crept along
+the mouldering galleries and down the ancient corridor that led to
+'Sieur George's chamber.
+
+'Sieur George's door, though ever so slowly opened, protested with a
+loud creak. The landlord, wet with cold sweat from head to foot, and
+shaking till the floor trembled, paused for several minutes, and then
+entered the moon-lit apartment. The tenant, lying as if he had not
+moved, was sleeping heavily. And now the poor coward trembled so, that
+to kneel before the trunk, without falling, he did not know how. Twice,
+thrice, he was near tumbling headlong. He became as cold as ice. But the
+sleeper stirred, and the thought of losing his opportunity strung his
+nerves up in an instant. He went softly down upon his knees, laid his
+hands upon the lid, lifted it, and let in the intense moonlight. The
+trunk was full, full, crowded down and running over full, of the tickets
+of the Havana Lottery!
+
+A little after daybreak, Kookoo from his window saw the orphan, pausing
+on the corner. She stood for a moment, and then dove into the dense fog
+which had floated in from the river, and disappeared. He never saw her
+again.
+
+But her Lord is taking care of her. Once only she has seen 'Sieur
+George. She had been in the belvedere of the house which she now calls
+home, looking down upon the outspread city. Far away southward and
+westward the great river glistened in the sunset. Along its sweeping
+bends the chimneys of a smoking commerce, the magazines of surplus
+wealth, the gardens of the opulent, the steeples of a hundred
+sanctuaries and thousands on thousands of mansions and hovels covered
+the fertile birthright arpents which 'Sieur George, in his fifty years'
+stay, had seen tricked away from dull colonial Esaus by their blue-eyed
+brethren of the North. Nearer by she looked upon the forlornly silent
+region of lowly dwellings, neglected by legislation and shunned by all
+lovers of comfort, that once had been the smiling fields of her own
+grandsire's broad plantation; and but a little way off, trudging across
+the marshy commons, her eye caught sight of 'Sieur George following the
+sunset out upon the prairies to find a night's rest in the high grass.
+
+She turned at once, gathered the skirt of her pink calico uniform, and,
+watching her steps through her tears, descended the steep winding-stair
+to her frequent kneeling-place under the fragrant candles of the
+chapel-altar in Mother Nativity's asylum.
+
+'Sieur George is houseless. He cannot find the orphan. Mother Nativity
+seems to know nothing of her. If he could find her now, and could get
+from her the use of ten dollars for but three days, he knows a
+combination which would repair all the past; it could not fail,
+he--thinks. But he cannot find her, and the letters he writes--all
+containing the one scheme--disappear in the mail-box, and there's an
+end.
+
+
+
+
+
+MADAME DELICIEUSE
+
+
+Just adjoining the old Cafe de Poesie on the corner, stood the little
+one-story, yellow-washed tenement of Dr. Mossy, with its two glass doors
+protected by batten shutters, and its low, weed-grown tile roof sloping
+out over the sidewalk. You were very likely to find the Doctor in, for
+he was a great student and rather negligent of his business--as
+business. He was a small, sedate, Creole gentleman of thirty or more,
+with a young-old face and manner that provoked instant admiration. He
+would receive you--be you who you may--in a mild, candid manner, looking
+into your face with his deep blue eyes, and re-assuring you with a
+modest, amiable smile, very sweet and rare on a man's mouth.
+
+To be frank, the Doctor's little establishment was dusty and
+disorderly--very. It was curious to see the jars, and jars, and jars. In
+them were serpents and hideous fishes and precious specimens of many
+sorts. There were stuffed birds on broken perches; and dried lizards,
+and eels, and little alligators, and old skulls with their crowns sawed
+off, and ten thousand odd scraps of writing-paper strewn with crumbs of
+lonely lunches, and interspersed with long-lost spatulas and rust-eaten
+lancets.
+
+All New Orleans, at least all Creole New Orleans, knew, and yet did not
+know, the dear little Doctor. So gentle, so kind, so skilful, so
+patient, so lenient; so careless of the rich and so attentive to the
+poor; a man, all in all, such as, should you once love him, you would
+love him forever. So very learned, too, but with apparently no idea of
+how to _show himself_ to his social profit,--two features much more
+smiled at than respected, not to say admired, by a people remote from
+the seats of learning, and spending most of their esteem upon animal
+heroisms and exterior display.
+
+"Alas!" said his wealthy acquaintances, "what a pity; when he might as
+well be rich."
+
+"Yes, his father has plenty."
+
+"Certainly, and gives it freely. But intends his son shall see none of
+it."
+
+"His son? You dare not so much as mention him."
+
+"Well, well, how strange! But they can never agree--not even upon their
+name. Is not that droll?--a man named General Villivicencio, and his
+son, Dr. Mossy!"
+
+"Oh, that is nothing; it is only that the Doctor drops the _de
+Villivicencio_."
+
+"Drops the _de Villivicencio?_ but I think the _de Villivicencio_ drops
+him, ho, ho, ho,--_diable!_"
+
+Next to the residence of good Dr. Mossy towered the narrow,
+red-brick-front mansion of young Madame Delicieuse, firm friend at once
+and always of those two antipodes, General Villivicencio and Dr. Mossy.
+Its dark, covered carriage-way was ever rumbling, and, with nightfall,
+its drawing-rooms always sent forth a luxurious light from the
+lace-curtained windows of the second-story balconies.
+
+It was one of the sights of the Rue Royale to see by night its tall,
+narrow outline reaching high up toward the stars, with all its windows
+aglow.
+
+The Madame had had some tastes of human experience; had been betrothed
+at sixteen (to a man she did not love, "being at that time a fool," as
+she said); one summer day at noon had been a bride, and at sundown--a
+widow. Accidental discharge of the tipsy bridegroom's own pistol. Pass
+it by! It left but one lasting effect on her, a special detestation of
+quarrels and weapons.
+
+The little maidens whom poor parentage has doomed to sit upon street
+door-sills and nurse their infant brothers have a game of "choosing" the
+beautiful ladies who sweep by along the pavement; but in Rue Royale
+there was no choosing; every little damsel must own Madame Delicieuse or
+nobody, and as that richly adorned and regal favorite of old General
+Villivicencio came along they would lift their big, bold eyes away up to
+her face and pour forth their admiration in a universal--"Ah-h-h-h!"
+
+But, mark you, she was good Madame Delicieuse as well as fair Madame
+Delicieuse: her principles, however, not constructed in the austere
+Anglo-Saxon style, exactly (what need, with the lattice of the
+Confessional not a stone's throw off?). Her kind offices and beneficent
+schemes were almost as famous as General Villivicencio's splendid alms;
+if she could at times do what the infantile Washington said he could
+not, why, no doubt she and her friends generally looked upon it as a
+mere question of enterprise.
+
+She had charms, too, of intellect--albeit not such a sinner against time
+and place as to be an "educated woman"--charms that, even in a plainer
+person, would have brought down the half of New Orleans upon one knee,
+with both hands on the left side. _She_ had the _whole_ city at her
+feet, and, with the fine tact which was the perfection of her character,
+kept it there contented. Madame was, in short, one of the kind that
+gracefully wrest from society the prerogative of doing as they please,
+and had gone even to such extravagant lengths as driving out in the
+_Americain_ faubourg, learning the English tongue, talking national
+politics, and similar freaks whereby she provoked the unbounded worship
+of her less audacious lady friends. In the centre of the cluster of
+Creole beauties which everywhere gathered about her, and, most of all,
+in those incomparable companies which assembled in her own splendid
+drawing-rooms, she was always queen lily. Her house, her drawing-rooms,
+etc.; for the little brown aunt who lived with her was a mere piece of
+curious furniture.
+
+There was this notable charm about Madame Delicieuse, she improved by
+comparison. She never looked so grand as when, hanging on General
+Villivicencio's arm at some gorgeous ball, these two bore down on you
+like a royal barge lashed to a ship-of-the-line. She never looked so
+like her sweet name, as when she seated her prettiest lady adorers close
+around her, and got them all a-laughing.
+
+Of the two balconies which overhung the _banquette_ on the front of the
+Delicieuse house, one was a small affair, and the other a deeper and
+broader one, from which Madame and her ladies were wont upon gala days
+to wave handkerchiefs and cast flowers to the friends in the
+processions. There they gathered one Eighth of January morning to see
+the military display. It was a bright blue day, and the group that quite
+filled the balcony had laid wrappings aside, as all flower-buds are apt
+to do on such Creole January days, and shone resplendent in spring
+attire.
+
+The sight-seers passing below looked up by hundreds and smiled at the
+ladies' eager twitter, as, flirting in humming-bird fashion from one
+subject to another, they laughed away the half-hours waiting for the
+pageant. By and by they fell a-listening, for Madame Delicieuse had
+begun a narrative concerning Dr. Mossy. She sat somewhat above her
+listeners, her elbow on the arm of her chair, and her plump white hand
+waving now and then in graceful gesture, they silently attending with
+eyes full of laughter and lips starting apart.
+
+"_Vous savez_," she said (they conversed in French of course), "you know
+it is now long that Dr. Mossy and his father have been in disaccord.
+Indeed, when have they not differed? For, when Mossy was but a little
+boy, his father thought it hard that he was not a rowdy. He switched him
+once because he would not play with his toy gun and drum. He was not so
+high when his father wished to send him to Paris to enter the French
+army; but he would not go. We used to play often together on the
+_banquette_--for I am not so very many years younger than he, no
+indeed--and, if I wanted some fun, I had only to pull his hair and run
+into the house; he would cry, and monsieur papa would come out with his
+hand spread open and"--
+
+Madame gave her hand a malicious little sweep, and Joined heartily in
+the laugh which followed.
+
+"That was when they lived over the way. But wait! you shall see: I have
+something. This evening the General"--
+
+The houses of Rue Royale gave a start and rattled their windows. In the
+long, irregular line of balconies the beauty of the city rose up. Then
+the houses jumped again and the windows rattled; Madame steps inside the
+window and gives a message which the housemaid smiles at in receiving.
+As she turns the houses shake again, and now again; and now there comes
+a distant strain of trumpets, and by and by the drums and bayonets and
+clattering hoofs, and plumes and dancing banners; far down the long
+street stretch out the shining ranks of gallant men, and the fluttering,
+over-leaning swarms of ladies shower down their sweet favors and wave
+their countless welcomes.
+
+In the front, towering above his captains, rides General Villivicencio,
+veteran of 1814-15, and, with the gracious pomp of the old-time
+gentleman, lifts his cocked hat, and bows, and bows.
+
+Madame Delicieuse's balcony was a perfect maze of waving kerchiefs. The
+General looked up for the woman of all women; she was not there. But he
+remembered the other balcony, the smaller one, and cast his glance
+onward to it. There he saw Madame and one other person only. A small
+blue-eyed, broad-browed, scholarly-looking man whom the arch lady had
+lured from his pen by means of a mock professional summons, and who now
+stood beside her, a smile of pleasure playing on his lips and about his
+eyes.
+
+"_Vite!_" said Madame, as the father's eyes met the son's. Dr. Mossy
+lifted his arm and cast a bouquet of roses. A girl in the crowd bounded
+forward, caught it in the air, and, blushing, handed it to the plumed
+giant. He bowed low, first to the girl, then to the balcony above; and
+then, with a responsive smile, tossed up two splendid kisses, one to
+Madame, and one, it seemed--
+
+"For what was that cheer?"
+
+"Why, did you not see? General Villivicencio cast a kiss to his son."
+
+The staff of General Villivicencio were a faithful few who had not bowed
+the knee to any abomination of the Americains, nor sworn deceitfully to
+any species of compromise; their beloved city was presently to pass into
+the throes of an election, and this band, heroically unconscious of
+their feebleness, putting their trust in "re-actions" and like
+delusions, resolved to make one more stand for the traditions of their
+fathers. It was concerning this that Madame Delicieuse was incidentally
+about to speak when interrupted by the boom of cannon; they had promised
+to meet at her house that evening.
+
+They met. With very little discussion or delay (for their minds were
+made up beforehand), it was decided to announce in the French-English
+newspaper that, at a meeting of leading citizens, it had been thought
+consonant with the public interest to place before the people the name
+of General Hercule Mossy de Villivicencio. No explanation was considered
+necessary. All had been done in strict accordance with time-honored
+customs, and if any one did not know it it was his own fault. No
+eulogium was to follow, no editorial indorsement. The two announcements
+were destined to stand next morning, one on the English side and one on
+the French, in severe simplicity, to be greeted with profound
+gratification by a few old gentlemen in blue cottonade, and by roars of
+laughter from a rampant majority.
+
+As the junto were departing, sparkling Madame Delicieuse detained the
+General at the head of the stairs that descended into the tiled
+carriage-way, to wish she was a man, that she might vote for him.
+
+"But, General," she said, "had I not a beautiful bouquet of ladies on my
+balcony this morning?"
+
+The General replied, with majestic gallantry, that "it was as
+magnificent as could be expected with the central rose wanting." And so
+Madame was disappointed, for she was trying to force the General to
+mention his son. "I will bear this no longer; he shall not rest," she
+had said to her little aunt, "until he has either kissed his son or
+quarrelled with him."
+
+To which the aunt had answered that, "_coute que coute_, she need not
+cry about it;" nor did she. Though the General's compliment had foiled
+her thrust, she answered gayly to the effect that enough was enough;
+"but, ah! General," dropping her voice to an undertone, "if you had
+heard what some of those rosebuds said of you!"
+
+The old General pricked up like a country beau. Madame laughed to
+herself, "Monsieur Peacock, I have thee;" but aloud she said gravely:
+
+"Come into the drawing-room, if you please, and seat yourself. You must
+be greatly fatigued."
+
+The friends who waited below overheard the invitation.
+
+"_Au revoir, General_," said they.
+
+"_Au revoir, Messieurs,_" he answered, and followed the lady.
+
+"General," said she, as if her heart were overflowing, "you have been
+spoken against. Please sit down."
+
+"Is that true, Madame?"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+She sank into a luxurious chair.
+
+"A lady said to-day--but you will be angry with me, General."
+
+"With you, Madame? That is not possible."
+
+"I do not love to make revelations, General; but when a noble friend is
+evil spoken of"--she leaned her brow upon her thumb and forefinger, and
+looked pensively at her slipper's toe peeping out at the edge of her
+skirt on the rich carpet--"one's heart gets very big."
+
+"Madame, you are an angel! But what said she, Madame?"
+
+"Well, General, I have to tell you the whole truth, if you will not be
+angry. We were all speaking at once of handsome men. She said to me:
+'Well, Madame Delicieuse, you may say what you will of General
+Villivicencio, and I suppose it is true; but everybody knows'--pardon
+me, General, but just so she said--'all the world knows he treats his
+son very badly.'"
+
+"It is not true," said the General.
+
+"If I wasn't angry!" said Madame, making a pretty fist. 'How can that
+be?' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'mamma says he has been angry with his
+son for fifteen years.' 'But what did his son do?' I said. 'Nothing,'
+said she. '_Ma foi_,' I said, 'me, I too would be angry if my son had
+done nothing for fifteen years'--ho, ho, ho!"
+
+"It is not true," said the General.
+
+The old General cleared his throat, and smiled as by compulsion.
+
+"You know, General," said Madame, looking distressed, "it was nothing to
+joke about, but I had to say so, because I did not know what your son
+had done, nor did I wish to hear any thing against one who has the honor
+to call you his father."
+
+She paused a moment to let the flattery take effect, and then proceeded:
+
+"But then another lady said to me; she said, 'For shame, Clarisse, to
+laugh at good Dr. Mossy; nobody--neither General Villivicencio, neither
+any other, has a right to be angry against that noble, gentle, kind,
+brave'"--
+
+"Brave!" said the General, with a touch of irony. "So she said,"
+answered Madame Delicieuse, "and I asked her, 'how brave?' 'Brave?' she
+said, 'why, braver than _any soldier_, in tending the small-pox, the
+cholera, the fevers, and all those horrible things. Me, I saw his father
+once run from a snake; I think _he_ wouldn't fight the small-pox--my
+faith!' she said, 'they say that Dr. Mossy does all that and never wears
+a scapula!--and does it nine hundred and ninety-nine times in a thousand
+for nothing! _Is_ that brave, Madame Delicieuse, or is it not?'--And,
+General,--what could I say?"
+
+Madame dropped her palms on either side of her spreading robes and
+waited pleadingly for an answer. There was no sound but the drumming of
+the General's fingers on his sword-hilt. Madame resumed:
+
+"I said, 'I do not deny that Mossy is a noble gentleman;'--I had to say
+that, had I not, General?"
+
+"Certainly, Madame," said the General, "my son is a gentleman, yes."
+
+"'But,' I said, 'he should not make Monsieur, his father, angry.'"
+
+"True," said the General, eagerly.
+
+"But that lady said: 'Monsieur, his father, makes himself angry,' she
+said. 'Do you know, Madame, why his father is angry so long?' Another
+lady says, 'I know!' 'For what?' said I. 'Because he refused to become a
+soldier; mamma told me that.' 'It cannot be!' I said."
+
+The General flushed. Madame saw it, but relentlessly continued:
+
+"'_Mais oui_,' said that lady. 'What!' I said, 'think you General
+Villivicencio will not rather be the very man most certain to respect a
+son who has the courage to be his own master? Oh, what does he want with
+a poor fool of a son who will do only as he says? You think he will love
+him less for healing instead of killing? Mesdemoiselles, you do not know
+that noble soldier!'"
+
+The noble soldier glowed, and bowed his acknowledgments in a dubious,
+half remonstrative way, as if Madame might be producing material for her
+next confession, as, indeed, she diligently was doing; but she went
+straight on once more, as a surgeon would.
+
+"But that other lady said: 'No, Madame, no, ladies, but I am going to
+tell you why Monsieur, the General, is angry with his son.' 'Very well,
+why?'--'Why? It is just--because--he is--a little man!'"
+
+General Villivicencio stood straight up.
+
+"Ah! mon ami," cried the lady, rising excitedly, "I have wounded you and
+made you angry, with my silly revelations. Pardon me, my friend. Those
+were foolish girls, and, anyhow, they admired you. They said you looked
+glorious--grand--at the head of the procession."
+
+Now, all at once, the General felt the tremendous fatigues of the day;
+there was a wild, swimming, whirling sensation in his head that forced
+him to let his eyelids sink down; yet, just there, in the midst of his
+painful bewilderment, he realized with ecstatic complacency that the
+most martial-looking man in Louisiana was standing in his spurs with the
+hand of Louisiana's queenliest woman laid tenderly on his arm.
+
+"I am a wretched tattler!" said she.
+
+"Ah! no, Madame, you are my dearest friend, yes.'
+
+"Well, anyhow, I called them fools. 'Ah! innocent creatures,' I said,
+'think you a man of his sense and goodness, giving his thousands to the
+sick and afflicted, will cease to love his only son because he is not
+big like a horse or quarrelsome like a dog? No, ladies, there is a great
+reason which none of you know.' 'Well, well,' they cried, 'tell it; he
+has need of a very good reason; tell it now.' 'My ladies,' I said, 'I
+must not'--for, General, for all the world I knew not a reason why you
+should be angry against your son; you know, General, you have never told
+me."
+
+The beauty again laid her hand on his arm and gazed, with round-eyed
+simplicity, into his sombre countenance. For an instant her witchery had
+almost conquered.
+
+"Nay, Madame, some day I shall tell you; I have more than one burden
+_here_. But let me ask you to be seated, for I have a question, also,
+for you, which I have longed to ask. It lies heavily upon my heart; I
+must ask it now. A matter of so great importance"--
+
+Madame's little brown aunt gave a faint cough from a dim corner of the
+room.
+
+"'Tis a beautiful night," she remarked, and stepped out on the balcony.
+
+Then the General asked his question. It was a very long question, or,
+maybe, repeated twice or thrice; for it was fully ten minutes before he
+moved out of the room, saying good-evening.
+
+Ah! old General Villivicencio. The most martial-looking man in
+Louisiana! But what would the people, the people who cheered in the
+morning, have said, to see the fair Queen Delicieuse at the top of the
+stair, sweetly bowing you down into the starlight,--humbled,
+crestfallen, rejected!
+
+The campaign opened. The Villivicencio ticket was read in French and
+English with the very different sentiments already noted. In the
+Exchange, about the courts, among the "banks," there was lively talking
+concerning its intrinsic excellence and extrinsic chances. The young
+gentlemen who stood about the doors of the so-called "coffee-houses"
+talked with a frantic energy alarming to any stranger, and just when you
+would have expected to see them jump and bite large mouthfuls out of
+each other's face, they would turn and enter the door, talking on in the
+same furious manner, and, walking up to the bar, click their glasses to
+the success of the Villivicencio ticket. Sundry swarthy and wrinkled
+remnants of an earlier generation were still more enthusiastic. There
+was to be a happy renaissance; a purging out of Yankee ideas; a blessed
+home-coming of those good old Bourbon morals and manners which Yankee
+notions had expatriated. In the cheerfulness of their anticipations they
+even went the length of throwing their feet high in air, thus indicating
+how the Villivicencio ticket was going to give "doze Americains" the
+kick under the nose.
+
+In the three or four weeks which followed, the General gathered a
+surfeit of adulation, notwithstanding which he was constantly and with
+pain imagining a confused chatter of ladies, and when he shut his eyes
+with annoyance, there was Madame Delicieuse standing, and saying, "I
+knew not a reason why you should be angry against your son," gazing in
+his face with hardened simplicity, and then--that last scene on the
+stairs wherein he seemed still to be descending, down, down.
+
+Madame herself was keeping good her resolution.
+
+"Now or never," she said, "a reconciliation or a quarrel."
+
+When the General, to keep up appearances, called again, she so moved him
+with an account of certain kindly speeches of her own invention, which
+she imputed to Dr. Mossy, that he promised to call and see his son;
+"perhaps;" "pretty soon;" "probably."
+
+Dr. Mossy, sitting one February morning among his specimens and books of
+reference, finishing a thrilling chapter on the cuticle, too absorbed to
+hear a door open, suddenly realized that something was in his light,
+and, looking up, beheld General Villivicencio standing over him.
+Breathing a pleased sigh, he put down his pen, and, rising on tiptoe,
+laid his hand upon his father's shoulder, and lifting his lips like a
+little wife, kissed him.
+
+"Be seated, papa," he said, offering his own chair, and perching on the
+desk.
+
+The General took it, and, clearing his throat, gazed around upon the
+jars and jars with their little Adams and Eves in zooelogical gardens.
+
+"Is all going well, papa?" finally asked Dr. Mossy.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then there was a long pause.
+
+"'Tis a beautiful day," said the son.
+
+"Very beautiful," rejoined the father.
+
+"I thought there would have been a rain, but it has cleared off," said
+the son.
+
+"Yes," responded the father, and drummed on the desk.
+
+"Does it appear to be turning cool?" asked the son.
+
+"No; it does not appear to be turning cool at all," was the answer.
+
+"H'm 'm!" said Dr. Mossy.
+
+"Hem!" said General Villivicencio.
+
+Dr. Mossy, not realizing his own action, stole a glance at his
+manuscript.
+
+"I am interrupting you," said the General, quickly, and rose.
+
+"No, no! pardon me; be seated; it gives me great pleasure to--I did not
+know what I was doing. It is the work with which I fill my leisure
+moments."
+
+So the General settled down again, and father and son sat very close to
+each other--in a bodily sense; spiritually they were many miles apart.
+The General's finger-ends, softly tapping the desk, had the sound of
+far-away drums.
+
+"The city--it is healthy?" asked the General.
+
+"Did you ask me if"--said the little Doctor, starting and looking up.
+
+"The city--it has not much sickness at present?" repeated the father.
+
+"No, yes--not much," said Mossy, and, with utter unconsciousness, leaned
+down upon his elbow and supplied an omitted word to the manuscript.
+
+The General was on his feet as if by the touch of a spring.
+
+"I must go!"
+
+"Ah! no, papa," said the son.
+
+"But, yes, I must."
+
+"But wait, papa, I had just now something to speak of"--
+
+"Well?" said the General, standing with his hand on the door, and with
+rather a dark countenance.
+
+Dr. Mossy touched his fingers to his forehead, trying to remember.
+
+"I fear I have--ah! I rejoice to see your name before the public, dear
+papa, and at the head of the ticket."
+
+The General's displeasure sank down like an eagle's feathers. He smiled
+thankfully, and bowed.
+
+"My friends compelled me," he said.
+
+"They think you will be elected?"
+
+"They will not doubt it. But what think you, my son?"
+
+Now the son had a conviction which it would have been madness to
+express, so he only said:
+
+"They could not elect one more faithful."
+
+The General bowed solemnly.
+
+"Perhaps the people will think so; my friends believe they will."
+
+"Your friends who have used your name should help you as much as they
+can, papa," said the Doctor. "Myself, I should like to assist you, papa,
+if I could."
+
+"A-bah!" said the pleased father, incredulously.
+
+"But, yes," said the son.
+
+A thrill of delight filled the General's frame. _This_ was like a son.
+
+"Thank you, my son! I thank you much. Ah, Mossy, my dear boy, you make
+me happy!"
+
+"But," added Mossy, realizing with a tremor how far he had gone, "I see
+not how it is possible."
+
+The General's chin dropped.
+
+"Not being a public man," continued the Doctor; "unless, indeed, my
+pen--you might enlist my pen."
+
+He paused with a smile of bashful inquiry. The General stood aghast for
+a moment, and then caught the idea.
+
+"Certainly! cer-tain-ly! ha, ha, ha!"--backing out of the
+door--"certainly! Ah! Mossy, you are right, to be sure; to make a
+complete world we must have swords _and_ pens. Well, my son, '_au
+revoir;_' no, I cannot stay--I will return. I hasten to tell my friends
+that the pen of Dr. Mossy is on our side! Adieu, dear son."
+
+Standing outside on the _banquette_ he bowed--not to Dr. Mossy, but to
+the balcony of the big red-brick front--a most sunshiny smile, and
+departed.
+
+The very next morning, as if fate had ordered it, the Villivicencio
+ticket was attacked--ambushed, as it were, from behind the Americain
+newspaper. The onslaught was--at least General Villivicencio said it
+was--absolutely ruffianly. Never had all the lofty courtesies and
+formalities of chivalric contest been so completely ignored. Poisoned
+balls--at least personal epithets--were used. The General himself was
+called "antiquated!" The friends who had nominated him, they were
+positively sneered at; dubbed "fossils," "old ladies," and their caucus
+termed "irresponsible"--thunder and lightning! gentlemen of honor to be
+termed "not responsible!" It was asserted that the nomination was made
+secretly, in a private house, by two or three unauthorized harum-scarums
+(that touched the very bone) who had with more caution than propriety
+withheld their names. The article was headed, "The Crayfish-eaters'
+Ticket." It continued further to say that, had not the publication of
+this ticket been regarded as a dull hoax, it would not have been
+suffered to pass for two weeks unchallenged, and that it was now high
+time the universal wish should be realized in its withdrawal.
+
+Among the earliest readers of this production was the young Madame. She
+first enjoyed a quiet gleeful smile over it, and then called:
+
+"Ninide, here, take this down to Dr. Mossy--stop." She marked the
+communication heavily with her gold pencil. "No answer; he need not
+return it."
+
+About the same hour, and in a neighboring street, one of the "not
+responsibles" knocked on the Villivicencio castle gate. The General
+invited him into his bedroom. With a short and strictly profane harangue
+the visitor produced the offensive newspaper, and was about to begin
+reading, when one of those loud nasal blasts, so peculiar to the Gaul,
+resounded at the gate, and another "not responsible" entered, more
+excited, if possible, than the first. Several minutes were spent in
+exchanging fierce sentiments and slapping the palm of the left hand
+rapidly with the back of the right. Presently there was a pause for
+breath.
+
+"Alphonse, proceed to read," said the General, sitting up in bed.
+
+"De Crayfish-eaters' Ticket"--began Alphonse; but a third rapping at the
+gate interrupted him, and a third "irresponsible" re-enforced their
+number, talking loudly and wildly to the waiting-man as he came up the
+hall.
+
+Finally, Alphonse read the article. Little by little the incensed
+gentlemen gave it a hearing, now two words and now three, interrupting
+it to rip out long, rasping maledictions, and wag their forefingers at
+each other as they strode ferociously about the apartment.
+
+As Alphonse reached the close, and dashed the paper to the floor, the
+whole quartet, in terrific unison, cried for the blood of the editor.
+
+But hereupon the General spoke with authority.
+
+"No, Messieurs," he said, buttoning his dressing-gown, savagely, "you
+shall not fight him. I forbid it--you shall not!"
+
+"But," cried the three at once, "one of us must fight, and you--you
+cannot; if _you_ fight our cause is lost! The candidate must not fight."
+
+"Hah-h! Messieurs," cried the hero, beating his breast and lifting his
+eyes, "_grace au ciel_. I have a son. Yes, my beloved friends, a son who
+shall call the villain out and make him pay for his impudence with
+blood, or eat his words in to-morrow morning's paper. Heaven be thanked
+that gave me a son for this occasion! I shall see him at once--as soon
+as I can dress."
+
+"We will go with you."
+
+"No, gentlemen, let me see my son alone. I can meet you at Maspero's in
+two hours. Adieu, my dear friends."
+
+He was resolved.
+
+"_Au, revoir,_," said the dear friends.
+
+Shortly after, cane in hand, General Villivicencio moved with an ireful
+stride up the _banquette_ of Rue Royale. Just as he passed the red-brick
+front one of the batten shutters opened the faintest bit, and a certain
+pair of lovely eyes looked after him, without any of that round
+simplicity which we have before discovered in them. As he half turned to
+knock at his son's door he glanced at this very shutter, but it was as
+tightly closed as though the house were an enchanted palace.
+
+Dr. Mossy's door, on the contrary, swung ajar when he knocked, and the
+General entered.
+
+"Well, my son, have you seen that newspaper? No, I think not. I _see_
+you have not, since your cheeks are not red with shame and anger."
+
+Dr. Mossy looked up with astonishment from the desk where he sat
+writing.
+
+"What is that, papa?"
+
+"My faith! Mossy, is it possible you have not heard of the attack upon
+me, which has surprised and exasperated the city this morning?"
+
+"No," said Dr. Mossy, with still greater surprise, and laying his hand
+on the arm of his chair.
+
+His father put on a dying look. "My soul!" At that moment his glance
+fell upon the paper which had been sent in by Madame Delicieuse. "But,
+Mossy, my son," he screamed, "_there_ it is!" striking it rapidly with
+one finger--"there! there! there! read it! It calls me 'not
+responsible!' 'not responsible' it calls me! Read! read!"
+
+"But, papa," said the quiet little Doctor, rising, and accepting the
+crumpled paper thrust at him, "I have read this. If this is it, well,
+then, already I am preparing to respond to it."
+
+The General seized him violently, and, spreading a suffocating kiss on
+his face, sealed it with an affectionate oath.
+
+"Ah, Mossy, my boy, you are glorious! You had begun already to write!
+You are glorious! Read to me what you have written, my son."
+
+The Doctor took up a bit of manuscript, and resuming his chair, began:
+
+"MESSRS. EDITORS: On your journal of this morning"--
+
+"Eh! how! you have not written it in English, is it, son?"
+
+"But, yes, papa."
+
+"'Tis a vile tongue," said the General; "but, if it is
+necessary--proceed."
+
+"MESSRS. EDITORS: On your journal of this morning is published an
+editorial article upon the Villivicencio ticket, which is plentiful and
+abundant with mistakes. Who is the author or writer of the above said
+editorial article your correspondent does at present ignore, but doubts
+not he is one who, hasty to form an opinion, will yet, however, make his
+assent to the correction of some errors and mistakes which"--
+
+"Bah!" cried the General.
+
+Dr. Mossy looked up, blushing crimson.
+
+"Bah!" cried the General, still more forcibly. "Betise!"
+
+"How?" asked the gentle son.
+
+"'Tis all nonsent!" cried the General, bursting into English. "Hall you
+'ave to say is: ''Sieur Editeurs! I want you s'all give de nem of de
+indignan' scoundrel who meek some lies on you' paper about mon Pere et
+ses amis!"
+
+"Ah-h!" said Dr. Mossy, in a tone of derision and anger.
+
+His father gazed at him in mute astonishment. He stood beside his
+disorderly little desk, his small form drawn up, a hand thrust into his
+breast, and that look of invincibility in his eyes such as blue eyes
+sometimes surprise us with.
+
+"You want me to fight," he said.
+
+"My faith!" gasped the General, loosening in all his joints. "I
+believe--you may cut me in pieces if I do not believe you were going to
+reason it out in the newspaper! Fight? If I want you to fight? Upon my
+soul, I believe you do not want to fight!"
+
+"No," said Mossy.
+
+"My God!" whispered the General. His heart seemed to break.
+
+"Yes," said the steadily gazing Doctor, his lips trembling as he opened
+them. "Yes, your God. I am afraid"--
+
+"Afraid!" gasped the General.
+
+"Yes," rang out the Doctor, "afraid; afraid! God forbid that I should
+not be afraid. But I will tell you what I do not fear--I do not fear to
+call your affairs of honor--murder!"
+
+"My son!" cried the father.
+
+"I retract," cried the son; "consider it unsaid. I will never reproach
+my father."
+
+"It is well," said the father. "I was wrong. It is my quarrel. I go to
+settle it myself."
+
+Dr. Mossy moved quickly between his father and the door. General
+Villivicencio stood before him utterly bowed down.
+
+"What will you?" sadly demanded the old man.
+
+"Papa," said the son, with much tenderness, "I cannot permit you.
+Fifteen years we were strangers, and yesterday were friends. You must
+not leave me so. I will even settle this quarrel for you. You must let
+me. I am pledged to your service."
+
+The peace-loving little doctor did not mean "to settle," but "to
+adjust." He felt in an instant that he was misunderstood; yet, as quiet
+people are apt to do, though not wishing to deceive, he let the
+misinterpretation stand. In his embarrassment he did not know with
+absolute certainty what he should do himself.
+
+The father's face--he thought of but one way to settle a quarrel--began
+instantly to brighten. "I would myself do it," he said, apologetically,
+"but my friends forbid it."
+
+"And so do I," said the Doctor, "but I will go myself now, and will not
+return until all is finished. Give me the paper."
+
+"My son, I do not wish to compel you."
+
+There was something acid in the Doctor's smile as he answered:
+
+"No; but give me the paper, if you please."
+
+The General handed it.
+
+"Papa," said the son, "you must wait here for my return."
+
+"But I have an appointment at Maspero's at"--
+
+"I will call and make excuse for you," said the son.
+
+"Well," consented the almost happy father, "go, my son; I will stay. But
+if some of your sick shall call?"
+
+"Sit quiet," said the son. "They will think no one is here." And the
+General noticed that the dust lay so thick on the panes that a person
+outside would have to put his face close to the glass to see within.
+
+In the course of half an hour the Doctor had reached the newspaper
+office, thrice addressed himself to the wrong person, finally found the
+courteous editor, and easily convinced him that his father had been
+imposed upon; but when Dr. Mossy went farther, and asked which one of
+the talented editorial staff had written the article:
+
+"You see, Doctor," said the editor--"just step into my private office a
+moment."
+
+They went in together. The next minute saw Dr. Mossy departing hurriedly
+from the place, while the editor complacently resumed his pen, assured
+that he would not return.
+
+General Villivicencio sat and waited among the serpents and innocents.
+His spirits began to droop again. Revolving Mossy's words, he could not
+escape the fear that possibly, after all, his son might compromise the
+Villivicencio honor in the interests of peace. Not that he preferred to
+put his son's life in jeopardy; he would not object to an adjustment,
+provided the enemy should beg for it. But if not, whom would his son
+select to perform those friendly offices indispensable in polite
+quarrels? Some half-priest, half-woman? Some spectacled book-worm? He
+suffered.
+
+The monotony of his passive task was relieved by one or two callers who
+had the sagacity (or bad manners) to peer through the dirty glass, and
+then open the door, to whom, half rising from his chair, he answered,
+with a polite smile, that the Doctor was out, nor could he say how long
+he might be absent. Still the time dragged painfully, and he began at
+length to wonder why Mossy did not return.
+
+There came a rap at the glass door different from all the raps that had
+forerun it--a fearless, but gentle, dignified, graceful rap; and the
+General, before he looked round, felt in all his veins that it came from
+the young Madame. Yes, there was her glorious outline thrown side wise
+upon the glass. He hastened and threw open the door, bending low at the
+same instant, and extending his hand.
+
+She extended hers also, but not to take his. With a calm dexterity that
+took the General's breath, she reached between him and the door, and
+closed it.
+
+"What is the matter?" anxiously asked the General--for her face, in
+spite of its smile, was severe.
+
+"General," she began, ignoring his inquiry--and, with all her Creole
+bows, smiles, and insinuating phrases, the severity of her countenance
+but partially waned--"I came to see my physician--your son. Ah! General,
+when I find you reconciled to your son, it makes me think I am in
+heaven. You will let me say so? You will not be offended with the old
+playmate of your son?"
+
+She gave him no time to answer.
+
+"He is out, I think, is he not? But I am glad of it. It gives us
+occasion to rejoice together over his many merits. For you know,
+General, in all the years of your estrangement, Mossy had no friend like
+myself. I am proud to tell you so now; is it not so?"
+
+The General was so taken aback that, when he had thanked her in a
+mechanical way, he could say nothing else. She seemed to fall for a
+little while into a sad meditation that embarrassed him beyond measure.
+But as he opened his mouth to speak, she resumed:
+
+"Nobody knew him so well as I; though I, poor me, I could not altogether
+understand him; for look you, General, he was--what do you think?--_a
+great man_!--nothing less."
+
+"How?" asked the General, not knowing what else to respond.
+
+"You never dreamed of that, eh?" continued the lady. "But, of course
+not; nobody did but me. Some of those Americains, I suppose, knew it;
+but who would ever ask them? Here in Royal Street, in New Orleans, where
+we people know nothing and care nothing but for meat, drink, and
+pleasure, he was only Dr. Mossy, who gave pills. My faith! General, no
+wonder you were disappointed in your son, for you thought the same. Ah!
+yes, you did! But why did you not ask me, his old playmate? I knew
+better. I could have told you how your little son stood head and
+shoulders above the crowd. I could have told you some things too
+wonderful to believe. I could have told you that his name was known and
+honored in the scientific schools of Paris, of London, of Germany! Yes!
+I could have shown you"--she warmed as she proceeded--"I could have
+shown you letters (I begged them of him), written as between brother and
+brother, from the foremost men of science and discovery!"
+
+She stood up, her eyes flashing with excitement.
+
+"But why did you never tell me?" cried the General.
+
+"He never would allow me--but you--why did you not ask me? I will tell
+you; you were too proud to mention your son. But he had pride to match
+yours--ha!--achieving all--every thing--with an assumed name! 'Let me
+tell your father,' I implored him; but--'let him find me out,' he said,
+and you never found him out. Ah! there he was fine. He would not, he
+said, though only for your sake, re-enter your affections as any thing
+more or less than just--your son. Ha!"
+
+And so she went on. Twenty times the old General was astonished anew,
+twenty times was angry or alarmed enough to cry out, but twenty times
+she would not be interrupted. Once he attempted to laugh, but again her
+hand commanded silence.
+
+"Behold, Monsieur, all these dusty specimens, these revolting fragments.
+How have you blushed to know that our idle people laugh in their sleeves
+at these things! How have you blushed--and you his father! But why did
+you not ask me? I could have told you: 'Sir, your son is not an
+apothecary; not one of these ugly things but has helped him on in the
+glorious path of discovery; discovery, General--your son--known in
+Europe as a scientific discoverer!' Ah-h! the blind people say, 'How is
+that, that General Villivicencio should be dissatisfied with his son? He
+is a good man, and a good doctor, only a little careless, that's all.'
+But _you_ were more blind still, for you shut your eyes tight like this;
+when, had you searched for his virtues as you did for his faults, you,
+too, might have known before it was too late what nobility, what beauty,
+what strength, were in the character of your poor, poor son!"
+
+"Just Heaven! Madame, you shall not speak of my son as of one dead and
+buried! But, if you have some bad news"--
+
+"Your son took your quarrel on his hands, eh?"
+
+"I believe so--I think"--
+
+"Well; I saw him an hour ago in search of your slanderer!"
+
+"He must find him!" said the General, plucking up.
+
+"But if the search is already over," slowly responded Madame.
+
+The father looked one instant in her face, then rose with an
+exclamation:
+
+"Where is my son? What has happened? Do you think I am a child, to be
+trifled with--a horse to be teased? Tell me of my son!"
+
+Madame was stricken with genuine anguish.
+
+"Take your chair," she begged; "wait; listen; take your chair."
+
+"Never!" cried the General; "I am going to find my son--my God! Madame,
+you have _locked this door_! What are you, that you should treat me so?
+Give me, this instant"--
+
+"Oh! Monsieur, I beseech you to take your chair, and I will tell you
+all. You can do nothing now. Listen! suppose you should rush out and
+find that your son had played the coward at last! Sit down and"--
+
+"Ah! Madame, this is play!" cried the distracted man.
+
+"But no; it is not play. Sit down; I want to ask you something."
+
+He sank down and she stood over him, anguish and triumph strangely
+mingled in her beautiful face.
+
+"General, tell me true; did you not force this quarrel into your son's
+hand? I _know_ he would not choose to have it. Did you not do it to test
+his courage, because all these fifteen years you have made yourself a
+fool with the fear that he became a student only to escape being a
+soldier? Did you not?"
+
+Her eyes looked him through and through.
+
+"And if I did?" demanded he with faint defiance.
+
+"Yes! and if he has made dreadful haste and proved his courage?" asked
+she.
+
+"Well, then,"--the General straightened up triumphantly--"then he is my
+son!"
+
+He beat the desk.
+
+"And heir to your wealth, for example?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+The lady bowed in solemn mockery.
+
+"It will make him a magnificent funeral!"
+
+The father bounded up and stood speechless, trembling from head to foot.
+Madame looked straight in his eye.
+
+"Your son has met the writer of that article."
+
+"Where?" the old man's lips tried to ask.
+
+"Suddenly, unexpectedly, in a passage-way."
+
+"My God! and the villain"--
+
+"Lives!" cried Madame.
+
+He rushed to the door, forgetting that it was locked.
+
+"Give me that key!" he cried, wrenched at the knob, turned away
+bewildered, turned again toward it, and again away; and at every step
+and turn he cried, "Oh! my son, my son! I have killed my son! Oh! Mossy,
+my son, my little boy! Oh! my son, my son!"
+
+Madame buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud. Then the father
+hushed his cries and stood for a moment before her.
+
+"Give me the key, Clarisse, let me go."
+
+She rose and laid her face on his shoulder.
+
+"What is it, Clarisse?" asked he.
+
+"Your son and I were ten years betrothed."
+
+"Oh, my child!"
+
+"Because, being disinherited, he would not be me husband."
+
+"Alas! would to God I had known it! Oh! Mossy, my son."
+
+"Oh! Monsieur," cried the lady, clasping her hands, "forgive me--mourn
+no more--your son is unharmed! I wrote the article--I am your recanting
+slanderer! Your son is hunting for me now. I told my aunt to misdirect
+him. I slipped by him unseen in the carriage-way."
+
+The wild old General, having already staggered back and rushed forward
+again, would have seized her in his arms, had not the little Doctor
+himself at that instant violently rattled the door and shook his finger
+at them playfully as he peered through the glass.
+
+"Behold!" said Madame, attempting a smile: "open to your son; here is
+the key."
+
+She sank into a chair.
+
+Father and son leaped into each other's arms; then turned to Madame:
+
+"Ah! thou lovely mischief-maker"--
+
+She had fainted away.
+
+"Ah! well, keep out of the way, if you please, papa," said Dr. Mossy, as
+Madame presently reopened her eyes; "no wonder you fainted; you have
+finished some hard work--see; here; no; Clarisse, dear, take this."
+
+Father and son stood side by side, tenderly regarding her as she
+revived.
+
+"Now, papa, you may kiss her; she is quite herself again, already."
+
+"My daughter!" said the stately General; "this--is my son's ransom; and,
+with this,--I withdraw the Villivicencio ticket."
+
+"You shall not," exclaimed the laughing lady, throwing her arms about
+his neck.
+
+"But, yes!" he insisted; "my faith! you will at least allow me to remove
+my dead from the field."
+
+"But, certainly;" said the son; "see, Clarisse, here is Madame, your
+aunt, asking us all into the house. Let us go."
+
+The group passed out into the Rue Royale, Dr. Mossy shutting the door
+behind them. The sky was blue, the air was soft and balmy, and on the
+sweet south breeze, to which the old General bared his grateful brow,
+floated a ravishing odor of--
+
+"Ah! what is it?" the veteran asked of the younger pair, seeing the
+little aunt glance at them with a playful smile.
+
+Madame Delicieuse for almost the first time in her life, and Dr. Mossy
+for the thousandth--blushed.
+
+It was the odor of orange-blossoms.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Old Creole Days, by George Washington Cable
+
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