diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:35:07 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:35:07 -0700 |
| commit | 8cd379410f18eb39208f168fefb8bf0d15f5a366 (patch) | |
| tree | 13638a3c1e366191d9b1c18ebba97958fa538244 /old | |
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10756-8.txt | 6364 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10756-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 129509 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10756-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 131886 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10756-h/10756-h.htm | 6416 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10756.txt | 6364 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10756.zip | bin | 0 -> 129473 bytes |
6 files changed, 19144 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/10756-8.txt b/old/10756-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..744bca7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10756-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6364 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Between Whiles, by Helen Hunt Jackson + + +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: Between Whiles + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: January 20, 2004 [eBook #10756] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN WHILES*** + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +Between Whiles. + +by + +Helen Jackson (H. H.) + +Author of "Ramona," "A Century of Dishonor," "Verses," "Sonnets and +Lyrics," "Glimpses of Three Coasts," "Bits of Travel," "Bits of Travel +at Home," "Zeph," "Mercy Philbrick's Choice," "Hetty's Strange History," +"Bits of Talk about Home Matters," "Bits of Talk for Young Folks," +"Nelly's Silver Mine," "Cat Stories." + +1888. + + + + + + +Contents. + + +The Inn of the Golden Pear +The Mystery of Wilhelm Rütter +Little Bel's Supplement +The Captain of the "Heather Bell" +Dandy Steve +The Prince's Little Sweetheart + + + + +Between Whiles. + + + + +The Inn of the Golden Pear. + +I. + + + Who buys? Who buys? 'Tis like a market-fair; + The hubbub rises deafening on the air: + The children spend their honest money there; + The knaves prowl out like foxes from a lair. + + Who buys? Who sells? Alas, and still alas! + The children sell their diamond stones for glass; + The knaves their worthless stones for diamonds pass. + He laughs who buys; he laughs who sells. Alas! + + +In the days when New England was only a group of thinly settled +wildernesses called "provinces," there was something almost like the old +feudal tenure of lands there, and a relation between the rich land-owner +and his tenants which had many features in common with those of the +relation between margraves and vassals in the days of Charlemagne. + +Far up in the North, near the Canada line, there lived at that time an +eccentric old man, whose name is still to be found here and there on the +tattered parchments, written "WILLAN BLAYCKE, Gentleman." + +Tradition occupies itself a good deal with Willan Blaycke, and does not +give his misdemeanors the go-by as it might have done if he had been +either a poorer or a less clever man. Why he had crossed the seas and +cast in his lot with the pious Puritans, nobody knew; it was certainly +not because of sympathy with their God-reverencing faith and God-fearing +lives, nor from any liking for hardships or simplicity of habits. He had +gold enough, the stories say, to have bought all the land from the St. +Johns to the Connecticut if he had pleased; and he had servants and +horses and attire such as no governor in all the provinces could boast. +He built himself a fine house out of stone, and the life he led in it +was a scandal and a byword everywhere. For all that, there was not a man +to be found who had not a good word to say for Willan Blaycke, and not a +woman who did not look pleased and smile if he so much as spoke to her. +He was generous, with a generosity so princely that there were many who +said that he had no doubt come of some royal house. He gave away a farm +to-day, and another to-morrow, and thought nothing of it; and when +tenants came to him pleading that they were unable to pay their rent, he +was never known to haggle or insist. + +Naturally, with such ways as these he made havoc of his estates, vast as +they were, and grew less and less rich year by year. However, there was +enough of his land to last several generations out; and if he had +married a decent woman for his wife, his posterity need never have +complained of him. But this was what Willan Blaycke did,--and it is as +much a mystery now as it doubtless was then, why he did it,--he married +Jeanne Dubois, the daughter of a low-bred and evil-disposed Frenchman +who kept a small inn on the Canadian frontier. Jeanne had a handsome but +wicked face. She stood always at the bar, and served every man who came; +and a great thing it was for the house, to be sure, that she had such +bold black eyes, red cheeks, and a tongue even bolder than her glances. +But there was not a farmer in all the north provinces who would have +taken her to wife, not one, for she bore none too good a name; and men's +speech about her, as soon as they had turned their backs and gone on +their journeys, was quite opposite to the gallant and flattering things +they said to her face in the bar. Some people said that Willan Blaycke +was drunk when he married Jeanne, that she took him unawares by means of +a base plot which her father and she had had in mind a long time. Others +said that he was sober enough when he did it, only that he was like one +out of his mind,--he sorrowed so for the loss of his only son, Willan, +whom he had in the beginning of that year sent back to England to be +taught in school. + +He had brought the child out with him,--a little chap, with marvellously +black eyes and yellow curls, who wore always the costliest of +embroidered coats, which it was plain some woman's hand had embroidered +for him; but whether the child's mother were dead or alive Willan +Blaycke never told, and nobody dared ask. + +That the boy needed a mother sadly enough was only too plain. Riding +from county to county on his little white pony by his father's side, +sitting up late at roystering feasts till he nodded in his chair, seeing +all that rough men saw, and hearing all that rough men said, the child +was in a fair way to be ruined outright; and so Willan Blaycke at last +came to see, and one day, in a fit of unwonted conscientiousness and +wisdom, he packed the poor sobbing little fellow off to England in +charge of a trusty escort, and sternly made up his mind that the lad +should not return till he was a man grown. It was only a few months +after this that Jeanne Dubois became Mistress Willan Blaycke; so it +seemed not improbable that the bereaved father's loneliness had had much +to do with that extraordinary step. + +Be that as it may, whether he were drunk or sober when he married her, +he treated her as a gentleman should treat his wife, and did his best to +make her a lady. She was always clad in a rich fashion; and a fine show +she made in her scarlet petticoat and white hat with a streaming scarlet +feather in it, riding high on her pillion behind Willan Blaycke on his +great black horse, or sitting up straight and stiff in the swinging +coach with gold on the panels, which he had bought for her in Boston at +a sale of the effects of one of the disgraced and removed governors of +the province of Massachusetts. If there had been any roads to speak of +in those days, Jeanne Dubois would have driven from one end to the other +of the land in her fine coach, so proud was she of its splendor; but +even pride could not heal the bruises she got in jolting about in it, +nor the terror she felt of being overturned. So she gradually left off +using it, and consoled herself by keeping it standing in all good +weather in full sight from the highway, that everybody might know she +had it. + +It was a sore trial to Jeanne that she had no children,--a sore trial +also to her wicked old father, who had plotted that the great Blaycke +estates should go down in the hands of his descendants. Not so Willan +Blaycke. It was undoubtedly a consolation to him in his last days to +think that his son Willan would succeed to everything, and the Dubois +blood remain still in its own muddy channel. It is evident that before +he died he had come to think coldly of his wife; for his mention of her +in his will was of the curtest, and his provision for her during her +lifetime, though amply sufficient for her real needs, not at all in +keeping with the style in which she had dwelt with him. + +The exiled Willan had returned to America a year before his father's +death. He was a quiet, well-educated, rather scholarly young man. It +would be foolish to deny that his filial sentiment had grown cool during +the long years of his absence, and that it received some violent shocks +on his return to his father's house. But he was full of ambition, and +soon saw the opening which lay before him for distinction and wealth as +the ultimate owner of the Blaycke estates. To this end he bent all his +energies. He had had in England a good legal education; he was a clear +thinker and a ready speaker, and speedily made himself so well known and +well thought of, that when his father died there were many who said it +was well the old man had been taken away in time to leave the young +Willan a property worthy of his talents and industry. + +Willan had lived in his father's house more as a guest than as a son. To +the woman who was his father's wife, and sat at the head of his father's +table, he bore himself with a distant courtesy, which was far more +irritating to her coarse nature than open antagonism would have been. +But Jeanne Dubois was clever woman enough to comprehend her own +inferiority to both father and son, and to avoid collisions with either. +She had won what she had played for, and on the whole she had not been +disappointed. As she had never loved her husband, she cared little that +he did not love her; and as for the upstart of a boy with his fine airs, +well, she would bide her time for that, Jeanne thought,--for it had +never crossed Jeanne's mind that when her husband died she would not be +still the mistress of the fine stone house and the gilt panelled coach, +and have more money than she knew what to do with. Many malicious +reveries she had indulged in as to how, when that time came, she would +"send the fellow packing," "he shouldn't stay in her house a day." So, +when it came to pass that the cards were turned, and it was Willan who +said to her, on the morning after his father's funeral, "What are your +plans, Madame?" Jeanne was for a few seconds literally dumb with anger +and astonishment. + +Then she poured out all the pent-up hatred of her vulgar soul. It was a +horrible scene. Willan conducted himself throughout the interview with +perfect calmness; the same impassable distance which had always been so +exasperating to Jeanne was doubly so now. He treated her as if she were +merely some dependant of the house, for whom he, as the executor of the +will, was about to provide according to instructions. + +"If I can't live in my own house," cried the angry woman, "I'll go back +to my father and tend bar again; and how'll you like that?" + +"It is purely immaterial to me, Madame," replied Willan, "where you +live. I merely wish to know your address, that I may forward to you the +quarterly payments of your annuity. I should think it probable," he +added with an irony which was not thrown away on Jeanne, "that you +would be happier among your own relations and in the occupations to +which you were accustomed in your youth." + +Jeanne was not deficient in spirit. As soon as she had ascertained +beyond a doubt that all that Willan had told her was true, and that +there was no possibility of her ever getting from the estate anything +except her annuity, she packed up all her possessions and left the +house. No fine instinct had restrained her from laying, hands on +everything to which she could be said to have a shadow of +claim,--indeed, on many things to which she had not,--and even Willan +himself, who had been prepared for her probable greed, was surprised +when on returning to the house late one evening he found the piazza +piled high from one end to the other with her boxes. Jeanne stood by +with a defiant air, superintending the cording of the last one. She +anticipated some remonstrance or inquiry from Willan, and was half +disappointed when he passed by, giving no sign of having observed the +boxes at all, and simply lifting his hat to her with his usual +formality. The next morning, instead of the public vehicle which Jeanne +had engaged to call for her, her own coach and the gray horses she had +best liked were driven to the door. This unexpected tribute from Willan +almost disarmed her for the moment. It was her coach almost more than +her house which she had grieved to lose. + +"Well, really, Mr. Willan," she exclaimed, "I never once thought of +taking that, though there's no doubt about its being my own, and your +father'd tell you so if he was here; and the horses too. He always said +the grays were mine from the day he bought them. But I'm much obliged to +you, I'm sure." + +"You have no occasion to thank me, Madame," replied Willan, standing on +the threshold of the house, pale with excitement at the prospect of +immediate freedom from the presence of the coarse creature. "The coach +is your own, and the horses; and if they had not been, I should not have +permitted them to remain here." + +"Oh ho!" sneered Jeanne, all her antagonism kindled afresh at this last +gratuitous fling. "You needn't think you can get rid of everything +that'll remind you of me, young man. You'll see me oftener than you +like, at the Golden Pear. You'll have to stop there, as your father did +before you." And Jeanne's black eyes snapped viciously as she drove off, +her piles of boxes following slowly in two wagon-loads behind. + +Willan was right in one thing. After the first mortification of +returning to her father's house, a widow, disgraced by being pensioned +off from her old home, had worn away, Jeanne was happier than she had +ever been in her life. Her annuity, which was small for Mistress Willan +Blaycke, was large for Jeanne, daughter of the landlord of the Golden +Pear; and into that position she sank back at once,--so contentedly, +too, that her father was continually reproaching her with a great lack +of spirit. It was a sad come-down from his old air-castles for her and +for himself,--he still the landlord of a shabby little inn, and Jeanne, +stout and middle-aged, sitting again behind the bar as she had done +fifteen years before. It was pretty hard. So long as he knew that Jeanne +was living in her fine house as Mistress Blaycke he had been content, +in spite of Willan Blaycke's having sternly forbidden him ever to show +his face there. But this last downfall was too much. Victor Dubois +ground his teeth and swore many oaths over it. But no swearing could +alter things; and after a while Victor himself began to take comfort in +having Jeanne back again. "And not a bit spoiled," as he would say to +his cronies, "by all the fine ways, to which she had never taken; thanks +to God, Jeanne was as good a girl yet as ever."--"And as handsome too," +the politic cronies would add. + +The Golden Pear was a much more attractive place since Jeanne had come +back. She was a good housekeeper, and she had learned much in Willan +Blaycke's house. Moreover, she was a generous creature, and did not in +the least mind spending a few dollars here and there to make things +tidier and more comfortable. + +A few weeks after Jeanne's return to the inn there appeared in the +family a new and by no means insignificant member. This was the young +Victorine Dubois, who was a daughter, they said, of Victor Dubois's son +Jean, the twin brother of Jeanne. He had gone to Montreal many years +ago, and had been moderately prosperous there as a wine-seller in a +small way. He had been dead now for two years, and his widow, being +about to marry again, was anxious to get the young Victorine off her +hands. So the story ran, and on the surface it looked probable enough. +But Montreal was not a great way off from the parish of St. Urbans, in +which stood Victor Dubois's inn; there were men coming and going often +who knew the city, and who looked puzzled when it was said in their +hearing that Victorine was the eldest child of Jean Dubois the +wine-seller. She had been kept at a convent all these years, old Victor +said, her father being determined that at least one of his children +should be well educated. + +Nobody could gainsay this, and Mademoiselle Victorine certainly had the +air of having been much better trained and taught than most girls in her +station. But somehow, nobody quite knew why, the tale of her being Jean +Dubois's daughter was not believed. Suspicions and at last rumors were +afloat that she was an illegitimate child of Jeanne's, born a few years +before her marriage to Willan Blaycke. + +Nothing easier, everybody knew, than for Mistress Willan Blaycke to +have supported half a dozen illegitimate children, if she had had them, +on the money her husband gave her so lavishly; and there was old Victor, +as ready and unscrupulous a go-between as ever an unscrupulous woman +needed. These rumors gained all the easier credence because Victorine +bore so striking a resemblance to her "Aunt Jeanne." On the other hand, +this ought not to have been taken as proof any more one way than the +other; for there were plenty of people who recollected very well that in +the days when little Jean and Jeanne toddled about together as children, +nobody but their mother could tell them apart, except by their clothes. +So the winds of gossiping breaths blew both ways at once in the matter, +and it was much discussed for a time. But like all scandals, as soon as +it became an old story nobody cared whether it were false or true; and +before Victorine had been a year at the Golden Pear, the question of her +relationship there was rarely raised. + +One thing was certain, that no mother could have been fonder or more +devoted to a child than Jeanne was to her niece; and everybody said +so,--some more civilly, some maliciously. Her pride in the girl's beauty +was touching to see. She seemed to have forgotten that she was ever a +beauty herself; and she had no need to do this, for Jeanne was not yet +forty, and many men found her piquant and pleasing still. But all her +vanity seemed now to be transferred to Victorine. It was Victorine who +was to have all the fine gowns and ornaments; Victorine who must go to +the dances and fêtes in costumes which were the wonder and the envy of +all the girls in the region; Victorine who was to have everything made +easy and comfortable for her in the house; and above all,--and here the +mother betrayed herself, for mother she was; the truth may as well be +told early as late in our story,--most of all, it was Victorine who was +to be kept away from the bar, and to be spared all contact with the +rough roysterers who frequented the Golden Pear. + +Very ingenious were Jeanne's excuses for these restrictions on her +niece's liberty. Still more ingenious her explanations of the occasional +exceptions she made now and then in favor of some well-to-do young +farmer of the neighborhood, or some traveller in whom her alert maternal +eye detected a possible suitor for Victorine's hand. Victorine herself +was not so fastidious. She was young, handsome, overflowing with +vitality, and with no more conscience or delicacy than her mother had +had before her. If the whole truth had been known concerning the last +four years of her life in the convent, it would have considerably +astonished those good Catholics, if any such there be, who still believe +that convents are sacred retreats filled with the chaste and the devout. +Victorine Dubois at the age of eighteen, when her grandfather took her +home to his house, was as well versed a young woman in the ways and the +wiles of love-making as if she had been free to come and go all her +life. And that this knowledge had been gained surreptitiously, in stolen +moments and brief experiences at the expense of the whole of her +reverence for religion, the whole of her faith in men's purity, was not +poor Victorine's fault, only her misfortune; but the result was no less +disastrous to her morals. She went out of the convent as complete a +little hypocrite as ever told beads and repeated prayers. Only a +certain sort of infantile superstitiousness of nature remained in her, +and made her cling to the forms, in which, though she knew they did not +mean what they pretended, she suspected there might be some sort of +mechanical efficacy at last; like the partly undeceived disciple and +assistant of a master juggler, who is not quite sure that there may not +be a supernatural power behind some of the tricks. Beyond an overflowing +animal vitality, and a passion for having men make love to her, there +really was not much of Victorine. But it is wonderful how far these two +qualities can pass in a handsome woman for other and nobler ones. The +animal life so keen, intense, sensuous, can seem like cleverness, wit, +taste; the passion for receiving homage from men can make a woman +graceful, amiable, and alluring. Some of the greatest passions the world +has ever seen have been inspired in men by just such women as this. + +Victorine was not without accomplishments and some smattering of +knowledge. She had read a good deal of French, and chattered it like +the true granddaughter of a Normandy _propriétaire_. She sang, in a +half-rude, half-melodious way, snatches of songs which sounded better +than they really were, she sang them with so much heartiness and +abandon. She embroidered exquisitely, and had learned the trick of +making many of the pretty and useless things at which nuns work so +patiently to fill up their long hours. She had an insatiable love of +dress, and attired herself daily in successions of varied colors and +shapes merely to look at herself in the glass, and on the chance of +showing herself to any stray traveller who might come. + +The inn had been built in a piecemeal fashion by Victor Dubois himself, +and he had been unconsciously guided all the while by his memories of +the old farmhouse in Normandy in which he was born; so that the house +really looked more like Normandy than like America. It had on one corner +a square tower, which began by being a shed attached to the kitchen, +then was promoted to bearing up a chamber for grain, and at last was +topped off by a fine airy room, projecting on all sides over the other +two, and having great casement windows reaching close up to the broad, +hanging eaves. A winding staircase outside led to what had been the +grain-chamber: this was now Jeanne's room. The room above was +Victorine's, and she reached it only by a narrow, ladder-like stairway +from her mother's bedroom; so the young lady's movements were kept well +in sight, her mother thought. It was an odd thing that it never occurred +to Jeanne how near the sill of Victorine's south window was to the stout +railing of the last broad platform of the outside staircase. This +railing had been built up high, and was partly roofed over, making a +pretty place for pots of flowers in summer; and Victorine never looked +so well anywhere as she did leaning out of her window and watering the +flowers which stood there. Many a flirtation went on between this +casement window and the courtyard below, where all the travellers were +in the habit of standing and talking with the ostlers, and with old +Victor himself, who was not the landlord to leave his ostlers to do as +they liked with horses and grain,--many a flirtation, but none that +meant or did any harm; for with all her wildness and love of frolic, +Mademoiselle Victorine never lost her head. Deep down in her heart she +had an ambition which she never confessed even to her aunt Jeanne. She +had read enough romances to believe that it was by no means an +impossible thing that a landlord's daughter should marry a gentleman; +and to marry a gentleman, if she married at all, Victorine was fully +resolved. She never tired of questioning her aunt about the details of +her life in Willan Blaycke's house; and she sometimes gazed for hours at +the gilt-panelled coach, which on all fine days stood in the courtyard +of the Golden Pear, the wonder of all rustics. On the rare occasions +when her aunt went abroad in this fine vehicle, Victorine sat by her +side in an ecstasy of pride and delight. It seemed to her that to be the +owner of such a coach as that, to live in a fine house, and have a fine +gentleman for one's husband must be the very climax of bliss. She +wondered much at her aunt's contentment in her present estate. + +"How canst thou bear it, Aunt Jeanne?" she said sometimes. "How canst +thou bear to live as we live here,--to be in the bar-room with the men, +and to sit always in the smoke, after the fine rooms and the company +thou hadst for so long?" + +"Bah!" Jeanne would reply. "It's little thou knowest of that fine +company. I had like to die of weariness more often than I was gay in it; +and as for fine rooms, I care nothing for them." + +"But thy husband, Aunt Jeanne," Victorine once ventured to say,--"surely +thou wert not weary when he was with thee?" + +Jeanne's face darkened. "Keep a civiller tongue in thy head," she +replied, "than to be talking to widows of the husbands they have buried. +He was a good man, Willan Blaycke,--a good man; but I liked him not +overmuch, though we lived not in quarrelling. He went his ways, as men +go, and I let him be." + +Victorine's curiosity was by no means satisfied. She asked endless +questions of all whom she met who could tell her anything about her +aunt's husband. Very much she regretted that she had not been taken from +the convent before this strange, free-hearted, rollicking gentleman had +died. She would have managed affairs better, she thought, than Aunt +Jeanne had done. Romantic visions of herself as his favorite flitted +through her brain. + +"Why didst thou not send for me sooner to come to thee, Aunt Jeanne," +she said, "that I too might have seen the life in the great stone +house?" + +A sudden flush covered Jeanne's face. Was she never to hear the end of +troublesome questions about the past? + +"Wilt thou never have done with it?" she said, half angrily. "Has it +never been said in thy hearing how that my husband would not permit even +my father to come inside of his house, much less one no nearer than +thou?" And Jeanne eyed Victorine sharply, with a suspicion which was +wholly uncalled for. Nobody had ever been bold or cruel enough to +suggest to Victorine any doubts regarding her birth. The girl was +indignant. She had never known before that her grandfather had been thus +insulted. + +"What had grandfather done?" she cried. "Was he not thy husband's +father, too, being thine? How dared thy husband treat him so?" + +Jeanne was silent for a few moments. A latent sense of justice to her +dead husband restrained her from assenting to Victorine's words. + +"Nay," she said; "there are many things thou canst not understand. Thy +grandfather never complained. Willan Blaycke treated me most fairly +while he lived; and if it had not been for the boy, I would have had +thee in the stone house to-day, and had all my rights." + +"Why did the boy hate thee?" asked Victorine. "What is he like?" + +"As like to a magpie as one magpie is to another," said Jeanne, +bitterly; "with his fine French cloth of black, and his white ruffles, +and his long words in his mouth. Ah, but him I hate! It is to him we owe +it all." + +"Dwells he now in the great house alone?" said Victorine. + +"Ay, that he does,--alone with his books, of which he has about as many +as there are leaves on the trees; one could not so much as step or sit +for a book in one's way. I did hear that he has now with him another of +his own order, and that the two are riding all over the country, +marking out the lines anew of all the farms, and writing new bonds which +are so much harder on men than the old ones were. Bah! but he has the +soul of a miser in him, for all his handsome face!" + +"Is he then so very handsome, Aunt Jeanne?" said Victorine, eagerly. + +"Ay, ay, child. I'll give him his due for that, evilly as he has treated +me. He is a handsomer man than his father was; and when his father and I +were married there was not a woman in the provinces that did not say I +had carried off the handsomest man that ever strode a horse. I'd like to +have had thee see me, too, in that day, child. I was counted as handsome +as he, though thou'dst never think it now." + +"But I would think it!" cried Victorine, hotly and loyally. "What ails +thee, Aunt Jeanne? Did I not hear Father Hennepin himself saying to thee +only yesterday that thou wert comelier to-day than ever? and he saw thee +married, he told me." + +"Tut, tut, child!" replied Jeanne, looking pleased. "None know better +than the priests how to speak idle words to women. But what was he +telling thee? How came it that he spoke of the time when I was married?" +added Jeanne, again suspicious. + +"It was I that asked him," replied Victorine. "I wish always so much +that I had been with thee instead of in the convent, dear aunt. Does +this son of thy husband, this handsome young man who is so like unto a +magpie,--does he never in his journeyings come this way?" + +"Ay, often," replied Jeanne. "I know that he must, because a large part +of his estate lies beyond the border and joins on to this parish. It was +that which brought his father here, in the beginning, and there is no +other inn save this for miles up and down the border where he can tarry; +but it is likely that he will sooner lie out in the fields than sleep +under this roof, because I am here. I had looked to say my mind to him +as often as he came; and that it would be a sore thing to him to see his +father's wife in the bar, I know beyond a doubt. I have often said to +myself what a comfortable spleen I should experience when I might +courtesy to him and say, 'What would you be pleased to take, sir?' But +I think he is minded to rob me of that pleasure, for it is certain he +must have ridden this way before now." + +"I have a mind to burn a candle to the Virgin," said Victorine, slowly, +"that he may come here. I would like for once to set my eyes on his +face." + +An unwonted earnestness in Victorine's tone and a still more unwonted +seriousness in her face arrested Jeanne's attention. + +"What is it to thee to see him or not to see him, eh? What is it thou +hast in thy silly head. If thou thinkest thou couldst win him over to +take us back to live in his house again,--which is my own house, to be +sure, if I had my rights,--thy wits are wool-gathering, I can tell thee +that," cried Jeanne. "He has the pride of ten thousand devils in him. +There was that in his face when I drove away from the door,--and he +standing with his head uncovered too,--which I tell thee if I had been a +man I could have killed him for. He take us back! He! he!" And Jeanne +laughed a bitter laugh at the bare idea of the thing. + +"I had not thought of any such thing, Aunt Jeanne," replied Victorine, +still speaking slowly, and still with a dreamy expression on her face, +as she leaned out of the window and began idly plucking the blossoms +from a bough of the big pear-tree, which was now all white with flowers +and buzzing with bees. "Dost thou not think the bees steal a little +sweet that ought to go into the fruit?" continued the artful girl, who +did not choose that her aunt should question her any further as to the +reason of her desire to see Willan Blaycke. "I remember that once Father +Anselmo at the convent said to me he thought so. There was a vine of the +wild grape which ran all over the wall between the cloister and the +convent; and when it was in bloom the air sickened one, and thou couldst +hardly go near the wall for the swarming bees that were drinking the +honey from the flowers. And Father Anselmo said one evening that they +were thieves; they stole sweet which ought to go into the grapes." + +This was a clever diversion. It turned Jeanne's thoughts at once away +from Willan Blaycke, but it did not save Mademoiselle Victorine from a +catechising quite as sharp as she was in danger of on the other subject. + +"And what wert thou doing talking with a priest in the garden at night?" +cried Jeanne, fiercely. "Is that the way maidens are trained in a +convent! Shame on thee, Victorine! what hast thou revealed?" + +"The Virgin forbid," answered Victorine, piously, racking her brains +meanwhile for a ready escape from this dilemma, and trying in her fright +to recall precisely what she had just said. "I said not that he told it +to me in the garden; it was in the confessional that he said it. I had +confessed to him the grievous sin of a horrible rage I had been in when +one of the bees had stung me on the lip as I was gathering the cool vine +leaves to lay on the good Sister Clarice's forehead, who was ill with a +fever." + +"Eh, eh!" said Jeanne, relieved; "was that it? I thought it could not be +thou wert in the garden in the evening hours, and with a priest." + +"Oh no," said Victorine, demurely. "It was not permitted to converse +with the priests except in the chapel." And choking back an amused +little laugh she bounded to the ladder-like stairway and climbed up into +her own room. + +"Saints! what an ankle the girl has, to be sure!" thought Jeanne, as she +watched Victorine's shapely legs slowly vanishing up the stair. "What +has filled her head so full of that upstart Willan, I wonder!" + +A thought struck Jeanne; the only wonder was it had never struck her +before. In her sudden excitement she sprung from her chair, and began to +walk rapidly up and down the floor. She pressed her hand to her +forehead; she tore open the handkerchief which was crossed on her bosom; +her eyes flashed; her cheeks grew red; she breathed quicker. + +"The girl's handsome enough to turn any man's head, and twice as clever +as I ever was," she thought. + +She sat down in her chair again. The idea which had occurred to her was +over-whelming. She spoke aloud and was unconscious of it. + +"Ah, but that would be a triumph!" she said. "Who knows? who knows?" + +"Victorine!" she called; "Victorine!" + +"Yes, aunt," replied Victorine. + +"There's plenty of honey left in the flowers to keep pears sweet after +the bees are dead," said Jeanne, mischievously, and went downstairs +chuckling over her new secret thought. "I'll never let the child know +I've thought of such a thing," she mused, as she took her accustomed +seat in the bar. "I'll bide my time. Strange things have happened, and +may happen again." + +"What a queer speech of Aunt Jeanne's!" thought Victorine at her +casement window. "What a fool I was to have said anything about Father +Anselmo! Poor fellow! I wonder why he doesn't run away from the +monastery!" + + + +II. + + + The south wind's secret, when it blows, + Oh, what man knows? + How did it turn the rose's bud + Into a rose? + What went before, no garden shows; + Only the rose! + + What hour the bitter north wind blows, + The south wind knows. + Why did it turn the rose's bud + Into a rose? + Alas, to-day the garden shows + A dying rose! + + +Jeanne had not to wait long. It was only a few days after this +conversation with Victorine,--the big pear-tree was still snowy-white +with bloom, and the tireless bees still buzzed thick among its +boughs,--when Jeanne, standing in the doorway at sunset, saw two riders +approaching the inn. At her first glance she recognized Willan Blaycke. +Jeanne's mind moved quickly. In the twinkling of an eye she had sprung +back into the bar-room, and said to her father,-- + +"Father, father, be quick! Here comes Willan Blaycke riding; and +another, an old man, with him. Thou must tend the bar; for hand so much +as a glass of gin to that man will I never. I shut myself up till he is +gone." + +"Nay, nay, Jeanne," replied Victor; "I'll turn him from my door. He's to +get no lodging under this roof, he nor his,--I promise you that." And +Victor was bustling angrily to the door. + +This did not suit Mistress Jeanne at all. In great dismay inwardly, but +outwardly with slow and smooth-spoken accents, as if reflecting +discreetly, she replied, "He might do me great mischief if he were +angered, father. All the moneys go through his hand. I think it is safer +to speak him fair. He hath the devil's own temper if he be opposed in +the smallest thing. It has cost him sore enough, I'll be bound, to find +himself here at sundown, and beholden to thee for shelter; it is none of +his will to come, I know that well enough. Speak him fair, father, speak +him fair; it is a silly fowl that pecks at the hand which holds corn. I +will hide myself till he is away, though, for I misgive me that I should +be like to fly out at him." + +"But, Jeanne--" persisted Victor. But Jeanne was gone. + +"Speak him fair, father; take no note that aught is amiss," she called +back from the upper stair, from which she was vanishing into her +chamber. "I will send Victorine to wait at the supper. He hath never +seen her, and need not to know that she is of our kin at all," + +"Humph!" muttered Victor. "Small doubt to whom the girl is kin, if a man +have eyes in his head." And he would have argued the point longer with +Jeanne, but he had no time left, for the riders had already turned into +the courtyard, and were giving their horses in charge to the +white-headed ostler Benoit. Benoit had served in the Golden Pear for a +quarter of a century. He had served Victor Dubois's father in Normandy, +had come with his young master to America, and was nominally his servant +still. But if things had gone by their right names at the Golden Pear, +old Benoit would not have been called servant for many a year back. Not +a secret in that household which Benoit had not shared; not a plot he +had not helped on. At Jeanne's marriage he was the only witness except +Father Hennepin; and there were some who recollected still with what +extraordinary chuckles of laughter Benoit had walked away from the +chapel after that ceremony had been completed. To the young Victorine +Benoit had been devoted ever since her coming to the inn. Whenever she +appeared in sight the old man came to gaze on her, and stood lingering +and admiring as long as she remained. + +"Thou art far handsomer than thy mother ever was," he had said to her +one morning soon after her arrival. + +"Oh, didst thou know my mother, then, when she was young?" cried +Victorine. "She is not handsome now, though she is newly wed; when she +came to see me in the convent, I thought her very ugly. When didst thou +know her, Benoit?" + +Benoit was very red in the face, and began to toss straw vigorously as +he looked away from Victorine and answered: "It was but once that I had +sight of her, when Master Jean brought her here after they were married. +Thou dost not favor her in the least. Thou art like Master Jean." + +"And the saints know that that last is the holy truth, whatever the +rest may be," thought Benoit, as he bustled about the courtyard. + +"But thy tongue is the tongue of an imbecile," said Victor, following +him into the stable. + +"Ay, that it is, sir," replied Benoit, humbly. "I had like to have +bitten it off before I had finished speaking; but no harm came." + +"Not this time," replied Victor; "but the next thou might not be so well +let off. The girl has a sharper wit than she shows ordinarily. She hath +learned too well the ways of convents. I trust her not wholly, Benoit. +Keep thy eyes open, Benoit. We'll not have her go the ways of her mother +if it can be helped." And the worldly and immoral old grandfather turned +on his heel with a wicked laugh. + +Benoit had never seen young Willan Blaycke, but he knew him at his first +glance. + +"The son!" he muttered under his breath, as he saw him alight. "Is he to +be lodged here? I doubt." And Benoit looked about for Victor, who was +nowhere to be seen. Slowly and with a surly face he came forward to +take the horses. + +"What're you about, old man? Wear you shoes of lead? Take our horses, +and see you to it they are well rubbed down before they have aught to +eat or drink. We have ridden more than ten leagues since the noon," +cried the elder of the two travellers. + +"And ought to have ridden more," said the younger in an undertone. It +was, as Jeanne had said, a sore thing to Willan Blaycke to be forced to +seek a night's shelter in the Golden Pear. + +"Tut, tut!" said the other, "what odds! It is a whimsey, a weakness of +yours, boy. What's the woman to you?" + +Victor Dubois, who had come up now, heard these words, and his swarthy +cheek was a shade darker. Benoit, who had lingered till he should +receive a second order from the master of the inn as to the strangers' +horses, exchanged a quick glance with Victor, while he said in a +respectful tone, "Two horses, sir, for the night." The glance said, "I +know who the man is; shall we keep him?" + +"Ay, Benoit," Victor answered; "see that Jean gives them a good rubbing +at once. They have been hard ridden, poor beasts!" While Victor was +speaking these words his eyes said to Benoit, "Bah! It is even so; but +we dare not do otherwise than treat him fair." + +"Will you be pleased to walk in, gentlemen; and what shall I have the +honor of serving for your supper?" he continued. "We have some young +pigeons, if your worships would like them, fat as partridges, and still +a bottle or two left of our last autumn's cider." + +"By all means, landlord, by all means, let us have them, roasted on a +spit, man,--do you hear?--roasted on a spit, and let your cook lard them +well with fat bacon; there is no bird so fat but a larding doth help it +for my eating," said the elder man, rubbing his hands and laughing more +and more cheerily as his companion looked each moment more and more +glum. + +"No, I'll not go in," said Willan, as Victor threw open the door into +the bar-room. "It suits me better to sit here under the trees until +supper is ready." And he threw himself down at the foot of the great +pear-tree. He feared to see Jeanne sitting in the bar, as she had +threatened. The ground was showered thick with the soft white petals of +the blossoms, which were now past their prime. Willan picked up a +handful of them and tossed them idly in the air. As he did so, a shower +of others came down on his face, thick, fast; they half blinded him for +a moment. He sprung to his feet and looked up. It was like looking into +a snowy cloud. He saw nothing. "Some bird flying through," he thought, +and lay down again. + + "Ah! luck for the bees, + The flowers are in flower; + Luck for the bees in spring. + Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour; + No summer is fair as the spring. + Ah! luck for the bees; + The honey in flowers + Is highest when they are on wing!" + +came in a gay Provençal melody from the pear-tree above Willan's head, +and another shower of white petals fell on his face. + +"Good God!" said Willan Blaycke, under his breath, "what witchcraft is +going on here? what girl's voice is that?" And he sprang again to his +feet. + +The voice died slowly away; the singer was moving farther off,-- + + "Ah! woe for the bees, + The flowers are dead; + No summer is fair as the spring. + Ah me, but the honey is thick in the comb; + 'Tis a long time now since spring. + Ah, woe for the bees + That honey is sweet, + Is sweeter than anything!" + +"Sweeter than anything,--sweeter than anything!" the voice, grown faint +now, repeated this refrain over and over, as the syllables of sound died +away. + +It was Victorine going very slowly down the staircase from her room into +Jeanne's. And it was Victorine who had accidentally brushed the +pear-tree boughs as she watered her plants on the roof of the outside +stairway. She did not see Willan lying on the ground underneath, and she +did not think that Willan might be hearing her song; and yet was her +head full of Willan Blaycke as she went down the staircase, and not a +little did she quake at the thought of seeing him below. + +Jeanne had come breathless to her room, crying, "Victorine! Victorine! +That son of my husband's of whom we were talking, young Willan Blaycke, +is at the door,--he, and an old man with him; and they must perforce +stay here all night. Now, it would be a shame I could in no wise bear to +stand and serve him at supper. Wilt thou not do it in my stead? there +are but the two." And the wily Jeanne pretended to be greatly +distressed, as she sank into a chair and went on: "In truth, I do not +believe I can look on his face at all. I will keep my room till he have +gone his way,--the villain, the upstart, that I may thank for all my +trouble! Oh, it brings it all back again, to see his face!" And Jeanne +actually brought a tear or two into her wily eyes. + +The no less wily Victorine tossed her head and replied: "Indeed, then, +and the waiting on him is no more to my liking than to thine own, Aunt +Jeanne! I did greatly desire to see his face, to see what manner of man +he could be that would turn his father's widow out of her house; but I +think Benoit may hand the gentleman his wine, not I." And Victorine +sauntered saucily to the window and looked out. + +"A plague on all their tempers!" thought Jeanne, impatiently. Her plans +seemed to be thwarted when she least expected it. For a few moments she +was silent, revolving in her mind the wisdom of taking Victorine into +her counsels, and confiding to her the motive she had for wishing her to +be seen by Willan Blaycke. But she dreaded lest this might defeat her +object by making the girl self-conscious. Jeanne was perplexed; and in +her perplexity her face took on an expression as if she were grieved. +Victorine, who was much dismayed by her aunt's seeming acquiescence in +her refusal to serve the supper, exclaimed now,-- + +"Nay, nay, Aunt Jeanne, do not look grieved. I will indeed go down and +serve the supper, if thou takest it so to heart. The man is nothing to +me, that I need fear to see him." + +"Thou art a good girl," replied Jeanne, much relieved, and little +dreaming how she had been gulled by Mademoiselle Victorine,--"thou art a +good girl, and thou shalt have my lavender-colored paduasoy gown if +thou wilt lay thyself out to see that all is at its best, both in the +bedrooms and for the supper. I would have Willan Blaycke perceive that +one may live as well outside of his house as in it. And, Victorine," she +added, with an attempt at indifference in her tone, "wear thy white gown +thou hadst on last Sunday. It pleased me better than any gown thou hast +worn this year,--that, and thy black silk apron with the red lace; they +become thee." + +So Victorine had arrayed herself in the white gown; it was of linen +quaintly woven, with a tiny star thrown up in the pattern, and shone +like damask. The apron was of heavy black silk, trimmed all around with +crimson lace, and crimson lace on the pockets. A crimson rose in +Victorine's black hair and crimson ribbons at her throat and on her +sleeves completed the toilet. It was ravishing; and nobody knew it +better than Mademoiselle Victorine herself, who had toiled many an hour +in the convent making the crimson lace for the precise purpose of +trimming a black apron with it, if ever she escaped from the convent, +and who had chosen out of fifty rose-bushes at the last Parish Fair the +one whose blossoms matched her crimson lace. There is a picture still to +be seen of Victorine in this costume; and many a handsome young girl, +having copied the costume exactly for a fancy ball, has looked from the +picture to herself and from herself to the picture, and gone to the ball +dissatisfied, thinking in her heart,-- + +"After all, I don't look half as well in it as that French girl did." + +As Victorine came leisurely down the stairs, half singing, half +chanting, her little song, Jeanne looked at her in admiration. + +"Well, and if either of the men have an eye for a pretty girl clad in +attire that becomes her, they can look at thee, my Victorine. That black +apron will go well with the lavender paduasoy also." + +"That it will, Aunt Jeanne," answered Victorine, her face glowing with +pleasure. "I can never thank thee enough. I did not think ever to have +the paduasoy for my own." + +"All my gowns are for thee," said Jeanne, in a voice of great +tenderness. "I shall presently take to the wearing of black; it better +suits my years. Thou canst be young; it is enough. I am an old woman." + +Victorine bent over and kissed her aunt, and whispered: "Fie on thee, +Aunt Jeanne! The Father Hennepin does not think thee an old woman; +neither Pierre Gaspard from the mill. I hear the men when they are +talking under my window of thee. Thou knowest thou mightest wed any day +if thou hadst the mind." + +Jeanne shook her head. "That I have not, then," she said. "I keep the +name of Willan Blaycke for all that of any man hereabouts which can be +offered to me. Thou art the one to wed, not I. But far off be that day," +she added hastily; "thou art young for it yet." + +"Ay," replied the artful young maiden, "that am I, and I think I will be +old before any man make a drudge of me. I like my freedom better. And +now will I go down and serve thy stepson,--the handsome magpie, the +reader of books." And with a mocking laugh Victorine bounded down the +staircase and went into the kitchen. Her grandfather was running about +there in great confusion, from dresser to fireplace, to table, to +pantry, back and forth, breathless and red in the face. The pigeons were +sputtering before the fire, and the odor of the frying bacon filled the +place. + +"Diable! Girl, out of this!" he cried; "this is no place for thee. Go to +thine aunt." + +"She did bid me come and serve the supper for the strangers," replied +Victorine. "She herself will not come down." + +"Go to the devil! Thou shalt not, and it is I that say it," shouted +Victor; and Victorine, terrified, fled back to Jeanne, and reported her +grandfather's words. + +Poor Jeanne was at her wit's end now. "Why said he that?" she asked. + +"I know not," replied Victorine, demurely. "He was in one of his great +rages, and I do think that the pigeons are fast burning, by the smell." + +"Bah!" cried Jeanne, in disgust. "Is this a house to live in, where one +cannot be let down from one's chamber except in sight of the highway? +Run, Victorine! Look over and see if the strangers be in sight. I must +go down to the kitchen. I would a witch were at hand with a broom or a +tail of a mare. I'd mount and down the chimney, I warrant me!" + +Laughing heartily, Victorine ran to reconnoitre. "There is none in +sight," she cried. "Thou canst come down. A man is asleep under the +pear-tree, but I think not he is one of them." + +Jeanne ran quickly down the stairs, followed by Victorine, who, as she +entered the kitchen again, took up her position in one corner, and stood +leaning against the wall, tapping her pretty little black slippers with +their crimson bows impatiently on the floor. Jeanne drew her father to +one side, and whispered in his ear. He retorted angrily, in a louder +tone. Not a look or tone was lost on Victorine. Presently the old man, +shrugging his shoulders, went back to the pigeons, and began to turn the +spit, muttering to himself in French. Jeanne had conquered. + +"Thy grandfather is in a rage," she said to Victorine, "because we must +give meat and drink to the man who has treated me so ill; that is why he +did not wish thee to serve. But I have persuaded him that it is needful +that we do all we can to keep Willan Blaycke well disposed to us. He +might withhold from me all my money if he so chose; and he is rich, and +we are but poor people. We could not find any redress. So do thou take +care and treat him as if thou hadst never heard aught against him from +me. It will lie with thee, child, to see that he goes not away angered; +for thy grandfather is in a mood when the saints themselves could not +hold his tongue if he have a mind to speak. Keep thou out of his sight +till supper be ready. I stay here till all is done." + +Between the kitchen and the common living-room, which was also the +dining-room, was a long dark passage-way, at one end of which was a +small storeroom. Here Victorine took refuge, to wait till her aunt +should call her to serve the supper. The window of this storeroom was +wide open. The shutter had fallen off the hinges several days before, +and Benoit had forgotten to put it up. Victorine seated herself on a +cider cask close to the window, and leaning her head against the wall +began to sing again in a low tone. She had a habit of singing at all +times, and often hardly knew that she sang at all. The Provençal melody +was still running in her head. + + "Ah! luck for the bees, + The flowers are in flower; + Luck for the bees in spring. + Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour; + No summer is fair as the spring. + Ah! luck for the bees; + The honey in flowers + Is highest when they are on wing!" + +she sang. Then suddenly breaking off she began singing a wild, sad +melody of another song:-- + + "The sad spring rain, + It has come at last. + The graves lie plain, + And the brooks run fast; + And drip, drip, drip, + Falls the sad spring rain; + And tears fall fresh, + In the sad spring air, + From lovers' eyes, + On the graves laid bare." + +It was very dark in the storeroom; it was dark out of doors. The moon +had been up for an hour, but the sky was overcast thick with clouds. +Willan Blaycke was still asleep under the pear-tree. His head was only a +few feet from the storeroom window. The sound of Victorine's singing +reached his ears, but did not at first waken him, only blended +confusedly with his dreams. In a few seconds, however, he waked, sprang +to his feet, and looked about him in bewilderment. Out of the darkness, +seemingly within arm's reach, came the low sweet notes,-- + + "And drip, drip, drip, + Falls the sad spring rain; + And tears fall fresh, + In the sad spring air, + From lovers' eyes, + On the graves laid bare." + +Groping his way in the direction from which the voice came, Willan +stumbled against the wall of the house, and put his hand on the +window-sill. "Who sings in here?" he cried, fumbling in the empty space. + +"Holy Mother!" shrieked Victorine, and ran out of the storeroom, letting +the door shut behind her with all its force. The noise echoed through +the inn, and waked Willan's friend, who was also taking a nap in one of +the old leather-cushioned high-backed chairs in the bar-room. Rubbing +his eyes, he came out to look for Willan. He met him on the threshold. + +"Ah!" he said, "where have you been all this time? I have slept in a +chair, and am vastly rested." + +"The Lord only knows where I have been," answered Willan, laughing. "I +too have slept; but a woman with a voice like the voice of a wild bird +has been singing strange melodies in my ear." + +The elder man smiled. "The dreams of young men," he said, "are wont to +have the sound of women's voices in them." + +"This was no dream," retorted Willan. "She was so near me I heard the +panting breath with which she cried out and fled when I made a step +towards her." + +"Gentlemen, will it please you to walk in to supper?" said Victor, +appearing in the doorway with a clean white apron on, and no trace, in +his smiling and obsequious countenance, of the rage in which he had been +a few minutes before. + +A second talk with Jeanne after Victorine had left the kitchen had +produced a deep impression on Victor's mind. He was now as eager as +Jeanne herself for the meeting between Victorine and Willan Blaycke. + +The pigeons were not burned, after all. Most savory did they smell, and +Willan Blaycke and his friend fell to with a will. + +"Saidst thou not thou hadst some of thy famous pear cider left, +landlord?" asked Willan. + +"Ay, sir, my granddaughter has gone to draw it; she will be here in a +trice." + +As he spoke the door opened, and Victorine entered, bearing in her left +hand a tray with two curious old blue tankards on it; in her right hand +a gray stone jug with blue bands at its neck. Both the jug and the +tankards had come over from Normandy years ago. Victorine raised her +eyes, and looking first at Willan, then at his friend, went immediately +to the older man, and courtesying gracefully, set her tray down on the +table by his side, and filled the two tankards. The cider was like +champagne; it foamed and sparkled. The old man eyed it keenly. + +"This looks like the cidre mousseux I drank at Littry," he said, and +taking up his tankard tossed it off at a draught. "Tastes like it, too, +by Jove!" he said. "Old man, out of what fruits in this bleak country +dost thou conjure such a drink?" + +Victor smiled. Praise of the cider of the Golden Pear went to his heart +of hearts. "Monsieur has been in Calvados," he said. "It is kind of him +then to praise this poor drink of mine, which would be but scorned +there. There is not a warm enough sunshine to ripen our pears here to +their best, and the variety is not the same; but such as they are, I +have an orchard of twenty trees, and it is by reason of them that the +inn has its name." + +Willan was not listening to this conversation. He held his fork, with a +bit of untasted pigeon on it, uplifted in one hand; with the other he +drummed nervously on the table. His eyes were riveted on Victorine, who +stood behind the old man's chair, her soft black eyes glancing quietly +from one thing to another on the table to see if all were right. +Willan's gaze did not escape the keen eyes of Victorine's grandfather. +Chuckling inwardly, he assumed an expression of great anxiety, and +coming closer to Willan's chair said in a deprecating tone,-- + +"Are not the pigeons done to your liking, sir? You do not eat." + +Willan started, dropped his fork, then hastily took it up again. + +"Yes, yes," he said, "that they are; done to a turn." And he fell to +eating again. But do what he would, he could not keep his eyes off the +face of the girl. If she moved, his gaze followed her about the room, as +straight as a steel follows on after a magnet; and when she stood still, +he cast furtive glances that way each minute. In very truth, he might +well be forgiven for so doing. Not often does it fall to the lot of men +to see a more bewitching face than the face of Victorine Dubois. Many a +woman might be found fairer and of a nobler cast of feature; but in the +countenance of Victorine Dubois was an unaccountable charm wellnigh +independent of feature, of complexion, of all which goes to the ordinary +summing up of a woman's beauty. There was in the glance of her eye a +something, I know not what, which no man living could wholly resist. It +was at once defiant and alluring, tender and mocking, artless and +mischievous. No man could make it out; no man might see it twice alike +in the space of an hour. No more was the girl herself twice alike in an +hour, or a day, for that matter. She was far more like some frolicsome +creature of the woods than like a mortal woman. The quality of wildness +which Willan had felt in her voice was in her nature. Neither her +grandfather nor her mother had in the least comprehended her during the +few months she had lived with them. A certain gentleness of nature, +which was far more physical than mental, far more an idle nonchalance +than recognition of relations to others, had blinded them to her real +capriciousness and selfishness. They rarely interfered with her, or +observed her with any discrimination. Their love was content with her +surface of good humor, gayety, and beauty; she was an ever-present +delight and pride to them both, and that she might only partially +reciprocate this fondness never crossed their minds. They did not +realize that during all these eighteen years that they had been caring, +planning, and plotting for her their names had represented nothing in +her mind except unseen, unknown relatives to whom she was indebted for +support, but to whom she also owed what she hated and rebelled +against,--her imprisonment in the convent. Why should she love them? +Blood tells, however; and when Victorine found herself free, and face to +face with the grandfather of whom she had so long heard and only once +seen, and the Aunt Jeanne who had been described to her as the loving +benefactress of her youth, she had a new and affectionate sentiment +towards them. But she would at any minute have calmly sacrificed them +both for the furtherance of her own interests; and the thoughts she was +thinking while Willan Blaycke gazed at her so ardently this night were +precisely as follows:-- + +"If I could only have a good chance at him, I could make him marry me. I +see it in his face. I suppose I'd never see Aunt Jeanne again, or +grandfather; but what of that? I'd play my cards better than Aunt Jeanne +did, I know that much. Let me once get to be mistress of that stone +house--" And the color grew deeper and deeper on Victorine's cheeks in +the excitement of these reflections. + +"Poor girl!" Willan Blaycke was thinking. "I must not gaze at her so +constantly. The color in her cheeks betrays that I distress her." And +the honest gentleman tried his best to look away and bear good part in +conversation with his friend. It was a doubly good stroke on the part of +the wily Victorine to take her place behind the elder man's chair. It +looked like a proper and modest preference on her part for age; and it +kept her out of the old man's sight, and in the direct range of Willan's +eyes as he conversed with his friend. When she had occasion to hand +anything to Willan she did so with an apparent shyness which was +captivating; and the tone of voice in which she spoke to him was low and +timid. + +Old Victor could hardly contain himself. He went back and forth between +the dining-room and kitchen far oftener than was necessary, that he +might have the pleasure of saying to Jeanne: "It works! it works! He +doth gaze the eyes out of his head at her. The girl could not do better. +She hath affected the very thing which will snare him the quickest." + +"Oh no, father! Thou mistakest Victorine. She hath no plan of snaring +him; it was with much ado I got her to consent to serve him at all. It +was but for my sake she did it." + +Victor stared at Jeanne when she said this. "Thou hast not told her, +then?" he said. + +"Nay, that would have spoiled all; if the girl herself had it in her +head, he would have seen it." + +Victor walked slowly back into the dining-room, and took further and +closer observations of Mademoiselle Victorine's behavior and +expressions. When he went next to the kitchen he clapped Jeanne on the +shoulder, and said with a laugh: "'Tis a wise mother knows her own +child. If that girl in yonder be not bent on turning the head of Willan +Blaycke before she sleeps to-night, may the devil fly away with me!" + +"Well, likely he may, if thou prove not too heavy a load," retorted the +filial Jeanne. "I tell thee the girl's heart is full of anger against +Willan Blaycke. She is but doing my bidding. I charged her to see to it +that he was pleased, that he should go away our friend." + +"And so he will go," replied Victor, dryly; "but not for thy bidding or +mine. The man is that far pleased already that he shifteth as if the +very chair were hot beneath him. A most dutiful niece thou hast, +Mistress Jeanne!" + +When supper was over Willan Blaycke walked hastily out of the house. He +wanted to be alone. The clouds had broken away, and the full moon shone +out gloriously. The great pear-tree looked like a tree wrapped in cloud, +its blossoms were so thick and white. Willan paced back and forth +beneath it, where he had lain sleeping before supper. He looked toward +the window from whence he had heard the singing voice. "It must have +been she," he said. "How shall I bring it to pass to see her again? for +that I will and must." He went to the window and looked in. All was +dark. As he turned away the door at the farther end opened, and a ray of +light flashing in from the hall beyond showed Victorine bearing in her +hand the jug of cider. She had made this excuse to go to the storeroom +again, having observed that Willan had left the house. + +"He might seek me again there," thought she. + +Willan heard the sound, turned back, and bounding to the window +exclaimed, "Was it thou who sang?" + +Victorine affected not to hear. Setting down her jug, she came close to +the window and said respectfully: "Didst thou call? What can I fetch, +sir?" + +Willan Blaycke leaned both his arms on the window-sill, and looking into +the eyes of Victorine Dubois replied: "Marry, girl, thou hast already +fetched me to such a pass that thy voice rings in my ears. I asked thee +if it were thou who sang?" + +Retreating from the window a step or two, Victorine said sorrowfully: "I +did not think that thou hadst the face of one who would jest lightly +with maidens." And she made as if she would go away. + +"Pardon, pardon!" cried Willan. "I am not jesting; I implore thee, think +it not. I did sleep under this tree before supper, and heard such +singing! I had thought it a bird over my head except that the song had +words. I know it was thou. Be not angry. Why shouldst thou? Where didst +thou learn those wild songs?" + +"From Sister Clarice, in the convent," answered Victorine. "It is only +last Easter that my grandfather fetched me from the convent to live with +him and my aunt Jeanne." + +"Thy aunt Jeanne," said Willan, slowly. "Is she thy aunt?" + +"Yes," said Victorine, sadly; "she that was thy father's wife, whom thou +wilt not have in thy house." + +This was a bold stroke on Victorine's part. To tell truth, she had had +no idea one moment before of saying any such thing; but a sudden emotion +of resentment got the better of her, and the words were uttered before +she knew it. + +Willan was angry. "All alike," he thought to himself,--"a bad lot. I +dare say the woman has set the girl here for nothing else than to try to +play on my feelings." And it was in a very cold tone that he replied to +Victorine,-- + +"Thou art not able to judge of such matters at thy age. Thy aunt is +better here than there. Thou knowest," he added in a gentler tone, +seeing Victorine's great black eyes swimming in sudden tears, "that she +was never as mother to me. I had never seen her till I returned a man +grown." + +Victorine was sobbing now. "Oh," she cried, "what ill luck is mine! I +have angered thee; and my aunt did especially charge me that I was to +treat thee well. She doth never speak an ill word of thee, sir, never! +Do not thou charge my hasty words to her." And Victorine leaned out of +the window, and looked up in Willan Blaycke's face with a look which she +had had good reason to know was well calculated to move a man's heart. + +Willan Blaycke had led a singularly pure life. He was of a reticent and +partly phlegmatic nature; though he looked so like his father, he +resembled him little in temperament. This calmness of nature, added to a +deep-seated pride, had stood him in stead of firmly rooted principles of +virtue, and had carried him safe through all the temptations of his +unprotected and lonely youth. He had the air and bearing, and had had in +most things the experience, of a man of the world; and yet he was as +ignorant of the wily ways of a wily woman as if he had never been out of +the wilderness. Victorine's tears smote on him poignantly. + +"Thou poor child!" he said most kindly, "do not weep. Thou hast done no +harm. I bear no ill will to thine aunt, and never did; and if I had, +thou wouldst have disarmed it. This inn seems to me no place for a young +maiden like thee." + +Victorine glanced cautiously around her, and whispered: "It were +ungrateful in me to say as much; but oh, sir, if thou didst but know how +I wish myself back in the convent! I like not the ways of this place; +and I fear so much the men who are often here. When thou didst speak at +first I did think thou wert like them; but now I perceive that thou art +quite different. Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister Clarice +did tell me." Victorine stopped, called up a blush to her cheeks, and +said: "But I must not stay talking with thee. My aunt will be looking +for me." + +"Stay," said Willan. "What did the Sister Clarice tell thee of men? I +thought not that nuns conversed on such matters." + +"Oh!" replied Victorine, innocently, "it was different with the Sister +Clarice. She was a noble lady who had been betrothed, and her betrothed +died; and it was because there were none left so noble and so good as +he, she said, that she had taken the veil and would die in the convent. +She did talk to me whole nights about this young lord whom she was to +have wed, and she did think often that she saw his face look down +through the roof of the cell." + +Clever Victorine! She had invented this tale on the spur of the instant. +She could not have done better if she had plotted long to devise a +method of flattering Willan Blaycke. It is strange how like inspiration +are the impulses of artful women at times. It would seem wellnigh +certain that they must be prompted by malicious fiends wishing to lure +men on to destruction in the surest way. + +Victorine had talked with Willan perhaps five minutes. In that space of +time she had persuaded him of four things, all false,--that she was an +innocent, guileless girl; that she had been seized with a sudden and +reverential admiration for him; that she had no greater desire in life +than to be back again in the safe shelter of the convent; and that her +aunt Jeanne had never said an ill-word of him. + +"Victorine! Victorine!" called a sharp loud voice,--the voice of +Jeanne,--who would have bitten her tongue out rather than have broken +in on this interview, if she had only known. "Victorine, where art thou +loitering?" + +"Oh, for heaven's sake, sir, do not thou tell my grandfather that I have +talked with thee!" cried Victorine, in feigned terror. "Here I am, aunt; +I will be there in one second," she cried aloud, and ran hastily down +the storeroom. At the door she stopped, hesitated, turned back, and +going towards the window said wistfully: "Thou hast never been here +before all these three months. I suppose thou travellest this way very +seldom." + +The full moon shone on Victorine's face as she said this. Her expression +was like that of a wistful little child. Willan Blaycke did not quite +know what he was doing. He reached his hand across the window-sill +towards Victorine; she did not extend hers. "I will come again sooner," +he said. "Wilt thou not shake hands?" + +Victorine advanced, hesitated, advanced again; it was inimitably done. +"The next time, if I know thee better, I might dare," she whispered, and +fled like a deer. + +"Where hast thou been?" said Jeanne, angrily. "The supper dishes are +yet all to wash." + +Victorine danced gayly around the kitchen floor. "Talking with the son +of thy husband," she said. "He seems to me much cleverer than a magpie." + +Jeanne burst out laughing. "Thou witch!" she said, secretly well +pleased. "But where didst thou fall upon him? Thou hast not been in the +bar-room?" + +"Nay, he fell upon me, the rather," replied Victorine, artlessly, "as I +was resting me at the window of the long storeroom. He heard me singing, +and came there." + +"Did he praise thy voice?" asked Jeanne. "He is a brave singer himself." + +"Is he?" said Victorine, eagerly. "He did not tell me that. He said my +voice was like the voice of a wild bird. And there be birds and birds +again, I was minded to tell him, and not all birds make music; but he +seemed to me not one to take jests readily." + +"So," said Jeanne; "that he is not. Leaves he early in the morning?" + +"I think so," replied Victorine. "He did not tell me, but I heard the +elder man say to Benoit to have the horses ready at earliest light." + +"Thou must serve them again in the morning," said Jeanne. "It will be +but the once more." + +"Nay," answered Victorine, "I will not." + +Something in the girl's tone arrested her aunt's attention. "And why?" +she said sharply, looking scrutinizingly at her. + +Victorine returned the gaze with one as steady. It was as well, she +thought, that there should be an understanding between her aunt and +herself soon as late. + +"Because he will come again the sooner, Aunt Jeanne, if he sees me no +more after to-night." And Victorine gave a little mocking nod with her +head, turned towards the dresser piled high with dishes, and began to +make a great clatter washing them. + +Jeanne was silent. She did not know how to take this. + +Victorine glanced up at her mischievously, and laughed aloud. "Better a +grape for me than two figs for thee. Dost know the old proverb, Aunt +Jeanne? Thou hadst thy figs; I will e'en pluck the grape." + +"Bah, child! thou talkest wildly," said Jeanne; "I know not what thou +'rt at." + +But she did know very well; only she did not choose to seem to +understand. However, as she thought matters over later in the evening, +in the solitude of her own room, one thing was clear to her, and that +was that it would probably be safe to trust Mademoiselle Victorine to +row her own boat; and Jeanne said as much to her father when he inquired +of her how matters had sped. + +In spite of Victorine's refusal to serve at the breakfast, she had not +the least idea of letting Willan go away in the morning without being +reminded of her presence. She was up before light, dressed in a pretty +pink and white flowered gown, which set off her black hair and eyes +well, and made her look as if she were related to an apple-blossom. She +watched and listened till she heard the sound of voices and the horses' +feet in the courtyard below; then throwing open her casement she leaned +out and began to water her flowers on the stairway roof. At the first +sound Willan Blaycke looked up and saw her. It was as pretty a picture +as a man need wish to see, and Willan gazed his fill at it. The window +was so high up in the air that the girl might well be supposed not to +see anything which was going on in the courtyard; indeed, she never once +looked that way, but went on daintily watering plant after plant, +picking off dead leaves, crumpling them up in her fingers and throwing +them down as if she were alone in the place; singing, too, softly in a +low tone snatches of a song, the words of which went floating away +tantalizingly over Willan's head, in spite of all his efforts to hear. + +It was a great tribute to Victorine's powers as an actress that it never +once crossed Willan's mind that she could possibly know he was looking +at her all this time. It was equally a token of another man's estimate +of her, that when old Benoit, hearing the singing, looked up and saw her +watering her flowers at this unexampled hour, he said under his breath, +"Diable!" and then glancing at the face of Willan, who stood gazing up +at the window utterly unconscious of the old ostler's presence, said +"Diable!" again, but this time with a broad and amused smile. + + + +III. + + + The fountain leaps as if its nearest goal + Were sky, and shines as if its life were light. + No crystal prism flashes on our sight + Such radiant splendor of the rainbow's whole + Of color. Who would dream the fountain stole + Its tints, and if the sun no more were bright + Would instant fade to its own pallid white? + Who dream that never higher than the dole + Of its own source, its stream may rise? + Thus we + See often hearts of men that by love's glow + Are sudden lighted, lifted till they show + All semblances of true nobility; + The passion spent, they tire of purity, + And sink again to their own levels low! + +The next time Willan Blaycke came to the Golden Pear he did not see +Victorine. This was by no device of hers, though if she had considered +beforehand she could not better have helped on the impression she had +made on him than by letting him go away disappointed, having come hoping +to see her. She was away on a visit at the home of Pierre Gaspard the +miller, whose eldest daughter Annette was Victorine's one friend in the +parish. There was an eldest son, also, Pierre second, on whom +Mademoiselle Victorine had cast observant glances, and had already +thought to herself that "if nothing else turned up--but there was time +enough yet." Not so thought Pierre, who was madly in love with +Victorine, and was so put about by her cold and capricious ways with him +that he was fast coming to be good for nothing in the mill or on the +farm. But he is of no consequence in this account of the career of +Mademoiselle, only this,--that if it had not been for him she had not +probably been away from the Golden Pear on the occasion of Willan +Blaycke's second visit. Pierre had not shown himself at the inn for some +weeks, and Victorine was uneasy about him. Spite of her plans about a +much finer bird in the bush, she was by no means minded to lose the bird +she had in hand. She was too clear-sighted a young lady not to perceive +that it would be no bad thing to be ultimately Mistress Gaspard of the +mill,--no bad thing if she could not do better, of which she was as yet +far from sure. So she had inveigled her aunt into taking the notion into +her head that she needed change, and the two had ridden over to +Gaspard's for a three days' visit, the very day before Willan arrived. + +"I warrant me he was set aback when I did tell him as he alighted that I +feared me he would not be well served just at present, as there was no +woman about the house," said Victor, chuckling as he told Jeanne the +story. "He did give a little start,--not so little but that I saw it +well, though he fetched himself up with his pride in a trice, and said +loftily: 'I have no doubt all will be sufficient; it is but a bite of +supper and a bed that I require. I must go on at daybreak,' But Benoit +saw him all the evening pacing back and forth under the pear-tree, and +many times looking up at the shut casement of the window where he had +seen Victorine standing on the morning when he was last here." + +"Did he ask aught about her?" said Jeanne. + +"Bah!" said Victor, contemptuously. "Dost take him for a fool? He will +be farther gone than he is yet, ere he will let either thee or me see +that the girl is aught to him." + +"I wish he had found her here," said Jeanne. "It was an ill bit of luck +that took her away; and that Pierre, he is like to go mad about her, +since these three days under one roof. I knew not he was so daft, or I +had not taken her there." + +"She were well wed to Pierre Gaspard," said Victor; "mated with one's +own degree is best mated, after all. What shall we say if the lad come +asking her hand? He will not ask twice, I can tell you that of a +Gaspard." + +"Trust the girl to keep him from asking till she be ready to say him yea +or nay," replied Jeanne. "I know not wherever the child hath learnt such +ways with men; surely in the convent she saw none but priests." + +"And are not priests men?" sneered Victor, with an evil laugh. "Faith, +and I think there is nought which other men teach which they do not +teach better!" + +"Fie, father! thou shouldst not speak ill of the clergy; it is bad +luck," said Jeanne. Jeanne was far honester of nature than either her +father or her child; she was not entirely without reverence, and as far +as she could, without too much inconvenience, kept good faith with her +religion. + +When Victorine heard that Willan Blaycke had been at the inn in their +absence, she shrugged her pretty shoulders, and said, laughingly, "Eh, +but that is good!" + +"Why sayest thou so?" replied Jeanne. "I say it is ill." + +"And I say it is good," retorted Victorine; and not another word could +Jeanne get out of her on the matter. + +Victorine was right. As Willan Blaycke rode away from the Golden Pear, +he was so vexed with the unexpected disappointment that he was in a mood +fit to do some desperate thing. He had tried with all his might to put +Victorine's face and voice and sweet little form out of his thoughts, +but it was beyond his power. She haunted him by day and by night,--worse +by night than by day,--for he dreamed continually of standing just the +other side of a window-sill across which Victorine reached snowy little +hands and laid them in his, and just as he was about to grasp them the +vision faded, and he waked up to find himself alone. Willan Blaycke had +never loved any woman. If he had,--if he had had even the least +experience in the way of passionate fancies, he could have rated this +impression which Victorine had produced on him for what it was worth and +no more, and taking counsel of his pride have waited till the discomfort +of it should have passed away. But he knew no better than to suppose +that because it was so keen, so haunting, it must last forever. He was +almost appalled at the condition in which he found himself. It more than +equalled all the descriptions which he had read of unquenchable love. He +could not eat; he could not occupy himself with any affairs: all +business was tedious to him, and all society irksome. He lay awake long +hours, seeing the arch black eyes and rosy cheeks and piquant little +mouth; worn out by restlessness, he slept, only to see the eyes and +cheeks and mouth more vividly. It was all to no purpose that he reasoned +with himself,--that he asked himself sternly a hundred times a day,-- + +"Wilt thou take the granddaughter of Victor Dubois to be the mother of +thy children? Is it not enough that thy father disgraced his name for +that blood? Wilt thou do likewise?" + +The only answer which came to all these questions was Victorine's soft +whisper: "Oh, if thou didst but know, sir, how I wish myself safe back +in the convent!" and, "Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister +Clarice did tell me." + +"Poor little girl!" he said; "she is of their blood, but not of their +sort. Her mother was doubtless a good and pure woman, even though she +had not good birth or breeding; and this child hath had good training +from the Sisters in the convent. She is of a most ladylike bearing, and +has a fine sense of all which is proper and becoming, else would she not +so dislike the ways of an inn, and have such fear of the men that gaze +on her there." + +So touching is the blindness of those blinded by love! It is enough to +make one weep sometimes to see it,--to see, as in this instance of +Willan Blaycke, an upright, modest, and honest gentleman creating out of +the very virtues of his own nature the being whom he will worship, and +then clothing this ideal with a bit of common clay, of immodest and +ill-behaved flesh, which he hath found ready-made to his hand, and full +of the snare of good looks. + +When Willan Blaycke rode away this time from the Golden Pear, he was, as +we say, in a mood ready to do some desperate thing, he was so vexed and +disappointed. What he did do, proved it; he turned his horse and rode +straight for Gaspard's mill. The artful Benoit had innocently dropped +the remark, as he was holding the stirrup for Willan to mount, that +Mistress Jeanne and her niece were at Pierre Gaspard's; that for his +part he wished them back,--there was no luck about a house without a +woman in it. + +Willan Blaycke made some indifferent reply, as if all that were nothing +to him, and galloped off. But before he had gone five miles Benoit's +leaven worked, and he turned into a short-cut lane he knew which led to +the mill. He did not stop to ask himself what he should do there; he +simply galloped on towards Victorine. It was only a couple of leagues to +the mill, and its old tower and wheel were in sight before he thought of +its being near. Then he began to consider what errand he could make; +none occurred to him. He reined his horse up to a slow walk, and fell +into a reverie,--so deep a one that he did not see what he might have +seen had he looked attentively into a copse of poplars on a high bank +close to his road,--two young girls sitting on the ground peeling +slender willow stems for baskets. It was Annette Gaspard and Victorine; +and at the sound of a horse's feet they both leaned forward and looked +down into the road. + +"Oh, see, Victorine!" Annette cried; "a brave rider goes there. Who can +he be? I wonder if he goes to the mill? Perhaps my father will keep him +to dinner." + +At the first glance Victorine recognized Willan Blaycke, but she gave no +sign to her friend that she knew him. + +"He sitteth his horse like one asleep," she said, "or in a dream. I call +him not a brave rider. He hath forgotten something," she added; "see, he +is turning about!" And with keen disappointment the girls saw the +horseman wheel suddenly, and gallop back on the road he had come. At the +last moment, by a mighty effort, Willan had wrenched his will to the +decision that he would not seek Victorine at the mill. + +And this was why, when her aunt told her that he had been at the inn +during their absence, Victorine shrugged her shoulders, and said with so +pleased a laugh, "Eh! that is good." She understood by a lightning +intuition all which had happened,--that he had ridden towards the mill +seeking her, and had changed his mind at the last, and gone away. But +she kept her own counsel, told nobody that she had seen him, and said in +her mischievous heart, "He will be back before long." + +And so he was; but not even Victorine, with all her confidence in the +strength of the hold she had so suddenly acquired on him, could have +imagined how soon and with what purpose he would return. On the evening +of the sixth day, just at sunset, he appeared, walking with his +saddle-bags on his shoulders and leading his horse. The beast limped +badly, and had evidently got a sore hurt. Old Benoit was standing in the +arched entrance of the courtyard as they approached. + +"Marry, but that beast is in a bad way!" he exclaimed, and went to meet +them. Benoit loved a horse; and Willan Blaycke's black stallion was a +horse to which any man's heart might well go out, so knowing, docile, +proud, and swift was the creature, and withal most beautifully made. The +poor thing went haltingly enough now, and every few minutes stopped and +looked around piteously into his master's face. + +"And the man doth look as distressed as the beast," thought Benoit, as +he drew near; "it is a good man that so loves an animal." And Benoit +warmed toward Willan as he saw his anxious face. + +If Benoit had only known! No wonder Willan's face was sorrow-stricken! +It was he himself that had purposely lamed the stallion, that he might +have plain and reasonable excuse for staying at the Golden Pear some +days. He had not meant to hurt the poor creature so much, and his +conscience pricked him horribly at every step the horse took. He patted +him on his neck, spoke kindly to him, and did all in his power to atone +for his cruelty. That all was very little, however, for each step was +torture to the beast; his fore feet were nearly bleeding. This was what +Willan had done: the day before he had taken off two of the horse's +shoes, and then galloped fast over miles of rough and stony road. The +horse had borne himself gallantly, and shown no fatigue till nightfall, +when he suddenly went lame, and had grown worse in the night, so that +Willan had come very near having to lie by at an inn some leagues to the +north, where he had no mind to stay. A heavy price he was paying for the +delight of looking on Victorine's face, he began to think, as he toiled +along on foot, mile after mile, the saddle-bags on his shoulders, and +the hot sun beating down on his head; but reach the Golden Pear that day +he would, and he did,--almost as footsore as the stallion. Neither +master nor beast was wonted to rough ways. + +"My horse is sadly lame," Willan said to Benoit as he came up. "He cast +two shoes yesterday, and I was forced to ride on, spite of it, for there +was no blacksmith on the road I came. I fear me thou canst not shoe him +to-night, his feet have grown so sore!" + +"No, nor to-morrow nor the day after," cried Benoit, taking up the +inflamed feet and looking at them closely. "It was a sin, sir, to ride +such a creature unshod; he is a noble steed." + +"Nay, I have not ridden a step to-day," answered Willan, "and I am +wellnigh as sore as he. We have come all the way from the north +boundary,--a matter of some six leagues, I think,--from the inn of Jean +Gauvois." + +"But he is a farrier himself!" cried Benoit. "How let he the beast go +out like this?" + +"It was I forbade him to touch the horse," replied the wily Willan. "He +did lame a good mare for me once, driving a nail into the quick. I +thought the horse would be better to walk this far and get thy more +skilful handling. There is not a man in this country, they tell me, can +shoe a horse so well as thou. Dost thou not know some secret of +healing," he continued, "by which thou canst harden the feet, so that +they will be fit to shoe to-morrow?" + +Benoit shook his head. "Thy horse hath been too tenderly reared," he +said. "A hurt goes harder with him than with our horses. But I will do +my best, sir. I doubt not it will inconvenience thee much to wait here +till he be well. If thou couldst content thee with a beast sorry to look +at, but like the wind to go, we have a nag would carry thee along, and +thou couldst leave the stallion till thy return." + +"But I come not back this way," replied Willan, strangely ready with his +lies, now he had once undertaken the rôle of a manoeuvrer. "I go far +south, even down to the harbors of the sound. I must bide the beast's +time now. He hath made time for me many a day, and I do assure you, good +Benoit, I love him as if he were my brother." + +"Ay," replied the ostler; "so thought I when I saw thee bent under thy +saddle-bags and leading the horse by the rein. It's an evil man likes +not his beast. We say in Normandy, sir,-- + + "'Evil master to good beast, + Serve him ill at every feast!'" + +"So he deserves," replied Willan, heartily; and in his heart he added, +"I hope I shall not get my deserts." + +Benoit led the poor horse away toward the stables, and Willan entered +the house. No one was to be seen. Benoit had forgotten to tell him that +no one was at home except Victorine. It was a market-day at St. Urban's; +and Victor and Jeanne had gone for the day, and would not be back till +late in the evening. + +Willan roamed on from room to room,--through the bar-room, the +living-room, the kitchen; all were empty, silent. As he retraced his +steps he stopped for a second at the foot of the stairs which led from +the living-room to the narrow passage-way overhead. + +Victorine was in her aunt's room, and heard the steps. "Who is there?" +she called. Willan recognized her voice; he considered a second what he +should reply. + +"Benoit! is it thou?" Victorine called again impatiently; and the next +minute she bounded down the stairway, crying, "Why dost thou terrify me +so, thou bad Benoit, not answering me when I--" She stopped, face to +face with Willan Blaycke, and gave a cry of honest surprise. + +"Ah! but is it really thou?" she said, the rosy color mounting all over +her face as she recollected how she was attired. She had been asleep +all the warm afternoon, and had on only a white petticoat and a short +gown of figured stuff, red and white. Her hair was falling over her +shoulders. Willan's heart gave a bound as he looked at her. Before he +had fairly seen her, she had turned to fly. + +"Yes, it is I,--it is I," he called after her. "Wilt thou not come +back?" + +"Nay," answered Victorine, from the upper stair; "that I may not do, for +the house is alone." Victorine was herself now, and was wise enough not +to go quite out of sight. She looked entrancing between the dark wooden +balustrades, one slender hand holding to them, and the other catching up +part of her hair. "When my aunt returns, if she bids me to wait at +supper I shall see thee." And Victorine was gone. + +"Then sing for me at thy window," entreated Willan. + +"I know not the whole of any song," cried Victorine; but broke, as she +said it, into a snatch of a carol which seemed to the poor infatuated +man at the foot of the stairway like the song of an angel. He hurried +out, and threw himself down under the pear-tree where he had lain +before. The blossoms had all fallen from the pear-tree now, and through +the thinned branches he could see Victorine's window distinctly. She +could see him also. + +"It would be no hard thing to love such a man as he, methinks," she said +to herself as she went on leisurely weaving the thick braids of her +hair, and humming a song just low enough for Willan to half hear and +half lose the words. + + "Once in a hedge a bird went singing, + Singing because there was nobody near. + Close to the hedge a voice came crying, + 'Sing it again! I am waiting to hear. + Sing it forever! 'T is sweet to hear.' + + "Never again that bird went singing + Till it was surer that no one was near. + Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting, + Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear. + Sing it again! It was sweet to hear.'" + +"I wonder if Sister Clarice's lover had asked her to sing, as Willan +Blaycke just now asked me, that she did make this song," thought +Victorine. "It hath a marvellous fitness, surely." And she repeated the +last three lines. + + "Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting, + Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear. + Sing it again! It was sweet to hear.'" + +"But I should be silent like the bird, and not sing," she reflected, and +paused for a while. Willan listened patiently for a few moments. Then +growing impatient, he picked up a handful of turf and flung it up at the +window. Victorine laughed to herself as she heard it, but did not sing. +Another soft thud against the casement; no reply from Victorine. Then in +a moment more, in a rich deep voice, and a tune far sweeter than any +Victorine had sung, came these words:-- + + "Faint and weary toiled a pilgrim, + Faint and weary of his load; + Sudden came a sweet bird winging + Glad and swift across his road. + + "'Blessed songster!' cried the pilgrim, + 'Where is now the load I bore? + I forget it in thy singing; + Hearing thee, I faint no more,' + + "While he spoke the bird went winging + Higher still, and soared away; + 'Cruel songster!' cried the pilgrim, + 'Cruel songster not to stay!' + + "Was the songster cruel? Never! + High above some other road + Glad and swift he still was singing, + Lightening other pilgrims' load!" + +Victorine bent her head and listened intently to this song. It touched +the best side of her nature. + +"Indeed, that is a good song," she said to herself, "but it fitteth not +my singing. I make choice for whom I sing; I am not minded so to give +pleasure to all the world." + +She racked her brains to recall some song which would be as pertinent a +reply to Willan's song as his had been to hers; but she could think of +none. She was vexed; for the romance of this conversing by means of +songs pleased her mightily. At last, half in earnest and half in fun, +she struck boldly into a measure on which she would hardly have ventured +could she have seen the serious and tender expression on the face of her +listener under the pear-tree. As Willan caught line after line of the +rollicking measure, his countenance changed. + +"An elfish mood is upon her," he thought. "She doth hold herself so safe +in her chamber that she may venture on words she had not sung nearer at +hand. She is not without mischief in her blood, no doubt." And Willan's +own look began to grow less reverential and more eager as he listened. + + "The bee is a fool in the summer; + He knows it when summer is flown: + He might, for all good of his honey, + As well have let flowers alone. + + "The butterfly, he is the wiser; + He uses his wings when they 're grown; + He takes his delight in the summer, + And dies when the summer is done. + + "A heart is a weight in the bosom; + A heart can be heavy as stone: + Oh, what is the use of a lover? + A maiden is better alone." + +Victorine was a little frightened herself, as she sang this last stanza. +However, she said to herself: "I will bear me so discreetly at supper +that the man shall doubt his very ears if he have ever heard me sing +such words or not. It is well to perplex a man. The more he be +perplexed, the more he meditateth on thee; and the more he meditateth on +thee, the more his desire will grow, if it have once taken root." + +A very wise young lady in her generation was this graduate of a convent +where no men save priests ever came! + +Just as Victorine had sung the last verse of her song, she heard the +sound of wheels and voices on the road. Victor and Jeanne were coming +home. Willan heard the sounds also, and slowly arose from the ground and +sauntered into the courtyard. He had an instinct that it would be better +not to be seen under the pear-tree. + +Great was the satisfaction of Victor and Jeanne when they found that +Willan Blaycke was a guest in the inn; still greater when they learned +that he would be kept there for at least two days by the lameness of his +horse. + +"Thou need'st not make great haste with the healing of the beast," said +Victor to Benoit; "it might be a good turn to keep the man here for a +space." And the master exchanged one significant glance with his man, +and saw that he need say no more. + +There was no such specific understanding between Jeanne and Victorine. +From some perverse and roguish impulse the girl chose to take no counsel +in this game she had begun to play; but each woman knew that the other +comprehended the situation perfectly. + +When Victorine came into the dining-room to serve Willan Blaycke's +supper, she looked, to his eyes, prettier than ever. She wore the same +white gown and black silk apron with crimson lace she had worn before. +Her cheeks and her eyes were bright from the excitement of the +serenading and counter-serenading in which she had been engaged. Her +whole bearing was an inimitable blending of shyness and archness, +tempered by almost reverential respect. Willan Blaycke would have been +either more or less than mortal man if he had resisted it. He did +not,--he succumbed then and there and utterly to his love for Victorine; +and the next morning when breakfast was ready he electrified Victor +Dubois by saying, with a not wholly successful attempt at jocularity,-- + +"Look you! your man tells me I am like to be kept here a matter of some +three days or more, before my horse be fit to bear me. Now, it irks me +to be the cause of so much trouble, seeing that I am the only traveller +in the house. I pray you that I may sit down with you all at meal-times, +as is your wont, and that you make no change in the manner of your +living by reason of my being in the house. I shall be better pleased +so." + +There was about as much command as request in Willan's manner; and after +some pretended hesitancy Victor yielded, only saying, by way of +breaking down the last barrier,-- + +"My daughter hath desired not to see thee. I know not how she may take +this request of thine; it seemeth but reasonable unto me, and it will be +that saving of work for her. I think she may consent." + +Nothing but her love for Victorine would have induced Jeanne to sit +again at meat with her stepson, but for Victorine's sake Jeanne would +have done much harder things; and indeed, after the first few moments of +awkwardness had passed by, she found that she was much less +uncomfortable in Willan's presence than she had anticipated. + +Willan's own manner did much to bring this about. He was so deeply in +love with Victorine that it had already transformed his sentiments on +most points, and on none more than in regard to Jeanne. He thought no +better of her character than he had thought before; but he found himself +frequently recollecting, as he had never done before, or at least had +never done in a kindly way, that, after all, she had been his father's +wife for ten years, and it would perhaps have been a more dignified +thing in him to have attempted to make her continue in a style of living +suitable to his father's name than to have relegated her, as he had +done, to her original and lower social station. + +Jeanne's behavior towards him was very judicious. Affection is the best +teacher of tact in many an emergency in life; we see it every day among +ignorant and untaught people. + +Jeanne knew, or felt without knowing, that the less she appeared to be +conscious of anything unusual or unpleasant in this resumption of +familiar relations on the surface, between herself and Willan, the more +free his mind would be to occupy itself with Victorine; and she acted +accordingly. She never obtruded herself on his attention; she never +betrayed any antagonism toward him, or any recollection of the former +and different footing on which they had lived. A stranger sitting at the +table would not have dreamed, from anything in her manner to him, that +she had ever occupied any other position than that of the landlord's +daughter and landlady of the inn. + +A clear-sighted observer looking on at affairs in the Golden Pear for +the next three days would have seen that all the energies of both Victor +and Jeanne were bent to one end,--namely, leaving the coast clear for +Willan Blaycke to fall in love with Victorine. But all that Willan +thought was that Victor and his daughter were far quieter and modester +people than he had supposed, and seemed disposed to keep themselves to +themselves in a most proper fashion. It never crossed his mind that +there was anything odd in his finding Victorine so often and so long +alone in the living-room; in the uniform disappearance of both Victor +and Jeanne at an early hour in the evening. Willan was too much in love +to wonder at or disapprove of anything which gave him an opportunity of +talking with Victorine, or, still better, of looking at her. + +What he liked best was silently to watch her as she moved about, doing +her light duties in her own graceful way. He was not a voluble lover; he +was still too much bewildered at his own condition. Moreover, he had not +yet shaken himself free from the tormenting disapproval of his +conscience; he lost sight of that very fast, however, as the days sped +on. Victorine played her cards most admirably. She did not betray even +by a look that she understood that he loved her; she showed towards him +an open and honest admiration, and an eager interest in all that he said +or did,--an almost affectionate good-will, too, in serving his every +want, and trying to make the time of his detention pass pleasantly to +him. + +"It must be a sore trial, sir, for thee to be kept in a poor place like +this so many days. Benoit says that he thinks not thy horse can go +safely for yet some days," she said to Willan one morning. "Would it +amuse thee to ride over to Pierre Gaspard's mill to-day? If thou couldst +abide the gait of my grandfather's nag, I might go on my pony, and show +thee the way. The river is high now, and it is a fair sight to see the +white blossoms along the banks." + +Cunning Victorine! She had all sorts of motives in this proposition. She +thought it would be well to show Willan Blaycke to Pierre. "He may +discover that there are other men beside himself in the world," she +mused; and, "It would please me much to go riding up to the door for +Annette to see with the same brave rider she did so admire;" and, "There +are many ways to bring a man near one in riding through the woods." All +these and many more similar musings lay hid behind the innocent look she +lifted to Willan's face as she suggested the ride. + +It was only the third morning of Willan's stay at the inn; but the time +had been put to very good use. Already it had become natural to him to +come and go with Victorine,--to stay where she was, to seek her if she +were missing. Already he had learned the way up the outside staircase to +the platform where she kept her flowers and sometimes sat. He was living +in a dream,--going the way of all men, head-long, blindfold, into a life +of which he knew and could know nothing. + +"Indeed, and that is what I should like best of all things," he replied +to Victorine. "Will thy aunt let thee go?" + +"Why not?" asked Victorine, opening her eyes wide in astonishment. "I +ride all over the parish on my pony alone." + +"Stupid of me!" ejaculated Willan, inwardly: "as if these people could +know any scruples about etiquette!" + +"These people," as Willan contemptuously called them, stood at the door +of the inn, and watched him riding away with Victorine with hardly +disguised exultation. Not till the riders were fairly out of sight did +Victor venture to turn his face toward Jeanne's. Then, bursting into a +loud laugh, he clapped Jeanne on the shoulder, and said: "We'll see thee +grandmother of thy husband's grandchildren yet, Jeanne. Ha! ha!" + +Jeanne flushed. She was not without a sense of shame. Her love for +Victorine made her sensitive to the stain on her birth. + +"Thinkest thou it could ever be known?" she asked anxiously. + +"Never," replied her father,--"never; 'tis as safe as if we were all +dead. And for that, the living are safer than the dead, if there be +tight enough lock on their mouths." + +"He doth seem to be as much in love as one need," said Jeanne. + +"Ay," said Victor, "more than ever his father was with thee." + +"Canst thou not let that alone?" said Jeanne, angrily. "Surely it is +long enough gone by, and small profit came of it." + +"Not so, not so, daughter," replied Victor, soothingly; "if we can but +set the girl in thy shoes, thou didst not wear thine for nought, even +though they pinched thee for a time." + +"That they did," retorted Jeanne; "it gives me a cramp now but to +remember them." + +Willan and Victorine galloped merrily along the river road. The woods +were sweet with spring fragrances; great thickets of dogwood trees were +white with flowers; mossy hillocks along the roadside were pink with the +dainty bells of the Linnaea. The road was little more than a woodman's +path, and curved now right, now left, in seeming caprice; now forded a +stream, now came out into a cleared field, again plunged back into dense +groves of larch and pine. + +"Never knew I that the woods were so beautiful thus early in the year," +said the honest Willan. + +"Nor I, till to-day," said the artful Victorine, who knew well enough +what Willan did not know himself. + +"Dost thou ride here alone?" asked Willan. "It is a wild place for thee +to be alone." + +"If I came not alone, I could not come at all," replied Victorine, +sorrowfully. "My grandfather is too busy, and my aunt likes not to ride +except she must, on a market day or to go to church. No one but thou +hast ever walked or ridden with me," she added in a low voice, sighing; +"and now after two days or three thou wilt be gone." + +Willan sighed also, but did not speak. The words, "I will always ride by +thy side, Victorine," were on his lips, but he felt himself still +withheld from speaking them. + +The visit at the mill was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, +and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine riding +familiarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of the +richest men in the country, and a young man at that,--and a young man, +moreover, who looked and behaved as if he were in love with his +companion,--how could the poor miller be expected to be cordial and +unconstrained with such a sight before his eyes! Annette also was more +overawed even than Victorine had desired she should be by the sight of +the handsome stranger,--so overawed, and withal perhaps a little +curious, that she was dumb and awkward; and as for _Mère_ Gaspard, she +never under any circumstances had a word to say. So the visit was very +stupid, and everybody felt ill at ease,--especially Willan, who had lost +his temper in the beginning at a speech of Pierre's to Victorine, which +seemed to his jealous sense too familiar. + +"I thought thou never wouldst take leave," he said ill-naturedly to +Victorine, as they rode away. + +Victorine turned towards him with an admirably counterfeited expression +of surprise. "Oh, sir," she said, "I did think I ought to wait for thee +to take leave. I was dying with the desire I had to be back in the woods +again; and only when I could not bear it any longer, did I bethink me to +say that my aunt expected us back to dinner." + +Long they lingered on the river-banks on their way home. Even the +plotting brain of Victorine was not insensible to the charm of the sky, +the air, the budding foliage, and the myriads of blossoms. "Oh, sir," +she said, "I think there never was such a day as this before!" + +"I know there never was," replied Willan, looking at her with an +expression which was key to his words. But the daughter of Jeanne Dubois +was not to be wooed by any vague sentimentalisms. There was one sentence +which she was intently waiting to hear Willan Blaycke speak. Anything +short of that Mademoiselle Victorine was too innocent to comprehend. + +"Sweet child!" thought Willan to himself, "she doth not know the speech +of lovers. I mistrust that if I wooed her outright, she would be +afraid." + +It was long past noon when they reached the Golden Pear. Dinner had +waited till the hungry Victor and Jeanne could wait no longer; but a +very pretty and dainty little repast was ready for Willan and Victorine. +As she sat opposite him at the table, so bright and beaming, her whole +face full of pleasure, Willan leaned both his arms on the table and +looked at her in silence for some minutes. + +"Victorine!" he said. Victorine started. She was honestly very hungry, +and had been so absorbed in eating her dinner she had not noticed +Willan's look. She dropped her knife and sprang up. + +"What is it, sir?" she said; "what shall I fetch?" Her instantaneous +resumption of the serving-maid's relation to him jarred on Willan at +that second indescribably, and shut down like a floodgate on the words +he was about to speak. + +"Nothing, nothing," said he. "I was only going to say that thou must +sleep this afternoon; thou art tired." + +"Nay, I am not tired," said Victorine, petulantly. "What is a matter of +six leagues of a morning? I could ride it again between this and sunset, +and not be tired." + +But she was tired, and she did sleep, though she had not meant to do so +when she threw herself on her bed, a little later; she had meant only to +rest herself for a few minutes, and then in a fresh toilette return to +Willan. But she slept on and on until after sunset, and Willan wandered +aimlessly about, wondering what had become of her. Jeanne saw him, but +forebore to take any note of his uneasiness. She had looked in upon +Victorine in her slumber, and was well content that it should be so. + +"The girl will awake refreshed and rosy," thought Jeanne; "and it will +do no harm, but rather good, if he have missed her sorely all the +afternoon." + +Supper was over, and the evening work all done when Victorine waked. It +was dusk. Rubbing her eyes, she sprang up and went to the window. Jeanne +heard her steps, and coming to the foot of the stairs called: "Thou +need'st not to come down; all is done. What shall I bring thee to eat?" + +"Why didst thou not waken me?" replied Victorine, petulantly; "I meant +not to sleep." + +"I thought the sleep was better," replied her aunt. "Thou didst look +tired, and it suits no woman's looks to be tired." + +Victorine was silent. She saw Willan walking up and down under the +pear-tree. She leaned out of her window and moved one of the +flower-pots. Willan looked up; in a second more he had bounded up the +staircase, and eagerly said: "Art thou there? Wilt thou never come +down?" + +Victorine was uncertain in her own mind what was the best thing to do +next; so she replied evasively: "Thou wert right, after all. I did not +feel myself tired, but I have slept until now." + +"Then thou art surely rested. Canst thou not come and walk with me in +the pear orchard?" said Willan. + +"I fear me I may not do that after nightfall," replied Victorine. "My +aunt would be angry." + +"She need not know," replied the eager Willan. "Thou canst come down by +this stairway, and it is already near dark." + +Victorine laughed a little low laugh. This pleased her. "Yes," she said, +"I have often come down by, that post from my window; but truly, I fear +I ought not to do it for thee. What should I say to my aunt if she +missed me?" + +"Oh, she thinks thee asleep," said Willan. "She told me at supper that +she would not waken thee." + +All of which Mistress Jeanne heard distinctly, standing midway on the +wide staircase, with Victorine's supper of bread and milk in her hand. +She had like to have spilled the whole bowlful of milk for laughing. But +she stood still, holding her breath lest Victorine should hear her, till +the conversation ceased, and she heard Victorine moving about in her +room again. Then she went in, and kissing Victorine, said: "Eat thy +supper now, and go to bed; it is late. Good-night. I'll wake thee early +enough in the morning to pay for not having called thee this afternoon. +Good-night." + +Then Jeanne went down to her own room, blew out her candle, and seated +herself at the window to hear what would happen. + +"My aunt's candle is out; she hath gone to bed," whispered Victorine, as +holding Willan's hand she stole softly down the outer stair. "I do doubt +much that I am doing wrong." + +"Nay, nay," whispered Willan. "Thou sweet one, what wrong can there be +in thy walking a little time with me? Thy aunt did let thee ride with me +all the day." And he tenderly guided Victorine's steps down the steep +stairs. + +"Pretty well! pretty well!" laughed Mistress Jeanne behind her casement; +and as soon as the sound of Willan's and Victorine's steps had died +away, she ran downstairs to tell Victor what had happened. Victor was +not so pleased as Jeanne; he did not share her confidence in Victorine's +character. + +"Sacre!" he said; "what wert thou thinking of? Dost want another niece +to be fetched up in a convent? Thou mayst thank thyself for it, if thou +art grandmother to one. I trust no man out of sight, and no girl. The +man's in love with the girl, that is plain; but he means no marrying." + +"That thou dost not know," retorted Jeanne. "I tell thee he is an +honorable, high-minded man, and as pure as if he were but just now +weaned. I know him, and thou dost not. He will marry her, or he will +leave her alone." + +"We shall see," muttered the coarse old man as he walked away,--"we +shall see. Like mother, like child. I trust them not." And in a thorough +ill-humor Victor betook himself to the courtyard. What he heard there +did not reassure him. Old Benoit had seen Willan and Victorine going +down through the poplar copse toward the pear orchard. "And may the +saints forsake me," said Benoit, "if I do not think he had his arm +around her waist and her head on his shoulder. Think'st thou he will +marry her?" + +"Nay," growled Victor; "he's no fool. That Jeanne hath set her heart on +it, and thinketh it will come about; but not so I." + +"He seems of a rare fine-breeding and honorable speech," said Benoit. + +"Ay, ay," replied Victor, "words are quick said, and fine manners come +easy to some; but a man looks where he weds." + +"His father did not have chance for much looking," sneered Benoit. + +"This is another breed, even if his father begot him," replied Victor. +"He goeth no such way as that." And thoroughly disquieted, Victor +returned to the house to report to Jeanne what Benoit had seen. She was +still undisturbed. + +"Thou wilt see," was her only reply; and the two sat down together in +the porch to await the lovers' return. Hour after hour passed; even +Jeanne began to grow alarmed. It was long after midnight. + +"I fear some accident hath befallen them," she said at last. "Would it +be well, thinkest thou, to go in search of them?" + +"Not a step!" cried Victor. "He took her away, and he must needs bring +her back. We await them here. He shall see whether he may tamper with +the granddaughter of Victor Dubois." + +"Hush, father!" said Jeanne, "here they come." + +Walking very slowly, arm in arm, came Willan and Victorine. They had +evidently no purpose of entering the house clandestinely, but were +approaching the front door. + +"Hoity, toity!" muttered Victor; "he thinks he can lord it over us, +surely." + +"Be quiet, father!" entreated Jeanne. Her quick eye saw something new in +the bearing of both Willan and Victorine. But Victor was not to be +quieted. With an angry oath, he sprung forward from the porch, and began +to upbraid Willan in no measured tones. + +Willan lifted his right hand authoritatively. "Wait!" he said. "Do not +say what thou wilt repent, Victor Dubois. Thy granddaughter hath +promised to be my wife." + +So the new generation avenged the old; and Willan Blaycke, in the prime +of his cultured and fastidious manhood, fell victim to a spell less +coarsely woven but no less demoralizing than that which had imbittered +the last years of his father's life. + +[Footnote: Note.--"The Inn of the Golden Pear" includes three chapters +of a longer story entitled "Elspeth Pynevor,"--a story of such +remarkable vigor and promise, and planned on such noble and powerful +lines as to deepen regret that its author's death left it but half +finished. A single sentence has been added by another hand to round the +episode of Willan Blaycke's infatuation to conclusion.] + + + + +The Mystery of Wilhelm Rütter. + + + +It was long past dusk of an August evening. Farmer Weitbreck stood +leaning on the big gate of his barnyard, looking first up and then down +the road. He was chewing a straw, and his face wore an expression of +deep perplexity. These were troublous times in Lancaster County. Never +before had the farmers been so put to it for farm service; harvest-time +had come, and instead of the stream of laborers seeking employment, +which usually at this season set in as regularly as river freshets in +spring, it was this year almost impossible to hire any one. + +The explanation of this nobody knew or could divine; but the fact was +indisputable, and the farmers were in dismay,--nobody more so than +Farmer Weitbreck, who had miles of bottom-lands, in grain of one sort +and another, all yellow and nodding, and ready for the sickle, and +nobody but himself and his son John to swing scythe, sickle, or flail on +the place. + +"Never I am caught this way anoder year," thought he, as he gazed +wearily up and down the dark, silent road; "but that does to me no goot +this time that is now." + +Gustavus Weitbreck had lived so long on his Pennsylvania farm that he +even thought in English instead of in German, and, strangely enough, in +English much less broken and idiomatic than that which he spoke. But his +phraseology was the only thing about him that had changed. In modes of +feeling, habits of life, he was the same he had been forty years ago, +when he farmed a little plot of land, half wheat, half vineyard, in the +Mayence meadows in the fatherland,--slow, methodical, saving, stupid, +upright, obstinate. All these traits "Old Weitbreck," as he was called +all through the country, possessed to a degree much out of the ordinary; +and it was a combination of two of them--the obstinacy and the +savingness--which had brought him into his present predicament. + +In June he had had a good laborer,--one of the best known, and eagerly +sought by every farmer in the county; a man who had never yet been +beaten in a mowing-match or a reaping. By his help the haying had been +done in not much more than two thirds the usual time; but when John +Weitbreck, like a sensible fellow, said, "Now, we would better keep Alf +on till harvest; there is plenty of odds-and-ends work about the farm he +can help at, and we won't get his like again in a hurry," his father had +cried out,-- + +"Mein Gott! It is that you tink I must be made out of money! I vill not +keep dis man on so big wages to do vat you call odd-and-end vork. We do +odd-and-end vork ourself." + +There was no discussion of the point. John Weitbreck knew better than +ever to waste his time and breath or temper in trying to change a +purpose of his father's or convince him of a mistake. But he bided his +time; and he would not have been human if he had not now taken secret +satisfaction, seeing his father's anxiety daily increase as the August +sun grew hotter and hotter, and the grain rattled in the husks waiting +to be reaped, while they two, straining their arms to the utmost, and in +long days' work, seemed to produce small impression on the great fields. + +"The women shall come work in field to-morrow," thought the old man, as +he continued his anxious reverie. "It is not that they sit idle all day +in house, when the wheat grows to rattle like the peas in pod. They can +help, the mütter and Carlen; that will be much help; they can do." And +hearing John's steps behind him, the old man turned and said,-- + +"Johan, dere comes yet no man to reap. To-morrow must go in the field +Carlen and the mütter; it must. The wheat get fast too dry; it is more +as two men can do." + +John bit his lips. He was aghast. Never had he seen his mother and +sister at work in the fields. John had been born in America; and he was +American, not German, in his feeling about this. Without due +consideration he answered,-- + +"I would rather work day and night, father, than see my mother and +sister in the fields. I will do it, too, if only you will not make them +go!" + +The old man, irritated by the secret knowledge that he had nobody but +himself to blame for the present dilemma, still more irritated, also, by +this proof of what was always exceedingly displeasing to him,--his son's +having adopted American standards and opinions,--broke out furiously +with a wrath wholly disproportionate to the occasion,-- + +"You be tam, Johan Weitbreck. You tink we are fine gentlemen and ladies, +like dese Americans dat is too proud to vork vid hands. I say tam dis +country, vere day say all is alike, an' vork all; and ven you come here, +it is dat nobody vill vork, if he can help, and vimmins ish shame to be +seen vork. It is not shame to be seen vork; I vork, mein vife vork too, +an' my childrens vork too, py tam!" + +John walked away,--his only resource when his father was in a passion. +John occupied that hardest of all positions,--the position of a +full-grown, mature man in a father's home, where he is regarded as +nothing more than a boy. + +As he entered the kitchen and saw his pretty sister Carlen at the high +spinning-wheel, walking back and forth drawing the fine yarn between +her chubby fingers, all the while humming a low song to which the +whirring of the wheel made harmonious accompaniment, he thought to +himself bitterly: "Work, indeed! As if they did not work now longer than +we do, and quite as hard! She's been spinning ever since daylight, I +believe." + +"Is it hard work spinning, Liebchen?" he asked. + +Carlen turned her round blue eyes on him with astonishment. There was +something in his tone that smote vaguely on her consciousness. What +could he mean, asking such a question as that? + +"No," she said, "it is not hard exactly. But when you do it very long it +does make the arms ache, holding them so long in the same position; and +it tires one to stand all day!" + +"Ay," said John, "that is the way it tires one to reap; my back is near +broke with it to-day." + +"Has no one come to help yet?" she said. + +"No!" said John, angrily, "and that is what I told father when he let +Alf go. It is good enough for him for being so stingy and short-sighted; +but the brunt of it comes on me,--that's the worst of it. I don't see +what's got all the men. There have always been plenty round every year +till now." + +"Alf said he shouldn't be here next year," said Carlen, each cheek +showing a little signal of pink as she spoke; but it was a dim light the +one candle gave, and John did not see the flush. "He was going to the +west to farm; in Oregon, he said." + +"Ay, that's it!" replied John. "That's where everybody can go but me! +I'll be going too some day, Carlen. I can't stand things here. If it +weren't for you I'd have been gone long ago." + +"I wouldn't leave mother and father for all the world, John," cried +Carlen, warmly, "and I don't think it would be right for you to! What +would father do with the farm without you?" + +"Well, why doesn't he see that, then, and treat me as a man ought to be +treated?" exclaimed John; "he thinks I'm no older than when he used to +beat me with the strap." + +"I think fathers and mothers are always that way," said the gentle, +cheery Carlen, with a low laugh. "The mother tells me each time how to +wind the warp, as she did when I was little; and she will always look +into the churn for herself. I think it is the way we are made. We will +do the same when we are old, John, and our children will be wondering at +us!" + +John laughed. This was always the way with Carlen. She could put a man +in good humor in a few minutes, however cross he felt in the beginning. + +"I won't, then!" he exclaimed. "I know I won't. If ever I have a son +grown, I'll treat him like a son grown, not like a baby." + +"May I be there to see!" said Carlen, merrily,-- + + "And you remember free + The words I said to thee. + +"Hold the candle here for me, will you, that's a good boy. While we have +talked, my yarn has tangled." + +As they stood close together, John holding the candle high over Carlen's +head, she bending over the tangled yarn, the kitchen door opened +suddenly, and their father came in, bringing with him a stranger,--a +young man seemingly about twenty-five years of age, tall, well made, +handsome, but with a face so melancholy that both John and Carlen felt a +shiver as they looked upon it. + +"Here now comes de hand, at last of de time, Johan," cried the old man. +"It vill be that all can vel be done now. And it is goot that he is from +mine own country. He cannot English speak, many vords; but dat is +nothing; he can vork. I tolt you dere vould be mans come!" + +John looked scrutinizingly at the newcomer. The man's eyes fell. + +"What is your name?" said John. + +"Wilhelm Rütter," he answered. + +"How long have you been in this country?" + +"Ten days." + +"Where are your friends?" + +"I haf none." + +"None?" + +"None." + +These replies were given in a tone as melancholy as the expression of +the face. + +Carlen stood still, her wheel arrested, the yarn between her thumb and +ringer, her eyes fastened on the stranger's face. A thrill of +unspeakable pity stirred her. So young, so sad, thus alone in the world; +who ever heard of such a fate? + +"But there were people who came with you in the ship?" said John. "There +is some one who knows who you are, I suppose." + +"No, no von dat knows," replied the newcomer. + +"Haf done vid too much questions," interrupted Farmer Weitbreck. "I haf +him asked all. He stays till harvest be done. He can vork. It is to be +easy see he can vork." + +John did not like the appearance of things. "Too much mystery here," he +thought. "However, it is not long he will be here, and he will be in the +fields all the time; there cannot be much danger. But who ever heard of +a man whom no human being knew?" + +As they sat at supper, Farmer Weitbreck and his wife plied Wilhelm with +questions about their old friends in Mayence. He was evidently familiar +with all the localities and names which they mentioned. His replies, +however, were given as far as possible in monosyllables, and he spoke no +word voluntarily. Sitting with his head bent slightly forward, his eyes +fixed on the floor, he had the expression of one lost in thoughts of the +gloomiest kind. + +"Make yourself to be more happy, mein lad," said the farmer, as he bade +him good-night and clapped him on the shoulder. "You haf come to house +vere is German be speaked, and is Germany in hearts; dat vill be to you +as friends." + +A strange look of even keener pain passed over the young man's face, and +he left the room hastily, without a word of good-night. + +"He's a surly brute!" cried John; "nice company he'll be in the field! I +believe I'd sooner have nobody!" + +"I think he has seen some dreadful trouble," said Carlen. "I wish we +could do something for him; perhaps his friends are all dead. I think +that must be it, don't you think so, mütter?" + +Frau Weitbreck was incarnate silence and reticence. These traits were +native in her, and had been intensified to an abnormal extent by thirty +years of life with a husband whose temper and peculiarities were such as +to make silence and reticence the sole conditions of peace and comfort. +To so great a degree had this second nature of the good frau been +developed, that she herself did not now know that it was a second +nature; therefore it stood her in hand as well as if she had been +originally born to it, and it would have been hard to find in Lancaster +County a more placid and contented wife than she. She never dreamed that +her custom of silent acquiescence in all that Gustavus said--of waiting +in all cases, small and great, for his decision--had in the outset been +born of radical and uncomfortable disagreements with him. And as for +Gustavus himself, if anybody had hinted to him that his frau could +think, or ever had thought, any word or deed of his other than right, he +would have chuckled complacently at that person's blind ignorance of the +truth. + +"Mein frau, she is goot," he said; "goot frau, goot mütter. American +fraus not goot so she; all de time talk and no vork. American fraus, +American mans, are sheep in dere house." + +But in regard to this young stranger, Frau Weitbreck seemed strangely +stirred from her usual phlegmatic silence. Carlen's appeal to her had +barely been spoken, when, rising in her place at the head of the table, +the old woman said solemnly, in German,-- + +"Yes, Liebchen, he goes with the eyes like eyes of a man that saw always +the dead. It must be as you say, that all whom he loves are in the +grave. Poor boy! poor boy! it is now that one must be to him mother and +father and brother." + +"And sister too," said Carlen, warmly. "I will be his sister." + +"And I not his brother till he gets a civiller tongue in his head," said +John. + +"It is not to be brother I haf him brought," interrupted the old man. +"Alvays you vimmen are too soon; it may be he are goot, it may be he are +pad; I do not know. It is to vork I haf him brought." + +"Yes," echoed Frau Weitbreck; "we do not know." + +It was not so easy as Carlen and her mother had thought, to be like +mother and sister to Wilhelm. The days went by, and still he was as much +a stranger as on the evening of his arrival. He never voluntarily +addressed any one. To all remarks or even questions he replied in the +fewest words and curtest phrases possible. A smile was never seen on his +face. He sat at the table like a mute at a funeral, ate without lifting +his eyes, and silently rose as soon as his own meal was finished. He had +soon selected his favorite seat in the kitchen. It was on the right-hand +side of the big fireplace, in a corner. Here he sat all through the +evenings, carving, out of cows' horns or wood, boxes and small figures +such as are made by the peasants in the German Tyrol. In this work he +had a surprising skill. What he did with the carvings when finished, no +one knew. One night John said to him,-- + +"I do not see, Wilhelm, how you can have so steady a hand after holding +the sickle all day. My arm aches, and my hand trembles so that I can but +just carry my cup to my lips." + +Wilhelm made no reply, but held his right hand straight out at arm's +length, with the delicate figure he was carving poised on his +forefinger. It stood as steady as on the firm ground. + +Carlen looked at him admiringly. "It is good to be so steady-handed," +she said; "you must be strong, Wilhelm." + +"Yes," he said, "I haf strong;" and went on carving. + +Nothing more like conversation than this was ever drawn from him. Yet he +seemed not averse to seeing people. He never left the kitchen till the +time came for bed; but when that came he slipped away silent, taking no +part in the general good-night unless he was forced to do so. Sometimes +Carlen, having said jokingly to John, "Now, I will make Wilhelm say +good-night to-night," succeeded in surprising him before he could leave +the room; but often, even when she had thus planned, he contrived to +evade her, and was gone before she knew it. + +He slept in a small chamber in the barn,--a dreary enough little place, +but he seemed to find it all sufficient. He had no possessions except +the leather pack he had brought on his back. This lay on the floor +unlocked; and when the good Frau Weitbreck, persuading herself that she +was actuated solely by a righteous, motherly interest in the young man, +opened it, she found nothing whatever there, except a few garments of +the commonest description,--no book, no paper, no name on any article. +It would not appear possible that a man of so decent a seeming as +Wilhelm could have come from Germany to America with so few personal +belongings. Frau Weitbreck felt less at ease in her mind about him after +she examined this pack. + +He had come straight from the ship to their house, he had said, when he +arrived; had walked on day after day, going he knew not whither, asking +mile by mile for work. He did not even know one State's name from +another. He simply chose to go south rather than north,--always south, +he said. + +"Why?" + +He did not know. + +He was indeed strong. The sickle was in his hand a plaything, so +swift-swung that he seemed to be doing little more than simply striding +up and down the field, the grain falling to right and left at his steps. +From sunrise to sunset he worked tirelessly. The famous Alf had never +done so much in a day. Farmer Weitbreck chuckled as he looked on. + +"Vat now you say of dat Alf?" he said triumphantly to John; "vork he as +dis man? Oh, but he make swing de hook!" + +John assented unqualifiedly to this praise of Wilhelm's strength and +skill; but nevertheless he shook his head. + +"Ay, ay," he said, "I never saw his equal; but I like him not. What +carries he in his heart to be so sour? He is like a man bewitched. I +know not if there be such a thing as to be sold to the devil, as the +stories say; but if there be, on my word, I think Wilhelm has made some +such bargain. A man could not look worse if he had signed himself away." + +"I see not dat he haf fear in his face," replied the old man. + +"No," said John, "neither do I see fear. It is worse than fear. I would +like to see his face come alive with a fear. He gives me cold shivers +like a grave underfoot. I shall be glad when he is gone." + +Farmer Weitbreck laughed. He and his son were likely to be again at +odds on the subject of a laborer. + +"But he vill not go. I haf said to him to stay till Christmas, maybe +always." + +John's surprise was unbounded. + +"To stay! Till Christmas!" he cried. "What for? What do we need of a man +in the winter?" + +"It is not dat to feed him is much, and all dat he make vid de knife is +mine. It is home he vants, no oder ting; he vork not for money." + +"Father," said John, earnestly, "there must be something wrong about +that man. I have thought so from the first. Why should he work for +nothing but his board,--a great strong fellow like that, that could make +good day's wages anywhere? Don't keep him after the harvest is over. I +can't bear the sight of him." + +"Den you can turn de eyes to your head von oder way," retorted his +father. "I find him goot to see; and," after a pause, "so do Carlen." + +John started. "Good heavens, father!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh, you need not speak by de heavens, mein son!" rejoined the old man, +in a taunting tone. "I tink I can mine own vay, vidout you to be help. I +was not yesterday born!" + +John was gone. Flight was his usual refuge when he felt his temper +becoming too much for him; but now his steps were quickened by an +impulse of terrible fear. Between him and his sister had always been a +bond closer than is wont to link brother and sister. Only one year apart +in age, they had grown up together in an intimacy like that of twins; +from their cradles till now they had had their sports, tastes, joys, +sorrows in common, not a secret from each other since they could +remember. At least, this was true of John; was he to find it no longer +true of Carlen? He would know, and that right speedily. As by a flash of +lightning he thought he saw his father's scheme,--if Carlen were to wed +this man, this strong and tireless worker, this unknown, mysterious +worker, who wanted only shelter and home and cared not for money, what +an invaluable hand would be gained on the farm! John groaned as he +thought to himself how little anything--any doubt, any misgiving, +perhaps even an actual danger--would in his father's mind outweigh the +one fact that the man did not "vork for money." + +As he walked toward the house, revolving these disquieting conjectures, +all his first suspicion and antagonism toward Wilhelm revived in full +force, and he was in a mood well calculated to distort the simplest +acts, when he suddenly saw sitting in the square stoop at the door the +two persons who filled his thoughts, Wilhelm and Carlen,--Wilhelm +steadily at work as usual at his carving, his eyes closely fixed on it, +his figure, as was its wont, rigidly still; and Carlen,--ah! it was an +unlucky moment John had taken to search out the state of Carlen's +feeling toward Wilhelm,--Carlen sitting in a posture of dreamy reverie, +one hand lying idle in her lap holding her knitting, the ball rolling +away unnoticed on the ground; her other arm thrown carelessly over the +railing of the stoop, her eyes fixed on Wilhelm's bowed head. + +John stood still and watched her,--watched her long. She did not move. +She was almost as rigidly still as Wilhelm himself. Her eyes did not +leave his face. One might safely sit in that way by the hour and gaze +undetected at Wilhelm. He rarely looked up except when he was addressed. + +After standing thus a few moments John turned away, bitter and sick at +heart. What had he been about, that he had not seen this? He, the loving +comrade brother, to be slower of sight than the hard, grasping parent! + +"I will ask mother," he thought. "I can't ask Carlen now! It is too +late." + +He found his mother in the kitchen, busy getting the bountiful supper +which was a daily ordinance in the Weitbreck religion. To John's +sharpened perceptions the fact that Carlen was not as usual helping in +this labor loomed up into significance. + +"Why does not Carlen help you, mütter?" he said hastily. "What is she +doing there, idling with Wilhelm in the stoop?" + +Frau Weitbreck smiled. "It is not alvays to vork, ven one is young," she +said. "I haf not forget!" And she nodded her head meaningly. + +John clenched his hands. Where had he been? Who had blinded him? How had +all this come about, so soon and without his knowledge? Were his father +and his mother mad? He thought they must be. + +"It is a shame for that Wilhelm to so much as put his eyes on Carlen's +face," he cried. "I think we are fools; what know we about him? I doubt +him in and out. I wish he had never darkened our doors." + +Frau Weitbreck glanced cautiously at the open door. She was frying sweet +cakes in the boiling lard. Forgetting everything in her fear of being +overheard, she went softly, with the dripping skimmer in her hand, +across the kitchen, the fat falling on her shining floor at every step, +and closed the door. Then she came close to her son, and said in a +whisper, "The fader think it is goot." At John's angry exclamation she +raised her hand in warning. + +"Do not loud spraken," she whispered; "Carlen will hear." + +"Well, then, she shall hear!" cried John, half beside himself. "It is +high time she did hear from somebody besides you and father! I reckon +I've got something to say about this thing, too, if I'm her brother. +By----, no tramp like that is going to marry my sister without I know +more about him!" And before the terrified old woman could stop him, he +had gone at long strides across the kitchen, through the best room, and +reached the stoop, saying in a loud tone: "Carlen! I want to see you." + +Carlen started as one roused from sleep. Seeing her ball lying at a +distance on the ground, she ran to pick it up, and with scarlet cheeks +and uneasy eyes turned to her brother. + +"Yes, John," she said, "I am coming." + +Wilhelm did not raise his eyes, or betray by any change of feature that +he had heard the sound or perceived the motion. As Carlen passed him her +eyes involuntarily rested on his bowed head, a world of pity, +perplexity, in the glance. John saw it, and frowned. + +"Come with me," he said sternly,--"come down in the pasture; I want to +speak to you." + +Carlen looked up apprehensively into his face; never had she seen there +so stern a look. + +"I must help mütter with the supper," she said, hesitating. + +John laughed scornfully. "You were helping with the supper, I suppose, +sitting out with yon tramp!" And he pointed to the stoop. + +Carlen had, with all her sunny cheerfulness, a vein of her father's +temper. Her face hardened, and her blue eyes grew darker. + +"Why do you call Wilhelm a tramp," she said coldly. + +"What is he then, if he is not a tramp?" retorted John. + +"He is no tramp," she replied, still more doggedly. + +"What do you know about him?" said John. + +Carlen made no reply. Her silence irritated John more than any words +could have done; and losing self-control, losing sight of prudence, he +poured out on her a torrent of angry accusation and scornful reproach. + +She stood still, her eyes fixed on the ground. Even in his hot wrath, +John noticed this unwonted downcast look, and taunted her with it. + +"You have even caught his miserable hangdog trick of not looking anybody +in the face," he cried. "Look up now! look me in the eye, and say what +you mean by all this." + +Thus roughly bidden, Carlen raised her blue eyes and confronted her +brother with a look hardly less angry than his own. + +"It is you who have to say to me what all this means that you have been +saying," she cried. "I think you are out of your senses. I do not know +what has happened to you." And she turned to walk back to the house. + +John seized her shoulders in his brawny hands, and whirled her round +till she faced him again. + +"Tell me the truth!" he said fiercely; "do you love this Wilhelm?" + +Carlen opened her lips to reply. At that second a step was heard, and +looking up they saw Wilhelm himself coming toward them, walking at his +usual slow pace, his head sunk on his breast, his eyes on the ground. +Great waves of blushes ran in tumultuous flood up Carlen's neck, cheeks, +forehead. John took his hands from her shoulders, and stepped back with +a look of disgust and a smothered ejaculation. Wilhelm, hearing the +sound, looked up, regarded them with a cold, unchanged eye, and turned +in another direction. + +The color deepened on Carlen's face. In a hard and bitter tone she said, +pointing with a swift gesture to Wilhelm's retreating form: "You can see +for yourself that there is nothing between us. I do not know what craze +has got into your head." And she walked away, this time unchecked by her +brother. He needed no further replies in words. Tokens stronger than any +speech had answered him. Muttering angrily to himself, he went on down +to the pasture after the cows. It was a beautiful field, more like New +England than Pennsylvania; a brook ran zigzagging through it, and here +and there in the land were sharp lifts where rocks cropped out, making +miniature cliffs overhanging some portions of the brook's-course. Gray +lichens and green mosses grew on these rocks, and belts of wild flag and +sedges surrounded their base. The cows, in a warm day, used to stand +knee-deep there, in shade of the rocks. + +It was a favorite place of Wilhelm's. He sometimes lay on the top of one +of these rocks the greater part of the night, looking down into the +gliding water or up into the sky. Carlen from her window had more than +once seen him thus, and passionately longed to go down and comfort his +lonely sorrow. + +It was indeed true, as she had said to her brother, that there was +"nothing between" her and Wilhelm. Never a word had passed; never a look +or tone to betray that he knew whether she were fair or not,--whether +she lived or not. She came and went in his presence, as did all others, +with no more apparent relation to the currents of his strange veiled +existence than if they or he belonged to a phantom world. But it was +also true that never since the first day of his mysterious coming had +Wilhelm been long absent from Carlen's thoughts; and she did indeed find +him--as her father's keen eyes, sharpened by greed, had observed--good +to look upon. That most insidious of love's allies, pity, had stormed +the fortress of Carlen's heart, and carried it by a single charge. What +could a girl give, do, or be, that would be too much for one so +stricken, so lonely as was Wilhelm! The melancholy beauty of his face, +his lithe figure, his great strength, all combined to heighten this +impression, and to fan the flames of the passion in Carlen's virgin +soul. It was indeed, as John had sorrowfully said to himself, "too late" +to speak to Carlen. + +As John stood now at the pasture bars, waiting for the herd of cows, +slow winding up the slope from the brook, he saw Wilhelm on the rocks +below. He had thrown himself down on his back, and lay there with his +arms crossed on his breast. Presently he clasped both hands over his +eyes as if to shut out a sight that he could no longer bear. Something +akin to pity stirred even in John's angry heart as he watched him. + +"What can it be," he said, "that makes him hate even the sky? It may be +it is a sweetheart he has lost, and he is one of that strange kind of +men who can love but once; and it is loving the dead that makes him so +like one dead himself. Poor Carlen! I think myself he never so much as +sees her." + +A strange reverie, surely, for the brother who had so few short moments +ago been angrily reproaching his sister for the disgrace and shame of +caring for this tramp. But the pity was short-lived in John's bosom. His +inborn distrust and antagonism to the man were too strong for any +gentler sentiment toward him to live long by their side. And when the +family gathered at the supper-table he fixed upon Wilhelm so suspicious +and hostile a gaze that even Wilhelm's absent mind perceived it, and he +in turn looked inquiringly at John, a sudden bewilderment apparent in +his manner. It disappeared, however, almost immediately, dying away in +his usual melancholy absorption. It had produced scarce a ripple on the +monotonous surface of his habitual gloom. But Carlen had perceived all, +both the look on John's face and the bewilderment on Wilhelm's; and it +roused in her a resentment so fierce toward John, she could not forbear +showing it. "How cruel!" she thought. "As if the poor fellow had not all +he could bear already without being treated unkindly by us!" And she +redoubled her efforts to win Wilhelm's attention and divert his +thoughts, all in vain; kindness and unkindness glanced off alike, +powerless, from the veil in which he was wrapped. + +John sat by with roused attention and sharpened perception, noting all. +Had it been all along like this? Where had his eyes been for the past +month? Had he too been under a spell? It looked like it. He groaned in +spirit as he sat silently playing with his food, not eating; and when +his father said, "Why haf you not appetite, Johan?" he rose abruptly, +pushed back his chair, and leaving the table without a word went out and +down again into the pasture, where the dewy grass and the quivering +stars in the brook shimmered in the pale light of a young moon. To John, +also, the mossy rocks in this pasture were a favorite spot for rest and +meditation. Since the days when he and Carlen had fished from their +edges, with bent pins and yarn, for minnows, he had loved the place: +they had spent happy hours enough there to count up into days; and not +the least among the innumerable annoyances and irritations of which he +had been anxious in regard to Wilhelm was the fact that he too had +perceived the charm of the field, and chosen it for his own melancholy +retreat. + +As he seated himself on one of the rocks, he saw a figure gliding +swiftly down the hill. + +It was Carlen. + +As she drew near he looked at her without speaking, but the loving girl +was not repelled. Springing lightly to the rock, she threw her arms +around his neck, and kissing him said: "I saw you coming down here, +John, and I ran after you. Do not be angry with me, brother; it breaks +my heart." + +A sudden revulsion of shame for his unjust suspicion filled John with +tenderness. + +"Mein Schwester," he said fondly,--they had always the habit of using +the German tongue for fond epithets,--"mein Schwester klein, I love you +so much I cannot help being wretched when I see you in danger, but I am +not angry." + +Nestling herself close by his side, Carlen looked over into the water. + +"This is the very rock I fell off of that day, do you remember?" she +said; "and how wet you got fishing me out! And oh, what an awful beating +father gave you! and I always thought it was wicked, for if you had not +pulled me out I should have drowned." + +"It was for letting you fall in he beat me," laughed John; and they +both grew tender and merry, recalling the babyhood times. + +"How long, long ago!" cried Carlen. + +"It seems only a day," said John. + +"I think time goes faster for a man than for a woman," sighed Carlen. +"It is a shorter day in the fields than in the house." + +"Are you not content, my sister?" said John. + +Carlen was silent. + +"You have always seemed so," he said reproachfully. + +"It is always the same, John," she murmured. "Each day like every other +day. I would like it to be some days different." + +John sighed. He knew of what this new unrest was born. He longed to +begin to speak of Wilhelm, and yet he knew not how. Now that, after +longer reflection, he had become sure in his own mind that Wilhelm cared +nothing for his sister, he felt an instinctive shrinking from +recognizing to himself, or letting it be recognized between them, that +she unwooed had learned to love. His heart ached with dread of the +suffering which might be in store for her. + +Carlen herself cut the gordian knot. + +"Brother," she whispered, "why do you think Wilhelm is not good?" + +"I said not that, Carlen," he replied evasively. "I only say we know +nothing; and it is dangerous to trust where one knows nothing." + +"It would not be trust if we knew," answered the loyal girl. "I believe +he is good; but, John, John, what misery in his eyes! Saw you ever +anything like it?" + +"No," he replied; "never. Has he never told you anything about himself, +Carlen?" + +"Once," she answered, "I took courage to ask him if he had relatives in +Germany; and he said no; and I exclaimed then, 'What, all dead!' 'All +dead,' he answered, in such a voice I hardly dared speak again, but I +did. I said: 'Well, one might have the terrible sorrow to lose all one's +relatives. It needs only that three should die, my father and mother and +my brother,--only three, and two are already old,--and I should have no +relatives myself; but if one is left without relatives, there are always +friends, thank God!' And he looked at me,--he never looks at one, you +know; but he looked at me then as if I had done a sin to speak the word, +and he said, 'I have no friends. They are all dead too,' and then went +away! Oh, brother, why cannot we win him out of this grief? We can be +good friends to him; can you not find out for me what it is?" + +It was a cruel weapon to use, but on the instant John made up his mind +to use it. It might spare Carlen grief, in the end. + +"I have thought," he said, "that it might be for a dead sweetheart he +mourned thus. There are men, you know, who love that way and never smile +again." + +Short-sighted John, to have dreamed that he could forestall any +conjecture in the girl's heart! + +"I have thought of that," she answered meekly; "it would seem as if it +could be nothing else. But, John, if she be really dead--" Carlen did +not finish the sentence; it was not necessary. + +After a silence she spoke again: "Dear John, if you could be more +friendly with him I think it might be different. He is your age. Father +and mother are too old, and to me he will not speak." She sighed deeply +as she spoke these last words, and went on: "Of course, if it is for a +dead sweetheart that he is grieving thus, it is only natural that the +sight of women should be to him worse than the sight of men. But it is +very seldom, John, that a man will mourn his whole life for a +sweetheart; is it not, John? Why, men marry again, almost always, even +when it is a wife that they have lost; and a sweetheart is not so much +as a wife." + +"I have heard," said the pitiless John, "that a man is quicker healed of +grief for a wife than for one he had thought to wed, but lost." + +"You are a man," said Carlen. "You can tell if that would be true." + +"No, I cannot," he answered, "for I have loved no woman but you, my +sister; and on my word I think I will be in no haste to, either. It +brings misery, it seems to me." + +If Carlen had spoken her thought at these words, she would have said, +"Yes, it brings misery; but even so it is better than joy." But Carlen +was ashamed; afraid also. She had passed now into a new life, whither +her brother, she perceived, could not follow. She could barely reach +his hand across the boundary line which parted them. + +"I hope you will love some one, John," she said. "You would be happy +with a wife. You are old enough to have a home of your own." + +"Only a year older than you, my sister," he rejoined. + +"I too am old enough to have a home of my own," she said, with a gentle +dignity of tone, which more impressed John with a sense of the change in +Carlen than all else which had been said. + +It was time to return to the house. As he had done when he was ten, and +she nine, John stood at the bottom of the steepest rock, with +upstretched arms, by the help of which Carlen leaped lightly down. + +"We are not children any more," she said, with a little laugh. + +"More's the pity!" said John, half lightly, half sadly, as they went on +hand in hand. + +When they reached the bars, Carlen paused. Withdrawing her hand from +John's and laying it on his shoulder, she said: "Brother, will you not +try to find out what is Wilhelm's grief? Can you not try to be friends +with him?" + +John made no answer. It was a hard thing to promise. + +"For my sake, brother," said the girl. "I have spoken to no one else but +you. I would die before any one else should know; even my mother." + +John could not resist this. "Yes," he said; "I will try. It will be +hard; but I will try my best, Carlen. I will have a talk with Wilhelm +to-morrow." + +And the brother and sister parted, he only the sadder, she far happier, +for their talk. "To-morrow," she thought, "I will know! To-morrow! oh, +to-morrow!" And she fell asleep more peacefully than had been her wont +for many nights. + +On the morrow it chanced that John and Wilhelm went separate ways to +work and did not meet until noon. In the afternoon Wilhelm was sent on +an errand to a farm some five miles away, and thus the day passed +without John's having found any opportunity for the promised talk. +Carlen perceived with keen disappointment this frustration of his +purpose, but comforted herself, thinking, with the swift forerunning +trust of youth: "To-morrow he will surely get a chance. To-morrow he +will have something to tell me. To-morrow!" + +When Wilhelm returned from this errand, he came singing up the road. +Carlen heard the voice and looked out of the window in amazement. Never +before had a note of singing been heard from Wilhelm's voice. She could +not believe her ears; neither her eyes, when she saw him walking +swiftly, almost running, erect, his head held straight, his eyes gazing +free and confident before him. + +What had happened? What could have happened? Now, for the first time, +Carlen saw the full beauty of his face; it wore an exultant look as of +one set free, triumphant. He leaped lightly over the bars; he stooped +and fondled the dog, speaking to him in a merry tone; then he whistled, +then broke again into singing a gay German song. Carlen was stupefied +with wonder. Who was this new man in the body of Wilhelm? Where had +disappeared the man of slow-moving figure, bent head, downcast eyes, +gloom-stricken face, whom until that hour she had known? Carlen clasped +her hands in an agony of bewilderment. + +"If he has found his sweetheart, I shall die," she thought. "How could +it be? A letter, perhaps? A message?" She dreaded to see him. She +lingered in her room till it was past the supper hour, dreading what she +knew not, yet knew. When she went down the four were seated at supper. +As she opened the door roars of laughter greeted her, and the first +sight she saw was Wilhelm's face, full of vivacity, excitement. He was +telling a jesting story, at which even her mother was heartily laughing. +Her father had laughed till the tears were rolling down his cheeks. John +was holding his sides. Wilhelm was a mimic, it appeared; he was +imitating the ridiculous speech, gait, gestures, of a man he had seen in +the village that afternoon. + +"I sent you to village sooner as dis, if I haf known vat you are like +ven you come back," said Farmer Weitbreck, wiping his eyes. + +And John echoed his father. "Upon my word, Wilhelm, you are a good +actor. Why have you kept your light under a bushel so long?" And John +looked at him with a new interest and liking. If this were the true +Wilhelm, he might welcome him indeed as a brother. + +Carlen alone looked grave, anxious, unhappy. She could not laugh. Tale +after tale, jest after jest, fell from Wilhelm's lips. Such a +story-teller never before sat at the Weitbreck board. The old kitchen +never echoed with such laughter. + +Finally John exclaimed: "Man alive, where have you kept yourself all +this time? Have you been ill till now, that you hid your tongue? What +has cured you in a day?" + +Wilhelm laughed a laugh so ringing, it made him seem like a boy. + +"Yes, I have been ill till to-day," he said; "and now I am well." And he +rattled on again, with his merry talk. + +Carlen grew cold with fear; surely this meant but one thing. Nothing +else, nothing less, could have thus in an hour rolled away the burden of +his sadness. + +Later in the evening she said timidly, "Did you hear any news in the +village this afternoon, Wilhelm?" + +"No; no news," he said. "I had heard no news." + +As he said this a strange look flitted swiftly across his face, and was +gone before any eye but a loving woman's had noted it. It did not escape +Carlen's, and she fell into a reverie of wondering what possible double +meaning could have underlain his words. + +"Did you know Mr. Dietman in Germany?" she asked. This was the name of +the farmer to whose house he had been sent on an errand. They were +new-comers into the town, since spring. + +"No!" replied Wilhelm, with another strange, sharp glance at Carlen. "I +saw him not before." + +"Have they children?" she continued. "Are they old?" + +"No; young," he answered. "They haf one child, little baby." + +Carlen could not contrive any other questions to ask. "It must have been +a letter," she thought; and her face grew sadder. + +It was a late bedtime when the family parted for the night. The +astonishing change in Wilhelm's manner was now even more apparent than +it had yet been. Instead of slipping off, as was his usual habit, +without exchanging a good-night with any one, he insisted on shaking +hands with each, still talking and laughing with gay and affectionate +words, and repeating, over and again, "Good-night, good-night." Farmer +Weitbreck was carried out of himself with pleasure at all this, and +holding Wilhelm's hand fast in his, shaking it heartily, and clapping +him on the shoulder, he exclaimed in fatherly familiarity: "Dis is goot, +mein son! dis is goot. Now are you von of us." And he glanced meaningly +at John, who smiled back in secret intelligence. As he did so there went +like a flash through his mind the question, "Can Carlen have spoken with +him to-day? Can that be it?" But a look at Carlen's pale, perplexed face +quickly dissipated this idea. "She looks frightened," thought John. "I +do not much wonder. I will get a word with her." But Carlen had gone +before he missed her. Running swiftly upstairs, she locked the door of +her room, and threw herself on her knees at her open window. Presently +she saw Wilhelm going down to the brook. She watched his every motion. +First, he walked slowly up and down the entire length of the field, +following the brook's course closely, stopping often and bending over, +picking flowers. A curious little white flower called "Ladies'-Tress" +grew there in great abundance, and he often brought bunches of it to +her. + +"Perhaps it is not for me this time," thought Carlen, and the tears came +into her eyes. After a time Wilhelm ceased gathering the flowers, and +seated himself on his favorite rock,--the same one where John and Carlen +had sat the night before. "Will he stay there all night?" thought the +unhappy girl, as she watched him. "He is so full of joy he does not want +to sleep. What will become of me! what will become of me!" + +At last Wilhelm arose and came toward the house, bringing the bunch of +flowers in his hand. At the pasture bars he paused, and looked back over +the scene. It was a beautiful picture, the moon making it light as day; +even from Carlen's window could be seen the sparkle of the brook. + +As he turned to go to the barn his head sank on his breast, his steps +lagged. He wore again the expression of gloomy thought. A new fear arose +in Carlen's breast. Was he mad? Had the wild hilarity of his speech and +demeanor in the evening been merely a new phase of disorder in an +unsettled brain? Even in this was a strange, sad comfort to Carlen. She +would rather have him mad, with alternations of insane joy and gloom, +than know that he belonged to another. Long after he had disappeared in +the doorway at the foot of the stairs which led to his sleeping-place in +the barn-loft, she remained kneeling at the window, watching to see if +he came out again. Then she crept into bed, and lay tossing, wakeful, +and anxious till near dawn. She had but just fallen asleep when she was +aroused by cries. It was John's voice. He was calling loudly at the +window of their mother's bedroom beneath her own. + +"Father! father! Get up, quick! Come out to the barn!" + +Then followed confused words she could not understand. Leaning from her +window she called: "What is it, John? What has happened?" But he was +already too far on his way back to the barn to hear her. + +A terrible presentiment shot into her mind of some ill to Wilhelm. +Vainly she wrestled with it. Why need she think everything that happened +must be connected with him? It was not yet light; she could not have +slept many minutes. With trembling hands she dressed, and running +swiftly down the stairs was at the door just as her father appeared +there. + +"What is it? What is it, father?" she cried. "What has happened?" + +"Go back!" he said in an unsteady voice. "It is nothing. Go back to bed. +It is not for vimmins!" + +Then Carlen was sure it was some ill to Wilhelm, and with a loud cry she +darted to the barn, and flew up the stairway leading to his room. + +John, hearing her steps, confronted her at the head of the stairs. + +"Good God, Carlen!" he cried, "go back! You must not come here. Where is +father?" + +"I will come in!" she answered wildly, trying to force her way past +him. "I will come in. You shall not keep me out. What has happened to +him? Let me by!" And she wrestled in her brother's strong arms with +strength almost equal to his. + +"Carlen! You shall not come in! You shall not see!" he cried. + +"Shall not see!" she shrieked. "Is he dead?" + +"Yes, my sister, he is dead," answered John, solemnly. In the next +instant he held Carlen's unconscious form in his arms; and when Farmer +Weitbreck, half dazed, reached the foot of the stairs, the first sight +which met his eyes was his daughter, held in her brother's arms, +apparently lifeless, her head hanging over his shoulder. + +"Haf she seen him?" he whispered. + +"No!" said John. "I only told her he was dead, to keep her from going +in, and she fainted dead away." + +"Ach!" groaned the old man, "dis is hard on her." + +"Yes," sighed the brother; "it is a cruel shame." + +Swiftly they carried her to the house, and laid her on her mother's +bed, then returned to their dreadful task in Wilhelm's chamber. + +Hung by a stout leathern strap from the roof-tree beam, there swung the +dead body of Wilhelm Rütter, cold, stiff. He had been dead for hours; he +must have done the deed soon after bidding them good-night. + +"He vas mad, Johan; it must be he vas mad ven he laugh like dat last +night. Dat vas de beginning, Johan," said the old man, shaking from head +to foot with horror, as he helped his son lift down the body. + +"Yes!" answered John; "that must be it. I expect he has been mad all +along. I do not believe last night was the beginning. It was not like +any sane man to be so gloomy as he was, and never speak to a living +soul. But I never once thought of his being crazy. Look, father!" he +continued, his voice breaking into a sob, "he has left these flowers +here for Carlen! That does not look as if he was crazy! What can it all +mean?" + +On the top of a small chest lay the bunch of white Ladies'-Tress, with a +paper beneath it on which was written, "For Carlen Weitbreck,--these, +and the carvings in the box, all in memory of Wilhelm." + +"He meant to do it, den," said the old man. + +"Yes," said John. + +"Maybe Carlen vould not haf him, you tink?" + +"No," said John, hastily; "that is not possible." + +"I tought she luf him, an' he vould stay an' be her mann," sighed the +disappointed father. "Now all dat is no more." + +"It will kill her," cried John. + +"No!" said the father. "Vimmins does not die so as dat. She feel pad +maybe von year, maybe two. Dat is all. He vas great for vork. Dat Alf +vas not goot as he." + +The body was laid once more on the narrow pallet where it had slept for +its last few weeks on earth, and the two men stood by its side, +discussing what should next be done, how the necessary steps could be +taken with least possible publicity, when suddenly they heard the sound +of horses' feet and wheels, and looking out they saw Hans Dietman and +his wife driving rapidly into the yard. + +"Mein Gott! Vat bring dem here dis time in day," exclaimed Farmer +Weitbreck. "If dey ask for Wilhelm dey must all know!" + +"Yes," replied John; "that makes no difference. Everybody will have to +know." And he ran swiftly down to meet the strangely arrived neighbors. + +His first glance at their faces showed him that they had come on no +common errand. They were pale and full of excitement, and Hans's first +word was: "Vere is dot man you sent to mine place yesterday?" + +"Wilhelm?" stammered Farmer Weitbreck. + +"Wilhelm!" repeated Hans, scornfully. "His name is not 'Wilhelm.' His +name is Carl,--Carl Lepmann; and he is murderer. He killed von +man--shepherd, in our town--last spring; and dey never get trail of +him. So soon he came in our kitchen yesterday my vife she knew him; she +wait till I get home. Ve came ven it vas yet dark to let you know vot +man vas in your house." + +Farmer Weitbreck and his son exchanged glances; each was too shocked to +speak. Mr. and Mrs. Dietman looked from one to the other in +bewilderment. "Maype you tink ve speak not truth," Hans continued. +"Just let him come here, to our face, and you will see." + +"No!" said John, in a low, awe-stricken voice, "we do not think you are +not speaking truth." He paused; glanced again at his father. "We'd +better take them up!" he said. + +The old man nodded silently. Even his hard and phlegmatic nature was +shaken to the depths. + +John led the way up the stairs, saying briefly, "Come." The Dietmans +followed in bewilderment. + +"There he is," said John, pointing to the tall figure, rigid, under the +close-drawn white folds; "we found him here only an hour ago, hung from +the beam." + +A horror-stricken silence fell on the group. + +Hans spoke first. "He know dat we know; so he kill himself to save dat +de hangman have trouble." + +John resented the flippant tone. He understood now the whole mystery of +Wilhelm's life in this house. + +"He has never known a happy minute since he was here," he said. "He +never smiled; nor spoke, if he could help it. Only last night, after he +came back from your place, he laughed and sang, and was merry, and +looked like another man; and he bade us all good-night over and over, +and shook hands with every one. He had made up his mind, you see, that +the end had come, and it was nothing but a relief to him. He was glad to +die. He had not courage before. But now he knew he would be arrested he +had courage to kill himself. Poor fellow, I pity him!" And John smoothed +out the white folds over the clasped hands on the quiet-stricken breast, +resting at last. "He has been worse punished than if he had been hung in +the beginning," he said, and turned from the bed, facing the Dietmans as +if he constituted himself the dead man's protector. + +"I think no one but ourselves need know," he continued, thinking in his +heart of Carlen. "It is enough that he is dead. There is no good to be +gained for any one, that I see, by telling what he had done." + +"No," said Mrs. Dietman, tearfully; but her husband exclaimed, in a +vindictive tone: + +"I see not why it is to be covered in secret. He is murderer. It is to +be sent vord to Mayence he vas found." + +"Yes, they ought to know there," said John, slowly; "but there is no +need for it to be known here. He has injured no one here." + +"No," exclaimed Farmer Weitbreck. "He haf harm nobody here; he vas goot. +I haf ask him to stay and haf home in my house." + +It was a strange story. Early in the spring, it seemed, about six weeks +before Hans Dietman and his wife Gretchen were married, a shepherd on +the farm adjoining Gretchen's father's had been murdered by a +fellow-laborer on the same farm. They had had high words about a dog, +and had come to blows, but were parted by some of the other hands, and +had separated and gone their ways to their work with their respective +flocks. + +This was in the morning. At night neither they nor their flocks +returned; and, search being made, the dead body of the younger shepherd +was found lying at the foot of a precipice, mutilated and wounded, far +more than it would have been by any accidental fall. The other +shepherd, Carl Lepmann, had disappeared, and was never again seen by any +one who knew him, until this previous day, when he had entered the +Dietmans' door bearing his message from the Weitbreck farm. At the first +sight of his face, Gretchen Dietman had recognized him, thrown up her +arms involuntarily, and cried out in German: "My God! the man that +killed the shepherd!" Carl had halted on the threshold at hearing these +words, and his countenance had changed; but it was only for a second. He +regained his composure instantly, entered as if he had heard nothing, +delivered his message, and afterward remained for some time on the farm +chatting with the laborers, and seeming in excellent spirits. + +"And so vas he ven he come home," said Farmer Weitbreck; "he make dat ve +all laugh and laugh, like notings ever vas before, never before he open +his mouth to speak; he vas like at funeral all times, night and day. But +now he seem full of joy. It is de most strange ting as I haf seen in my +life." + +"I do not think so, father," said John. "I do not wonder he was glad to +be rid of his burden." + +It proved of no use to try to induce Hans Dietman to keep poor Carl's +secret. He saw no reason why a murderer should be sheltered from +disgrace. To have his name held up for the deserved execration seemed to +Hans the only punishment left for one who had thus evaded the hangman; +and he proceeded to inflict this punishment to the extent of his +ability. + +Finding that the tale could not be kept secret, John nerved himself to +tell it to Carlen. She heard it in silence from beginning to end, asked +a few searching questions, and then to John's unutterable astonishment +said: "Wilhelm never killed that man. You have none of you stopped to +see if there was proof." + +"But why did he fly, Liebchen?" asked John. + +"Because he knew he would be accused of the murder," she replied. "They +might have been fighting at the edge of the precipice and the shepherd +fell over, or the shepherd might have been killed by some one else, and +Wilhelm have found the body. He never killed him, John, never." + +There was something in Carlen's confident belief which communicated +itself to John's mind, and, coupled with the fact that there was +certainly only circumstantial evidence against Wilhelm, slowly brought +him to sharing her belief and tender sorrow. But they were alone in this +belief and alone in their sorrow. The verdict of the community was +unhesitatingly, unqualifiedly, against Wilhelm. + +"Would a man hang himself if he knew he were innocent?" said everybody. + +"All the more if he knew he could never prove himself innocent," said +John and Carlen. But no one else thought so. And how could the truth +ever be known in this world? + +Wilhelm was buried in a corner of the meadow field he had so loved. +Before two years had passed, wild blackberry vines had covered the grave +with a thick mat of tangled leaves, green in summer, blood-red in the +autumn. And before three more had passed there was no one in the place +who knew the secret of the grave. Farmer Weitbreck and his wife were +both dead, and the estate had passed into the hands of strangers who had +heard the story of Wilhelm, and knew that his body was buried somewhere +on the farm; but in which field they neither asked nor cared, and there +was no mourner to tell the story. John Weitbreck had realized his dream +of going West, a free man at last, and by no means a poor one; he looked +out over scores of broad fields of his own, one of the most fertile of +the Oregon valleys. + +Alf was with him, and Carlen; and Carlen was Alf's wife,--placid, +contented wife, and fond and happy mother,--so small ripples did there +remain from the tempestuous waves beneath which Carl Lepmann's life had +gone down. Some deftly carved boxes and figures of chamois and their +hunters stood on Carlen's best-room mantel, much admired by her +neighbors, and longed for by her toddling girl,--these, and a bunch of +dried and crumbling blossoms of the Ladies' Tress, were all that had +survived the storm. The dried flowers were in the largest of the boxes. +They lay there side by side with a bit of carved abalone shell Alf had +got from a Nez Perce Indian, and some curious seaweeds he had picked up +at the mouth of the Columbia River. Carlen's one gilt brooch was kept in +the same box, and when she took it out of a Sunday, the sight of the +withered flowers always reminded her of Wilhelm. She could not have told +why she kept them; it certainly was not because they woke in her breast +any thoughts which Alf might not have read without being disquieted. She +sometimes sighed, as she saw them, "Poor Wilhelm!" That was all. + +But there came one day a letter to John that awoke even in Carlen's +motherly and contented heart strange echoes from that past which she had +thought forever left behind. It was a letter from Hans Dietman, who +still lived on the Pennsylvania farm, and who had been recently joined +there by a younger brother from Germany. + +This brother had brought news which, too late, vindicated the memory of +Wilhelm. Carlen had been right. He was no murderer. + +It was with struggling emotions that Carlen heard the tale; pride, joy, +passionate regret, old affection, revived. John was half afraid to go +on, as he saw her face flushing, her eyes filling with tears, kindling +and shining with a light he had not seen in them since her youth. + +"Go on! go on!" she cried. "Why do you stop? Did I not tell you so? And +you never half believed me! Now you see I was right! I told you Wilhelm +never harmed a human being!" + +It was indeed a heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, to +the poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, even +its place forgotten. + +It seemed that a man sentenced in Mayence to be executed for murder had +confessed, the day before his execution, that it was he who had killed +the shepherd of whose death Carl Lepmann had so long been held guilty. +They had quarrelled about a girl, a faithless creature, forsworn to both +of them, and worth no man's love or desire; but jealous anger got the +better of their sense, and they grappled in fight, each determined to +kill the other. + +The shepherd had the worst of it; and just as he fell, mortally hurt, +Carl Lepmann had come up,--had come up in time to see the murderer leap +on his horse to ride away. + +In a voice, which the man said had haunted him ever since, Carl had +cried out: "My God! You ride away and leave him dead! and it will be I +who have killed him, for this morning we fought so they had to tear us +apart!" + +Smitten with remorse, the man had with Carl's help lifted the body and +thrown it over the precipice, at the foot of which it was afterward +found. He then endeavored to persuade the lad that it would never be +discovered, and he might safely return to his employer's farm. But +Carl's terror was too great, and he had finally been so wrought upon by +his entreaties that he had taken him two days' journey, by lonely ways, +the two riding sometimes in turn, sometimes together,--two days' and two +nights' journey,--till they reached the sea, where Carl had taken ship +for America. + +"He was a good lad, a tender-hearted lad," said the murderer. "He might +have accused me in many a village, and stood as good chance to be +believed as I, if he had told where the shepherd's body was thrown; but +he could be frightened as easily as a woman, and all he thought of was +to fly where he would never be heard of more. And it was the thought of +him, from that day till now, has given me more misery than the thought +of the dead man!" + +Carlen was crying bitterly; the letter was just ended, when Alf came +into the room asking bewilderedly what it was all about. + +The name Wilhelm meant nothing to him. It was the summer before Wilhelm +came that he had begun this Oregon farm, which he, from the first, had +fondly dedicated to Carlen in his thoughts; and when he went back to +Pennsylvania after her, he found her the same as when he went away, only +comelier and sweeter. It would not be easy to give Alf an uncomfortable +thought about his Carlen. But he did not like to see her cry. + +Neither, when he had heard the whole story, did he see why her tears +need have flowed so freely. It was sad, no doubt, and a bitter shame +too, for one man to suffer and go to his grave that way for the sin of +another. But it was long past and gone; no use in crying over it now. + +"What a tender-hearted, foolish wife it is!" he said in gruff fondness, +laying his hand on Carlen's shoulder, "crying over a man dead and buried +these seven years, and none of our kith or kin, either. Poor fellow! It +was a shame!" + +But Carlen said nothing. + + + + +Little Bel's Supplement. + + + +"Indeed, then, my mother, I'll not take the school at Wissan Bridge +without they promise me a supplement. It's the worst school i' a' Prince +Edward Island." + +"I doubt but ye're young to tackle wi' them boys, Bel," replied the +mother, gazing into her daughter's face with an intent expression in +which it would have been hard to say which predominated,--anxiety or +fond pride. "I'd sooner see ye take any other school between this an' +Charlottetown, an' no supplement." + +"I'm not afraid, my mother, but I'll manage 'em well enough; but I'll +not undertake it for the same money as a decent school is taught. +They'll promise me five pounds' supplement at the end o' the year, or +I'll not set foot i' the place." + +"Maybe they'll not be for givin' ye the school at all when they see +what's yer youth," replied the mother, in a half-antagonistic tone. +There was between this mother and daughter a continual undercurrent of +possible antagonism, overlain and usually smothered out of sight by +passionate attachment on both sides. + +Little Bel tossed her head. "Age is not everything that goes to the +makkin o' a teacher," she retorted. "There's Grizzy McLeod; she's +teachin' at the Cove these eight years, an' I'd shame her myself any day +she likes wi' spellin' an' the lines; an' if there's ever a boy in a +school o' mine that'll gie me a floutin' answer such's I've heard her +take by the dozen, I'll warrant ye he'll get a birchin'; an' the +trustees think there's no teacher like Grizzy. I'm not afraid." + +"Grizzy never had any great schoolin' herself," replied her mother, +piously. "There's no girl in all the farms that's had what ye've had, +Bel." + +"It isn't the schoolin', mother," retorted little Bel. "The schoolin' 's +got nothin' to do with it. I'd teach a school better than Grizzy McLeod +if I'd never had a day's schoolin'." + +"An' now if that's not the talk of a silly," retorted the quickly +angered parent. "Will ye be tellin' me perhaps, then, that them that +can't read theirselves is to be set to teach letters?" + +Little Bel was too loyal at heart to her illiterate mother to wound her +further by reiterating her point. Throwing her arms around her neck, and +kissing her warmly, she exclaimed: "Eh, my mother, it's not a silly that +ye could ever have for a child, wi' that clear head, and the wise things +always said to us from the time we're in our cradles. Ye've never a +child that's so clever as ye are yerself. I didn't mean just what I +said, ye must know, surely; only that the schoolin' part is the smallest +part o' the keepin' a school." + +"An' I'll never give in to such nonsense as that, either," said the +mother, only half mollified. "Ye can ask yer father, if ye like, if it +stands not to reason that the more a teacher knows, the more he can +teach. He'll take the conceit out o' ye better than I can." And good +Isabella McDonald turned angrily away, and drummed on the window-pane +with her knitting-needles to relieve her nervous discomfort at this +slight passage at arms with her best-beloved daughter. + +Little Bel's face flushed, and with compressed lips she turned silently +to the little oaken-framed looking-glass that hung so high on the wall +she could but just see her chin in it. As she slowly tied her pink +bonnet strings she grew happier. In truth, she would have been a maiden +hard to console if the face that looked back at her from the quaint oak +leaf and acorn wreath had not comforted her inmost soul, and made her +again at peace with herself. And as the mother looked on she too was +comforted; and in five minutes more, when Little Bel was ready to say +good-by, they flung their arms around each other, and embraced and +kissed, and the daughter said, "Good-by t' ye now, mother. Wish me well, +an' ye'll see that I get it,--supplement an' all," she added slyly. And +the mother said, "Good luck t' ye, child; an' it's luck to them that +gets ye." That was the way quarrels always ended between Isabella +McDonald and her oldest daughter. + +The oldest daughter, and yet only just turned of twenty; and there were +eight children younger than she, and one older. This is the way among +the Scotch farming-folk in Prince Edward Island. Children come tumbling +into the world like rabbits in a pen, and have to scramble for a living +almost as soon and as hard as the rabbits. It is a narrow life they +lead, and full of hardships and deprivations, but it has its +compensations. Sturdy virtues in sturdy bodies come of it,--the sort of +virtue made by the straitest Calvinism, and the sort of body made out of +oatmeal and milk. One might do much worse than inherit both. + +It seemed but a few years ago that John McDonald had wooed and won +Isabella McIntosh,--wooed her with difficulty in the bosom of her family +of six brothers and five sisters, and won her triumphantly in spite of +the open and contemptuous opposition of one of the five sisters. For +John himself was one of seven in his father's home, and whoever married +John must go there to live, to be only a daughter in a mother-in-law's +house, and take a daughter's share of the brunt of everything. "And +nothing to be got except a living, and it was a poor living the McDonald +farm gave beside the McIntosh," the McIntosh sisters said. And, +moreover: "The saint did not live that could get on with John McDonald's +mother. That was what had made him the silent fellow he was, always +being told by his mother to hold his tongue and have done speaking; and +a fine pepper-pot there'd be when Isabella's hasty tongue and temper +were flung into that batch!" + +There was no gainsaying all this. Nevertheless, Isabella married John, +went home with him into his father's house, put her shoulder against her +spoke in the family wheel, and did her best. And when, ten years later, +as reward of her affectionate trust and patience, she found herself sole +mistress of the McDonald farm, she did not feel herself ill paid. The +old father and mother were dead, two sisters had died and two had +married, and the two sons had gone to the States to seek better fortunes +than were to be made on Prince Edward Island. John, as eldest son, had, +according to the custom of the island, inherited the farm; and Mrs. +Isabella, confronting her three still unmarried sisters, was able at +last triumphantly to refute their still resentfully remembered +objections to her choice of a husband. + +"An' did ye suppose I did not all the time know that it was to this it +was sure to come, soon or late?" she said, with justifiable complacency. +"It's a good thing to have a house o' one's own an' an estate. An' the +linen that's in the house! I've no need to turn a hand to the flax-wheel +for ten years if I've no mind. An' ye can all bide your times, an' see +what John'll make o' the farm, now he's got where he can have things his +own way. His father was always set against anything that was new, an' +the place is run down shameful; but John'll bring it up, an' I'm not an +old woman yet." + +This last was the unkindest phrase Mrs. John McDonald permitted herself +to use. There was a rebound in it which told on the Mclntosh sisters; +for they, many years older than she, were already living on tolerance +in their father's house, where their oldest brother and his wife ruled +things with an iron hand. All hopes of a husband and a home of their own +had quite died out of their spinster bosoms, and they would not have +been human had they not secretly and grievously envied the comely, +blooming Isabella her husband, children, and home. + +But, with all this, it was no play-day life that Mrs. Isabella had led. +At the very best, and with the best of farms, Prince Edward Island +farming is no high-road to fortune; only a living, and that of the +plainest, is to be made; and when children come at the rate of ten in +twenty-two years, it is but a small showing that the farmer's bank +account makes at the end of that time. There is no margin for fineries, +luxuries, small ambitions of any kind. Isabella had her temptations in +these directions, but John was firm as a rock in withstanding them. If +he had not been, there would never have been this story to tell of his +Little Bel's school-teaching, for there would never have been money +enough in the bank to have given her two years' schooling in +Charlottetown, the best the little city afforded,--"and she boardin' +all the time like a lady," said the severe McIntosh aunts, who +disapproved of all such wide-flying ambitions, which made women +discontented with and unfitted for farming life. + +"And why should Isabella be setting her daughters up for teachers?" they +said. "It's no great schoolin' she had herself, and if her girls do as +well as she's done, they'll be lucky,"--a speech which made John +McDonald laugh out when it was reported to him. He could afford to laugh +now. + +"I mind there was a day when they thought different o' me from that," he +said. "I'm obliged to them for nothin'; but I'd like the little one to +have a better chance than the marryin' o' a man like me, an' if +anything'll get it for her, it'll be schoolin'." + +The "boardin' like a lady," which had so offended the Misses Mclntosh's +sense of propriety, was not, after all, so great an extravagance as they +had supposed; for it was in his own brother's house her thrifty father +had put her, and had stipulated that part of the price of her board was +to be paid in produce of one sort and another from the farm, at market +rates; "an' so, ye see, the lass 'll be eatin' it there 'stead of here," +he said to his wife when he told her of the arrangement, "an' it's a +sma' difference it'll make to us i' the end o' the two years." + +"An' a big difference to her a' her life," replied Isabella, warmly. + +"Ay, wife," said John, "if it fa's out as ye hope; but it's main +uncertain countin' on the book-knowledge. There's some it draws up an' +some it draws down; it's a millstone. But the lass is bright; she's as +like you as two peas in a pod. If ye'd had the chance she's had--" + +Rising color in Isabella's face warned John to stop. It is a strange +thing to see how often there hovers a flitting shadow of jealousy +between a mother and the daughter to whom the father unconsciously +manifests a chivalrous tenderness akin to that which in his youth he had +given only to the sweetheart he sought for wife. Unacknowledged, +perhaps, even unmanifested save in occasional swift and unreasonable +petulances, it is still there, making many a heartache, which is none +the less bitter that it is inexplicable to itself, and dares not so much +as confess its own existence. + +"It's a better thing for a woman to make her way i' the world on the +book-learnin' than to be always at the wheel an' the churn an' the +floors to be whitened," replied Isabella, sharply. "An' one year like +another, till the year comes ye're buried. I look for Bel to marry a +minister, or maybe even better." + +"Ye'd a chance at a minister yersel', then, my girl," replied the wise +John, "an' ye did not take it." At which memory the wife laughed, and +the two loyal hearts were merry together for a moment, and young again. + +Little Bel had, indeed, even before the Charlottetown schooling, had a +far better chance than her mother; for in her mother's day there was no +free school in the island, and in families of ten and twelve it was only +a turn and turn about that the children had at school. Since the free +schools had been established many a grown man and woman had sighed +curiously at the better luck of the youngsters under the new regime. No +excuse now for the poorest man's children not knowing how to read and +write and more; and if they chose to keep on, nothing to hinder their +dipping into studies of which their parents never heard so much as the +names. + +And this was not the only better chance which Little Bel had had. John +McDonald's farm joined the lands of the manse; his house was a short +mile from the manse itself; and by a bit of good fortune for Little Bel +it happened that just as she was growing into girlhood there came a new +minister to the manse,--a young man from Halifax, with a young bride, +the daughter of an officer in the Halifax garrison,--gentlefolks, both +of them, but single-hearted and full of fervor in their work for the +souls of the plain farming-people given into their charge. And both Mr. +Allan and Mrs. Allan had caught sight of Little Bel's face on their +first Sunday in church, and Mrs. Allan had traced to her a flute-like +voice she had detected in the Sunday-school singing; and before long, to +Isabella's great but unspoken pride, the child had been "bidden to the +manse for the minister's wife to hear her sing;" and from that day there +was a new vista in Little Bel's life. + +Her voice was sweet as a lark's and as pure, and her passionate love +for music a gift in itself. "It would be a sin not to cultivate it," +said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "even if she never sees another piano +than mine, nor has any other time in her life except these few years to +enjoy it; she will always have had these, and nothing can separate her +from her voice." + +And so it came to pass that when, at sixteen, Little Bel went to +Charlottetown for her final two years of study at the High School, she +played almost as well as Mrs. Allan herself, and sang far better. And in +all Isabella McDonald's day-dreams of the child's future, vague or +minute, there was one feature never left out. The "good husband" coming +always was to be a man who could "give her a piano." + +In Charlottetown Bel found no such friend as Mrs. Allan; but she had a +young school-mate who had a piano, and--poor short-sighted creature that +she was, Bel thought--hated the sight of it, detested to practise, and +shed many a tear over her lessons. This girl's parents were thankful to +see their daughter impressed by Bel's enthusiasm for music; and so well +did the clever girl play her cards that before she had been six months +in the place, she was installed as music-teacher to her own +schoolfellow, earning thereby not only money enough to buy the few +clothes she needed, but, what to her was better than money, the +privilege of the use of the piano an hour a day. + +So when she went home, at the end of the two years, she had lost +nothing,--in fact, had made substantial progress; and her old friend and +teacher, Mrs. Allan, was as proud as she was astonished when she first +heard her play and sing. Still more astonished was she at the forceful +character the girl had developed. She went away a gentle, loving, +clinging child; her nature, like her voice, belonging to the order of +birds,--bright, flitting, merry, confiding. She returned a woman, still +loving, still gentle in her manner, but with a new poise in her bearing, +a resoluteness, a fire, of which her first girlhood had given no +suggestion. It was strange to see how similar yet unlike were the +comments made on her in the manse and in the farmhouse by the two +couples most interested in her welfare. + +"It is wonderful, Robert," said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "how that +girl has changed, and yet not changed. It is the music that has lifted +her up so. What a glorious thing is a real passion for any art in a +human soul! But she can never live here among these people. I must take +her to Halifax." + +"No," said Mr. Allan; "her work will be here. She belongs to her people +in heart, all the same. She will not be discontented." + +"Husband, I'm doubtin' if we've done the right thing by the child, after +a'," said the mother, tearfully, to the father, at the end of the first +evening after Bel's return. "She's got the ways o' the city on her, an' +she carries herself as if she'd be teachin' the minister his own self. I +doubt but she'll feel herself strange i' the house." + +"Never you fash yourself," replied John. "The girl's got her head, +that's a'; but her heart's i' the right place. Ye'll see she'll put her +strength to whatever there's to be done. She'll be a master hand at +teachin', I'll wager!" + +"You always did think she was perfection," replied the mother, in a +crisp but not ill-natured tone, "an' I'm not gainsayin' that she's not +as near it as is often seen; but I'm main uneasy to see her carryin' +herself so positive." + +If John thought in his heart that Bel had come through direct heredity +on the maternal side by this "carryin' herself positive," he knew better +than to say so, and his only reply was a good-natured laugh, with: +"You'll see! I'm not afraid. She's a good child, an' always was." + +Bel passed her examination triumphantly, and got the Wissan Bridge +school; but she got only a contingent promise of the five-pound +supplement. It went sorely against her will to waive this point. Very +keenly Mr. Allan, who was on the Examining Board, watched her face as +she modestly yet firmly pressed it. + +The trustees did not deny that the Wissan Bridge school was a difficult +and unruly one; that to manage it well was worth more money than the +ordinary school salaries. The question was whether this very young lady +could manage it at all; and if she failed, as the last incumbent +had,--failed egregiously, too; the school had broken up in riotous +confusion before the end of the year,--the canny Scotchmen of the School +Board did not wish to be pledged to pay that extra five pounds. The +utmost Bel could extract from them was a promise that if at the end of +the year her teaching had proved satisfactory, the five pounds should be +paid. More they would not say; and after a short, sharp struggle with +herself Bel accepted the terms; but she could not restrain a farewell +shot at the trustees as she turned to go. "I'm as sure o' my five pounds +as if ye'd promised it downright, sirs. I shall keep ye a good school at +Wissan Bridge." + +"We'll make it guineas, then, Miss Bel," cried Mr. Allan, +enthusiastically, looking at his colleagues, who nodded their heads, and +said, laughing, "Yes, guineas it is." + +"And guineas it will be," retorted Little Bel, as with cheeks like +peonies she left the room. + +"Egad, but she's a fine spirit o' her ain, an' as bonnie a face as I've +seen since I remember," cried old Mr. Dalgetty, the senior member of +the Board, and the one hardest to please. "I'd not mind bein' a pupil at +Wissan Bridge school the comin' term myself." And he gave an old man's +privileged chuckle as he looked at his colleagues. "But she's over-young +for the work,--over-young." + +"She'll do it," said Mr. Allan, confidently. "Ye need have no fear. My +wife's had the training of the girl since she was little. She's got the +best o' stuff in her. She'll do it." + +Mr. Allan's prediction was fulfilled. Bel did it. But she did it at the +cost of harder work than even she had anticipated. If it had not been +for her music she would never have pulled through with the boys of +Wissan Bridge. By her music she tamed them. The young Marsyas himself +never piped to a wilder set of creatures than the uncouth lads and young +men that sat in wide-eyed, wide-mouthed astonishment listening to the +first song their pretty young schoolmistress sang for them. To have +singing exercises part of the regular school routine was a new thing at +Wissan Bridge. It took like wild-fire; and when Little Bel, shrewd and +diplomatic as a statesman, invited the two oldest and worst boys in the +school to come Wednesday and Saturday afternoons to her boarding-place +to practise singing with her to the accompaniment of the piano, so as to +be able to help her lead the rest, her sovereignty was established. They +were not conquered; they were converted,--a far surer and more lasting +process. Neither of them would, from that day out, have been guilty of +an act, word, or look to annoy her, any more than if they had been rival +lovers suing for her hand. As Bel's good luck would have it,--and Bel +was born to good luck, there is no denying it,--one of these boys had a +good tenor voice, the other a fine barytone; they had both in their +rough way been singers all their lives, and were lovers of music. + +"That was more than half the battle, my mother," confessed Bel, when, at +the end of the first term she was at home for a few days, and was +recounting her experiences. "Except for the singin' I'd never have got +Archie McLeod under, nor Sandy Stairs either. I doubt they'd have been +too many for me, but now they're like two more teachers to the fore. I'd +leave the school-room to them for a day, an' not a lad'd dare stir in +his seat without their leave. I call them my constables; an' I'm +teaching them a small bit of chemistry out o' school hours, too, an' +that's a hold on them. They'll see me out safe; an' I'm thinkin' I'll +owe them a bit part o' the five guineas when I get it," she added +reflectively. + +"The minister says ye're sure of it," replied her mother. "He says ye've +the best school a'ready in all his circuit. I don't know how ever ye +come to't so quick, child." And Isabella McDonald smiled wistfully, +spite of all her pride in her clever bairn. + +"Ye see, then, what he'll say after the examination at New Year's," +gleefully replied Bel, "if he thinks the school is so good now. It'll be +twice as good then; an' such singin' as was never heard before in any +school-house on the island, I'll warrant me. I'm to have the piano over +for the day to the school-house. Archie and Sandy'll move it in a big +wagon, to save me payin' for the cartin'; an' I'm to pay a half-pound +for the use of it if it's not hurt,--a dear bargain, but she'd not let +it go a shilling less. And, to be sure, there is the risk to be +counted. An' she knew I 'd have it if it had been twice that. But I got +it out of her that for that price she was to let me have all the school +over twice a week, for two months before, to practise. So it's not too +dear. Ye'll see what ye'll hear then." + +It had been part of Little Bel's good luck that she had succeeded in +obtaining board in the only family in the village which had the +distinction of owning a piano; and by paying a small sum extra, she had +obtained the use of this piano for an hour each day,--the best +investment of Little Bel's life, as the sequel showed. + +It was a bitter winter on Prince Edward Island. By New Year's time the +roads were many of them wellnigh impassable with snow. Fierce winds +swept to and fro, obliterating tracks by noon which had been clear in +the morning; and nobody went abroad if he could help it. New Year's Day +opened fiercest of all, with scurries of snow, lowering sky, and a wind +that threatened to be a gale before night. But, for all that, the +tying-posts behind the Wissan Bridge school-house were crowded full of +steaming horses under buffalo-robes, which must stamp and paw and +shiver, and endure the day as best they might, while the New Year's +examination went on. Everybody had come. The fame of the singing of the +Wissan Bridge school had spread far and near, and it had been whispered +about that there was to be a "piece" sung which was finer than anything +ever sung in the Charlottetown churches. + +The school-house was decorated with evergreens,--pine and spruce. The +New Year's Day having fallen on a Monday, Little Bel had had a clear +working-day on the Saturday previous; and her faithful henchmen, Archie +and Sandy, had been busy every evening for a week drawing the boughs on +their sleds and piling them up in the yard. The teacher's desk had been +removed, and in its place stood the shining red mahogany piano,--a new +and wonderful sight to many eyes there. + +All was ready, the room crowded full, and the Board of Trustees not yet +arrived. There sat their three big arm-chairs on the raised platform, +empty,--a depressing and perplexing sight to Little Bel, who, in her +short blue merino gown, with a knot of pink ribbon at her throat, and a +roll of white paper (her schedule of exercises) in her hand, stood on +the left hand of the piano, her eyes fixed expectantly on the doors. The +minutes lengthened out into quarter of an hour, half an hour. Anxiously +Bel consulted with her father what should be done. + +"The roads are something fearfu', child," he replied; "we must make big +allowance for that. They're sure to be comin', at least some one o' +them. It was never known that they failed on the New Year's examination, +an' it would seem a sore disrespect to begin without them here." + +Before he had finished speaking there was heard a merry jingling of +bells outside, dozens and dozens it seemed, and hilarious voices and +laughter, and the snorting of overdriven horses, and the stamping of +feet, and more voices and more laughter. Everybody looked in his +neighbor's face. What sounds were these? Who ever heard a sober School +Board arrive in such fashion as this? But it was the School +Board,--nothing less: a good deal more, however. Little Bel's heart +sank within her as she saw the foremost figure entering the room. What +evil destiny had brought Sandy Bruce in the character of school visitor +that day?--Sandy Bruce, retired school-teacher himself, superintendent +of the hospital in Charlottetown, road-master, ship-owner, +exciseman,--Sandy Bruce, whose sharp and unexpected questions had been +known to floor the best of scholars and upset the plans of the best of +teachers. Yes, here he was,--Sandy Bruce himself; and it was his fierce +little Norwegian ponies, with their silver bells and fur collars, the +admiration of all Charlottetown, that had made such a clatter and +stamping outside, and were still keeping it up; for every time they +stirred the bells tinkled like a peal of chimes. And, woe upon woe, +behind him came, not Bel's friend and pastor, Mr. Allan, but the crusty +old Dalgetty, whose doing it had been a year before, as Bel very well +knew, that the five-pound supplement had been only conditionally +promised. + +Conflicting emotions turned Bel's face scarlet as she advanced to meet +them; the most casual observer could not have failed to see that dismay +predominated, and Sandy Bruce was no casual observer; nothing escaped +his keen glance and keener intuition, and it was almost with a wicked +twinkle in his little hazel eyes that he said, still shaking off the +snow, stamping and puffing: "Eh, but ye were not lookin' for me, +teacher! The minister was sent for to go to old Elspie Breadalbane, +who's dyin' the morn; and I happened by as he was startin', an' he made +me promise to come i' his place; an' I picked up my friend Dalgetty here +a few miles back, wi' his horse flounderin' i' the drifts. Except for me +ye'd ha' had no board at all here to-day; so I hope ye'll give me no bad +welcome." + +As he spoke he was studying her face, where the color came and went like +waves; not a thought in the girl's heart he did not read. "Poor little +lassie!" he was thinking to himself. "She's shaking in her shoes with +fear o' me. I'll not put her out. She's a dainty blossom of a girl. +What's kept her from being trodden down by these Wissan Bridge +racketers, I'd like to know." + +But when he seated himself on the platform, and took his first look at +the rows of pupils in the centre of the room, he was near starting with +amazement. The Wissan Bridge "racketers," as he had mentally called +them, were not to be seen. Very well he knew many of them by sight; for +his shipping business called him often to Wissan Bridge, and this was +not the first time he had been inside the school-house, which had been +so long the dread and terror of school boards and teachers alike. A +puzzled frown gathered between Sandy Bruce's eyebrows as he gazed. + +"What has happened to the youngsters, then? Have they all been convarted +i' this twelvemonth?" he was thinking. And the flitting perplexed +thought did not escape the observation of John McDonald, who was as +quick a reader of faces as Sandy himself, and had been by no means free +from anxiety for his little Bel when he saw the redoubtable visage of +the exciseman appear in the doorway. + +"He's takin' it in quick the way the bairn's got them a' in hand," +thought John. "If only she can hold hersel' cool now!" + +No danger. Bel was not the one to lose a battle by appearing to quail in +the outset, however clearly she might see herself outnumbered. And +sympathetic and eager glances from her constables, Archie and Sandy, +told her that they were all ready for the fray. These glances Sandy +Bruce chanced to intercept, and they heightened his bewilderment. To +Archie McLeod he was by no means a stranger, having had occasion more +than once to deal with him, boy as he was, for complications with +riotous misdoings. He had happened to know, also, that it was Archie +McLeod who had been head and front of the last year's revolt in the +school,--the one boy that no teacher hitherto had been able to control. +And here stood Archie McLeod, rising in his place, leader of the form, +glancing down on the boys around him with the eye of a general, watching +the teacher's eye, meanwhile, as a dog watches for his master's signal. + +And the orderly yet alert and joyously eager expression of the whole +school,--it had so much the look of a miracle to Sandy Bruce's eye, +that, not having been for years accustomed to the restraint and dignity +of school visitors, of technical official, he was on the point of giving +a loud whistle of astonishment Luckily recollecting himself in time, he +smothered the whistle and the "Whew! what's all this?" which had been on +his tongue's end, in a vigorous and unnecessary blowing of his nose. And +before that was over, and his eyes well wiped, there stood the whole +school on its feet before him, and the room ringing with such a chorus +as was never heard in a Prince Edward Island school-room before. This +completed his bewilderment, and swallowed it up in delight. If Sandy +Bruce had an overmastering passion in his rugged nature, it was for +music. To the sound of the bag-pipes he had often said he would march to +death and "not know it for dyin'." The drum and the fife could draw him +as quickly now as when he was a boy, and the sweet singing of a woman's +voice was all the token he wanted of the certainty of heaven and the +existence of angels. + +When Little Bel's clear, flute-like soprano notes rang out, carrying +along the fifty young voices she led, Sandy jumped up on his feet, +waving his hand, in a sudden heat of excitement, right and left; and +looking swiftly all about him on the platform, he said: "It's not +sittin' we'es take such welcome as this, my neebors!" Each man and woman +there, catching the quick contagion, rose; and it was a tumultuous crowd +of glowing faces that pressed forward around the piano as the singing +went on,--fathers, mothers, rustics, all; and the children, pleased and +astonished, sang better than ever, and when the chorus was ended it was +some minutes before all was quiet. + +Many things had been settled in that few minutes. John McDonald's heart +was at rest. "The music'll carry a' before it, no matter if they do make +a failure here 'n' there," he thought. "The bairn is a' right." The +mother's heart was at rest also. + +"She's done wonders wi' 'em,--wonders! I doubt not but it'll go through +as it's begun. Her face's a picture to look on. Bless her!" Isabella was +saying behind her placid smile. + +"Eh, but she's won her guineas out o' us," thought old Dalgetty, +ungrudgingly, "and won 'em well." + +"I don't see why everybody is so afraid of Sandy Bruce," thought Little +Bel. "He looks as kind and as pleased as my own father. I don't believe +he'll ask any o' his botherin' questions." + +What Sandy Bruce thought it would be hard to tell; nearer the truth, +probably, to say that his head was in too much of a whirl to think +anything. Certain it is that he did not ask any botherin' questions, but +sat, leaning forward on his stout oaken staff, held firmly between his +knees, and did not move for the next hour, his eyes resting alternately +on the school and on the young teacher, who, now that her first fright +was over, was conducting her entertainment with the composure and +dignity of an experienced instructor. + +The exercises were simple,--declamations, reading of selected +compositions, examinations of the principal classes. At short intervals +came songs to break the monotony. The first one after the opening chorus +was "Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon." At the first bars of this Sandy +Bruce could not keep silence, but broke into a lone accompaniment in a +deep bass voice, untrained but sweet. + +"Ah," thought Little Bel, "what'll he say to the last one, I wonder?" + +When the time came she found out. If she had chosen the arrangement of +her music with full knowledge of Sandy Bruce's preferences, and with the +express determination to rouse him to a climax of enthusiasm, she could +not have done better. + +When the end of the simple programme of recitations and exhibition had +been reached, she came forward to the edge of the platform--her cheeks +were deep pink now, and her eyes shone with excitement--and said, +turning to the trustees and spectators: "We have finished, now, all we +have to show for our year's work, and we will close our entertainment by +singing 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled!'" + +"Ay, ay! that wi' we!" shouted Sandy Bruce, again leaping to his feet; +and as the first of the grand chords of that grand old tune rang out +full and loud under Little Bel's firm touch, he strode forward to the +piano, and with a kindly nod to her struck in. + +With the full force of his deep, bass-like, violoncello notes, gathering +up all the others and fusing them into a pealing strain, it was +electin'. Everybody sang. Old voices, that had not sung for a quarter of +a century or more, joined in. It was a furor: Dalgetty swung his tartan +cap, Sandy his hat; handkerchiefs were waved, staves rang on the floor. +The children, half frightened in spite of their pleasure, were quieter +than their elders. + +"Eh, but it was good fun to see the old folks gone crazy for once!" said +Archie McLeod, in recounting the scene. "Now, if they'd get that way +oftener they'd not be so hard down on us youngsters." + +At the conclusion of the song the first thing Little Bel heard was +Dalgetty's piping voice behind her,-- + +"And guineas it is, Miss McDonald. Ye've won it fair an' square. Guineas +it is!" + +"Eh, what? Guineas! What is 't ye're sayin'?" asked Sandy Bruce; his +eyes, steady glowing like coals, gazing at Little Bel. + +"The supplement, sir," answered Little Bel, lifting her eyes roguishly +to his. "Mr. Dalgetty thought I was too young for the school, an' he'd +promise me no supplement till he saw if I'd be equal to 't." + +This was the sly Bel's little revenge on Dalgetty, who began confusedly +to explain that it was not he any more than the other trustees, and he +only wished that they had all been here to see, as he had seen, how +finely the school had been managed; but nobody heard what he said, for +above all the humming and buzzing and laughing there came up from the +centre of the school-room a reiterated call of "Sirs!" "Trustees!" "Mr. +Trustee!" "Board!" + +It was Archie McLeod, standing up on the backs of two seats, waving a +white paper, and trying frantically to make himself heard. The face of a +man galloping for life and death, coming up at the last second with a +reprieve for one about to be shot, could hardly be fuller of intense +anxiety than was Archie's as he waved his paper and shouted. + +Little Bel gazed bewilderingly at him. This was not down on her +programme of the exercises. What could it be? + +As soon as partial silence enabled him to speak, Archie proceeded to +read a petition, setting forth, to the respected Board of Trustees, that +the undersigned, boys and girls of the Wissan Bridge School, did hereby +unanimously request that they might have no other teacher than Miss +McDonald, "as long as she lives." + +This last clause had been the cause of bitter disputing between Archie +and Sandy,--Sandy insisting upon having it in; Archie insisting that it +was absurd, because they would not go to school as long as Miss McDonald +lived. "But there's the little ones and the babies that'll be growin' +up," retorted Sandy, "an' there'll never be another like her: I say, 'as +long as she lives'"; and "as long as she lives" it was. And when Archie, +with an unnecessary emphasis, delivered this closing clause of the +petition, it was received with a roar of laughter from the platform, +which made him flush angrily, and say, with a vicious punch in Sandy's +ribs: "There, I told ye, it spoiled it a'. They're fit to die over it; +an' sma' blame to 'em, ye silly!" + +But he was reassured when he heard Sandy Bruce's voice overtopping the +tumult with: "A vary sensible request, my lad; an' I, for one, am o' yer +way o' thinkin'." + +In which speech was a deeper significance than anybody at the time +dreamed. In that hurly-burly and hilarious confusion no one had time to +weigh words or note meanings; but there were some who recalled it a few +months later when they were bidden to a wedding at the house of John +McDonald,--a wedding at which Sandy Bruce was groom, and Little Bel the +brightest, most winsome of brides. + +It was an odd way that Sandy went to work to win her: his ways had been +odd all his life,--so odd that it had long ago been accepted in the +minds of the Charlottetown people that he would never find a woman to +wed him; only now and then an unusually perspicacious person divined +that the reason of his bachelorhood was not at all that women did not +wish to wed him, spite of his odd ways, but that he himself found no +woman exactly to his taste. + +True it was that Sandy Bruce, aged forty, had never yet desired any +woman for his wife till he looked into the face of Little Bel in the +Wissan Bridge school-house. And equally true was it that before the last +strains of "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled" had died away on that +memorable afternoon of her exhibition of her school, he had determined +that his wife she should be. + +This was the way he took to win her. No one can deny that it was odd. + +There was some talk between him and his temporary colleague on the +School Board, old Dalgetty, as they drove home together behind the brisk +Norwegian ponies; and the result of this conversation was that the next +morning early--in fact, before Little Bel was dressed, so late had she +been indulged, for once, in sleeping, after her hard labors in the +exhibition the day before--the Norwegian ponies were jingling their +bells at John McDonald's door; and John himself might have been seen, +with a seriously puzzled face, listening to words earnestly spoken by +Sandy, as he shook off the snow and blanketed the ponies. + +As the talk progressed, John glanced up involuntarily at Little Bel's +window. Could it be that he sighed? At any rate, there was no regret in +his heart as he shook Sandy's hand warmly, and said: "Ye've my free +consent to try; but I doubt she's not easy won. She's her head now, an' +her ain way; but she's a good lass, an' a sweet one." + +"An' I need no man to tell me that," said the dauntless Sandy, as he +gave back the hearty hand-grip of his friend; "an' she'll never repent +it, the longest day o' her life, if she'll ha' me for her man." And he +strode into the house, bearing in his hand the five golden guineas which +his friend Dalgetty had, at his request, commissioned him to pay. + +"Into her own hand, mind ye, mon," chuckled Dalgetty, mischievously. +"Ye'll not be leavin' it wi' the mither." To which sly satire Sandy's +only reply was a soft laugh and nod of his head. + +As soon as Little Bel crossed the threshold of the room where Sandy +Bruce stood waiting for her, she knew the errand on which he had come. +It was written in his face. Neither could it be truthfully said to be a +surprise to Little Bel; for she had not been woman, had she failed to +recognize on the previous day that the rugged Scotchman's whole nature +had gone out toward her in a sudden and overmastering attraction. + +Sandy looked at her keenly. "Eh, ye know't a'ready," he said,--"the +thing I came to say t' ye." And he paused, still eying her more like a +judge than a lover. + +Little Bel turned scarlet. This was not her ideal of a wooer. "Know +what, Mr. Bruce?" she said resentfully. "How should I know what ye came +to say?" + +"Tush! tush, lass! do na prevaricate," Sandy began, his eyes gloating on +her lovely confusion; "do na preteend--" But the sweet blue eyes were +too much for him. Breaking down utterly, he tossed the guineas to one +side on the table, and stretching out both hands toward Bel, he +exclaimed,--"Ye're the sweetest thing the eyes o' a mon ever rested on, +lass, an' I'm goin' to win ye if ye'll let me." And as Bel opened her +mouth to speak, he laid one hand, quietly as a mother might, across her +lips, and continued: "Na! na! I'll not let ye speak yet. I'm not a silly +to look for ye to be ready to say me yes at this quick askin'; but I'll +not let ye say me nay neither. Ye'll not refuse me the only thing I'm +askin' the day, an' that's that ye'll let me try to make ye love me. +Ye'll not say nay to that, lass. I'll gie my life to it." And now he +waited for an answer. + +None came. Tears were in Bel's eyes as she looked up in his face. Twice +she opened her lips to speak, and twice her heart and the words failed +her. The tears became drops and rolled down the cheeks. Sandy was +dismayed. + +"Ye're not afraid o' me, ye sweet thing, are ye?" he gasped out. "I'd +not vex ye for the world. If ye bid me to go, I'd go." + +"No, I'm not afraid o' ye, Mr. Bruce," sobbed Bel. "I don't know what it +is makes me so silly. I'm not afraid o' ye, though. But I was for a few +minutes yesterday," she added archly, with a little glint of a roguish +smile, which broke through the tears like an April sun through rain, and +turned Sandy's head in the twinkling of an eye. + +"Ay, ay," he said; "I minded it weel, an' I said to myself then, in that +first sight I had o' yer face, that I'd not harm a hair o' yer head. Oh, +my little lass, would ye gie me a kiss,--just one, to show ye're not +afraid, and to gie me leave to try to win ye out o' likin' into lovin'?" +he continued, drawing closer and bending toward her. + +And then a wonderful thing happened. Little Bel, who, although she was +twenty years old, and had by no means been without her admirers, had +never yet kissed any man but her father and brothers, put up her rosy +lips, as confidingly as a little child, to be kissed by this strange +wooer, who wooed only for leave to woo. + +"An' if he'd only known it, he might ha' asked a' he wanted then as well +as later," said Little Bel, honestly avowing the whole to her mother. +"As soon as he put his hands on me the very heart in me said he was my +man for a' my life. An' there's no shame in it that I can see. If a man +may love that way in the lighting of an eye, why may not a girl do the +same? There's not one kind o' heart i' the breast of a man an' another +kind i' the breast of a woman, as ever I heard." In which Little Bel, in +her innocence, was wiser than people wiser than she. + +And after this there is no need of telling more,--only a picture or two +which are perhaps worth sketching in few words. One is the expression +which was seen on Sandy Bruce's face one day, not many weeks after his +first interview with Little Bel, when, in reply to his question, "An' +now, my own lass, what'll ye have for your weddin' gift from me? Tell me +the thing ye want most i' a' the earth, an' if it's in my means ye shall +have it the day ye gie me the thing I want maist i' the whole earth." + +"I've got it a'ready, Sandy," said Little Bel, taking his face in her +hands, and making a feint of kissing him; then withdrawing coquettishly. +Wise, innocent Bel! Sandy understood. + +"Ay, my lass; but next to me. What's the next thing ye'd have?" + +Bel hesitated. Even to her wooer's generosity it might seem a daring +request,--the thing she craved. + +"Tell me, lass," said Sandy, sternly. "I've mair money than ye think. +There's no lady in a' Charlottetown can go finer than ye if ye've a +mind." + +"For shame, Sandy!" cried Bel. "An' you to think it was fine apparel I'd +be askin'! It's a--a"--the word refused to leave her tongue--"a--piano, +Sandy;" and she gazed anxiously at him. "I'll never ask ye for another +thing till the day o' my death, Sandy, if ye'll gie me that." + +Sandy shouted in delight. For a brief space a fear had seized him--of +which he now felt shame indeed--that his sweet lassie might be about to +ask for jewels or rich attire; and it would have sorely hurt Sandy's +pride in her had this been so. + +"A piano!" he shouted. "An' did ye not think I'd that a'ready in my +mind? O' coorse, a piano, an' every other instrument under the skies +that ye'll wish, my lass, ye shall have. The more music ye make, the +gladder the house'll be. Is there nothin' else ye want, lass,--nothin'?" + +"Nothing in all this world, Sandy, but you and a piano," replied Little +Bel. + +The other picture was on a New Year's Day, just a twelvemonth from the +day of Little Bel's exhibition in the Wissan Bridge school-house. It is +a bright day; the sleighing is superb all over the island, and the +Charlottetown streets are full of gay sleighs and jingling bells,--none +so gay, however, as Sandy Bruce's, and no bells so merry as the silver +ones on his fierce little Norwegian ponies, that curvet and prance, and +are all their driver can hold. Rolled up in furs to her chin, how rosy +and handsome looks Little Bel by her husband's side, and how full of +proud content is his face as he sees the people all turning to look at +her beauty! And who is this driving the Norwegian ponies? Who but +Archie,--Archie McLeod, who has followed his young teacher to her new +home, and is to grow up, under Sandy Bruce's teachings, into a sharp and +successful man of the shipping business. + +And as they turn a corner they come near running into another fur-piled, +swift-gliding sleigh, with a grizzled old head looking out of a tartan +hood, and eyes like hawks',--Dalgetty himself; and as they pass the head +nods and the eyes laugh, and a sharp voice cries, "Guineas it is!" + +"Better than guineas!" answered back Mrs. Sandy Bruce, quick as a flash; +and in the same second cries Archie, from the front seat, with a saucy +laugh, "And as long as she lives, Mr. Dalgetty!" + + + + +The Captain of the "Heather Bell". + + + +You might have known he was a Scotchman by the name of his little +steamer; and if you had not known it by that, you would have known it as +soon as you looked at him. Scotch, pure, unmitigated, unmistakable +Scotch, was Donald Mackintosh, from the crown of his auburn head down to +the soles of his big awkward feet. Six feet two inches in his stockings +he stood, and so straight that he looked taller even than that; +blue-gray eyes full of a canny twinkle; freckles,--yes, freckles that +were really past the bounds of belief, for up into his hair they ran, +and to the rims of his eyes,--no pale, dull, equivocal freckles, such as +might be mistaken for dingy spots of anything else, but brilliant, +golden-brown freckles, almost auburn like his hair. Once seen, never to +be forgotten were Donald Mackintosh's freckles. All this does not sound +like the description of a handsome man; but we are not through yet with +what is to be said about Donald Mackintosh's looks. We have said nothing +of his straight massive nose, his tawny curling beard, which shaded up +to yellow around a broad and laughing mouth, where were perpetually +flashing teeth of an even ivory whiteness a woman might have coveted. +No, not handsome, but better than handsome, was Donald Mackintosh; he +was superb. Everybody said so: nobody could have been found to dispute +it,--nobody but Donald himself; he thought, honestly thought, he was +hideous. All that he could see on the rare occasions when he looked in a +glass was an expanse of fiery red freckles, topped off with what he +would have called a shock of red hair. Uglier than anything he had ever +seen in his life, he said to himself many a time, and grew shyer and +shyer and more afraid of women each time he said it; and all this while +there was not a girl in Charlottetown that did not know him in her +thoughts, if indeed she did not openly speak of him, as that "splendid +Donald Mackintosh," or "the handsome 'Heather Bell' captain." + +But nothing could have made Donald believe this, which was in one way a +pity, though in another way not. If he had known how women admired him, +he would have inevitably been more or less spoiled by it, wasted his +time, and not have been so good a sailor. On the other hand, it was a +pity to see him,--forty years old, and alone in the world,--not a chick +nor a child of his own, nor any home except such miserable makeshifts as +a sailor finds in inns or boarding-houses. + +It was a wonder that the warm-hearted fellow had kept a cheery nature +and face all these years living thus. But the "Heather Bell" stood to +him in place of wife, children, home. There is no passion in life so +like the passion of a man for a woman as the passion of a sailor for his +craft; and this passion Donald had to the full. It was odd how he came +to be a born sailor. His father and his father's fathers, as far back as +they knew, had been farmers--three generations of them--on the Prince +Edward Island farm where Donald was born; and still more generations of +them in old Scotland. Pure Scotch on both sides of the house for +hundreds of years were the Mackintoshes, and the Gaelic tongue was +to-day freer spoken in their houses than English. + +The Mackintosh farm on Prince Edward Island was in the parish of Orwell +Head, and Donald's earliest transgressions and earliest pleasures were +runaway excursions to the wharves of that sleepy shore. To him Spruce +Wharf was a centre of glorious maritime adventure. The small sloops that +plied up and down the coast of the island, running in at the inlets, and +stopping to gather up the farmers' produce and take it to Charlottetown +markets, seemed to him as grand as Indiamen; and when, in his twelfth +year, he found himself launched in life as a boy-of-all-work on one of +these sloops, whose captain was a friend of his father's, he felt that +his fortune was made. And so it was. He was in the line of promotion by +virtue of his own enthusiasm. No plank too small for the born sailor to +swim by. Before Donald was twenty-five he himself commanded one of these +little coasting-vessels. From this he took a great stride forward, and +became first officer on the iron-clad steamer plying between +Charlottetown and the mainland. The winter service on this boat was +terrible,--ploughing and cutting through nearly solid ice for long days +and nights of storm. Donald did not like it. He felt himself lost out in +the wild channel. His love was for the water near shore,--for the bays, +inlets, and river-mouths he had known since he was a child. + +He began to think he was not so much of a sailor as he had supposed,--so +great a shrinking grew up in him winter after winter from the perils and +hardships of the mail-steamer's route. But he persevered and bided his +time, and in ten years had the luck to become owner and master of a trim +little coasting-steamer which had been known for years as the "Sally +Wright," making two trips a week from Charlottetown to Orwell +Head,--known as the "Sally Wright" no longer, however; for the first +thing Donald did was to repaint her, from stem to stern, white, with +green and pink stripes, on her prow a cluster of pink heather blossoms, +and "Heather Bell" in big letters on the side. + +When he was asked where he got this fancy name, he said, lightly, he +did not know; it was a good Scotch name. This was not true. Donald knew +very well. On the window-sill in his mother's kitchen had stood always a +pot of pink heather. Come summer, come winter, the place was never +without a young heather growing; and the dainty pink bells were still to +Donald the man, as they had been to Donald the child, the loveliest +flowers in the world. But he would not for the profits of many a trip +have told his comrade captains why he had named his boat the "Heather +Bell." He had a sentiment about the name which he himself hardly +understood. It seemed out of all proportion to the occasion; but a day +was coming when it would seem more like a prophecy than a mere +sentiment. He had builded better than he knew when he chose that name +for the thing nearest his heart. + +Charlottetown is not a gay place; its standards and methods of amusement +are simple and primitive. Among the summer pleasures of the young people +picnics still rank high, and picnic excursions by steamboat or sloop +highest of all. Through June and July hardly a daily newspaper can be +found which does not contain the advertisement of one or more of these +excursions. After Donald made his little boat so fresh and gay with the +pink and green colors, and gave her the winning new name, she came to be +in great demand for these occasions. + +How much the captain's good looks had to do with the "Heather Bell's" +popularity as a pleasure-boat it would not do to ask; but there was +reason enough for her being liked aside from that. Sweet and fresh in +and out, with white deck, the chairs and settees all painted green, and +a gay streamer flying,--white, with three green bars,--and "Donald +Mackintosh, Captain," in green letters, and below these a spray of pink +heather, she looked more like a craft for festive sailing than for +cruising about from one farm-landing to another, picking up odds and +ends of farm produce,--eggs and butter, and oats and wool,--with now and +then a passenger. Donald liked this slow cruising and the market-work +best; but the picnic parties were profitable, and he took them whenever +he could. He kept apart, however, from the merry-makers as much as +possible, and was always glad at night when he had landed his noisy +cargo safe back at the Charlottetown piers. + +This disposition on his part to hold himself aloof was greatly +irritating to the Charlottetown girls, and to no one of them so much as +to pretty Katie McCloud, who, because she was his second cousin and had +known him all her life, felt, and not without reason, that he ought to +pay her something in the shape or semblance of attention when she was on +board his boat, even if she were a member of a large and gay party, most +of whom were strangers to him. There was another reason, too; but Katie +had kept it so long locked in the bottom of her heart that she hardly +realized its force and cogency, and, if she had, would have laughed, and +put it as far from her thoughts as she could. + +The truth was, Katie had been in love with Donald ever since she was ten +years old and he was twenty,--a long time, seeing that she was now +thirty and he forty; and never once, either in their youth or their +middle age, had there been a word of love-making between them. All the +same, deep in her heart the good little Katie had kept the image of +Donald in sacred tenderness by itself. No other man's love-making, +however earnest,--and Katie had been by no means without lovers,--had so +much as touched this sentiment. She judged them all by this secret +standard, and found them all wanting. She did not pine, neither did she +take a step of forwardness, or even coquettish advance, to Donald. She +was too full of Scotch reticence for that. The only step she did take, +in hope of bringing him nearer to her, was the going to Charlottetown to +learn the milliner's trade. + +Poor Katie! if she had but known she threw away her last chance when she +did it. She reasoned that Donald was in Charlottetown far more than he +was anywhere else; that if she stayed at home on the farm she could see +him only by glimpses, when the "Heather Bell" ran in at their +landing,--in and out and off again in an hour. What was that? And maybe +a Sunday once or twice a year, and at a Christmas gathering. No wonder +Katie thought that in the town where his business lay and he slept +three nights a week she would have a far better chance; that he would be +glad to come and see her in her tidy little shop. But when Donald heard +what she had done, he said gruffly: "Just like the rest; all for ribbons +and laces and silly gear. I thought Katie'd more sense. Why didn't she +stay at home on the farm?" And he said as much to her when he first saw +her in her new quarters. She tried to explain to him that she wanted to +support herself, and she could not do it on the farm. + +"No need,--no need," said her relentless cousin; "there was plenty for +all on the farm." And all the while he stood glowering at the counter +spread with gay ribbons and artificial flowers, and Katie was ready to +cry. This was in the first year of her life in Charlottetown. She was +only twenty-two then. In the eight years since then matters had quieted +down with Katie. It seemed certain that Donald would never marry. +Everybody said so. And if a man had lived till forty without it, what +else could be expected? If Katie had seen him seeking other women, her +quiet and unrewarded devotion would no doubt have flamed up in jealous +pain. But she knew that he gave to her as much as he gave to +any,--occasional and kindly courtesy, no less, no more. + +So the years slipped by, and in her patient industry Katie forgot how +old she was growing, until suddenly, on her thirtieth birthday, +something--the sight of a deepened line on her face, perhaps, or a pang +of memory of the old childish past, such as birthdays always +bring--something smote her with a sudden consciousness that life itself +was slipping away, and she was alone. No husband, no child, no home, +except as she earned each month, by fashioning bonnets and caps for the +Charlottetown women, money enough to pay the rent of the two small rooms +in which she slept, cooked, and plied her trade. Some tears rolled down +Katie's face as she sat before her looking-glass thinking these +unwelcome thoughts. + +"I'll go to the Orwell Head picnic to-morrow," she said to herself. +"It's so near the old place perhaps Donald'll walk over home with me. +It's long since he's seen the farm, I'll be bound." + +Now, Katie did not say to herself in so many words, "It will be like +old times when we were young, and it may be something will stir in +Donald's heart for me at the sight of the fields." Not only did she not +say this; she did not know that she thought it; but it was there, all +the same, a lurking, newly revived, vague, despairing sort of hope. And +because it was there she spent half the day retrimming a bonnet and +washing and ironing a gown to wear to the picnic; and after long and +anxious pondering of the matter, she deliberately took out of her best +box of artificial flowers a bunch of white heather, and added it to the +bonnet trimming. It did not look overmuch like heather, and it did not +suit the bonnet, of which Katie was dimly aware; but she wanted to say +to Donald, "See, I put a sprig of heather in my bonnet in honor of your +boat to-day." Simple little Katie! + +It was a large and noisy picnic, of the very sort Donald most disliked, +and he kept himself out of sight until the last moment, just before they +swung round at Spruce Wharf. Then, as he stood on the upper deck giving +orders about the flinging out of the ropes, Katie looked up at him from +below, and called, in a half-whisper: "Oh, Donald, I was thinking I'd +walk over home instead of staying here to the dance. Wouldn't ye be +goin' with me, Donald? They'd be glad to see ye." + +"Ay, Katie," answered Donald; "that will I, and be glad to be out of +this." And as soon as the boat was safely moored, he gave his orders to +his mate for the day, and leaping down joined the glad Katie; and before +the picnickers had even missed them they were well out of sight, walking +away briskly over the brown fields. + +Katie was full of happiness. As she glanced up into Donald's face she +found it handsomer and kinder than she had seen it, she thought, for +many years. + +"It was for this I came, Donald," she said merrily. "When I heard the +dance was to be in the Spruce Grove I made up my mind to come and +surprise the folks. It's nigh six months since I've been home." + +"Pity ye ever left it, my girl," said Donald, gravely. "The home's the +place for women." But he said it in a pleasant tone, and his eyes rested +affectionately on Katie's face. + +"Eh, but ye're bonny to-day, Katie; do ye know it?" he continued, his +glance lingering on her fresh color and her smiling face. In his heart +he was saying: "An' what is it makes her so young-looking to-day? It was +an old face she had on the last time I saw her." + +Happiness, Donald, happiness! Even those few minutes of it had worked +the change. + +Encouraged by this praise, Katie said, pointing to the flowers in her +bonnet, "It's the heather ye're meanin', maybe, Donald, an' not me?" + +"An' it's not," he replied earnestly, almost angrily, with a scornful +glance at the flowers. "Ye'll not be callin' that heather. Did ye never +see true heather, Katie? It's no more like the stalks ye've on yer head +than a barrow's like my boat yonder." + +Which was not true: the flowers were of the very best ever imported into +Charlottetown, and were a better representation of heather than most +artificial flowers are of the blossoms whose names they bear. Donald was +not a judge; and if he had been, it was a cruel thing to say. Katie's +eyes drooped: she had made a serious sacrifice in putting so dear a +bunch of flowers on her bonnet,--a bunch that she had, in her own mind, +been sure Lady Gownas, of Gownas House, would buy for her summer bonnet. +She had made this sacrifice purely to please Donald, and this was what +had come of it. Poor Katie! However, nothing could trouble her long +to-day, with Donald by her side in the sunny, bright fields; and she +would have him to herself till four in the afternoon. + +As they drew near the farm-house a strange sound fell on their ears; it +was as if a million of beehives were in full blast of buzzing in the +air. At the same second both Donald and Katie paused, listening. "What +can that be, now?" exclaimed Donald. Before the words had left his lips, +Katie cried, "It's a bee!--Elspie's spinning-bee." + +The spinning-bees are great fêtes among the industrious maidens of +Prince Edward Island. After the spring shearings are over, the wool +washed and carded and made into rolls, there begin to circulate +invitations to spinning-bees at the different farm-houses. Each girl +carries her spinning-wheel on her shoulder. By eight o'clock in the +morning all are gathered and at work: some of them have walked ten miles +or more, and barefoot too, their shoes slung over the shoulder with the +wheel. Once arrived, they waste no time. The rolls of wool are piled +high in the corners of the rooms, and it is the ambition of each one to +spin all she can before dark. At ten o'clock cakes and lemonade are +served; at twelve, the dinner,--thick soup, roast meat, vegetables, +coffee and tea, and a pudding. All are seated at a long table, and the +hostesses serve; at six o'clock comes supper, and then the day's work is +done; after that a little chat or a ramble over the farm, and at eight +o'clock all are off for home. No young men, no games, no dances; yet the +girls look forward to the bees as their greatest spring pleasures, and +no one grudges the time or the strength they take. + +It was, indeed, a big bee that Elspie McCloud was having this June +morning. Twenty young girls, all in long white aprons, were spinning +away as if on a wager when Donald and Katie appeared at the door. The +door opened directly into the large room where they were. Katie went +first, Donald hanging back behind. "I think I'll not go in," he was +shamefacedly saying, and halting on the step, when above all the +wheel-whirring and yarn-singing came a glad cry,-- + +"Why, there's Katie--Katie McCloud! and Donald Mackintosh! For pity's +sake!" (the Prince Edward Islander's strongest ejaculation.) "Come in! +come in!" And in a second more a vision, it seemed to the dazed +Donald,--but it was not a vision at all, only a buxom young girl in a +blue homespun gown,--had seized him with one hand and Katie with the +other, and drawn them both into the room, into the general whir and +_mêlée_ of wheels, merry faces, and still merrier voices. + +It was Elspie, Katie's youngest sister,--Katie's special charge and care +when she was a baby, and now her special pet. The greatest desire of +Katie's heart was to have Elspie with her in Charlottetown, but the +father and mother would not consent. + +Donald stood like a man in a dream. He did not know it; but from the +moment his eyes first fell on Elspie's face they had followed it as iron +follows the magnet. Were there ever such sweet gray eyes in the world? +and such a pink and white skin? and hair yellow as gold? And what, oh, +what did she wear tucked in at the belt of her white apron but a sprig +of heather! Pink heather,--true, genuine, actual pink heather, such as +Donald had not seen for many a year. No wonder the eyes of the captain +of the "Heather Bell" followed that spray of pink heather wherever it +went flitting about from place to place, never long in one,--for it was +now time for dinner, and Donald and the old people were soon seated at a +small table by themselves, not to embarrass the young girls, and Elspie +and Katie together served the dinner; and though Elspie never once came +to the small table, yet did Donald see every motion she made and hear +every note of her lark's voice. He did not mistake what had happened to +him. Middle-aged, inexperienced, sober-souled man as he was, he knew +that at last he had got a wound,--a life wound, if it were not +healed,--and the consciousness of it struck him more and more dumb, till +his presence was like a damper on the festivities; so much so, that when +at three in the afternoon he and Katie took their departure, the door +had no more than closed on them before Elspie exclaimed pettishly: "An' +indeed I wish Katie'd left Cousin Donald behind. I don't know what it is +she thinks so much of him for. She's always sayin' there's none like +him; an' it's lucky it's true. The great glowerin' steeple o' a man, +with no word in his mouth!" And the young maidens all agreed with her. +It was a strange thing for a man to come and go like that, with nothing +to say for himself, they said, and he so handsome too. + +"Handsome!" cried Elspie; "is it handsome,--the face all a spatter with +the color of the hair? He's nice eyes of his own, but his skin's +deesgustin'." Which speech, if Donald had overheard it, would have +caused that there should never have been this story to tell. But luckily +Donald did not. All that he bore away from the McCloud farm-house that +June morning was a picture of a face and flitting figure, and the sound +in his ears of a voice,--a picture and a sound which he was destined to +see and hear all his life. + +He scarcely spoke on his way back to the boat, and Katie perplexed +herself vainly trying to account for his silence. It must be, she +thought, that he had been vexed by the sight of so many girls and the +sound of their idle chatter. He would have liked it better if nobody but +the family had been at home. What a shame for a man to live alone as he +did, and get into such unsocial ways! He grew more and more averse to +society each year. Now, if he were only married, and had a bright home, +where people came and went, with a bit of a tea now and then, how good +it would be for him,--take the stiffness out of his ways, and make him +more as he used to be fifteen, or even ten years ago! And so the good +Katie went on in her placid mind, trotting along silently by his side, +waiting for him to speak. + +"Where did she get the heather?" + +"What!" exclaimed Katie. The irrelevant question sounded like the speech +of one talking in his sleep. "Oh," she continued, "ye mean Elspie!" + +"Ay," said Donald. "She'd a bit of heather in her belt,--the true +heather, not sticks like yon," pointing a contemptuous finger toward +Katie's bonnet. "Where did she get it?" + +"Mother's always the heather growing in the house," answered Katie. "She +says she's homesick unless she sees it. It was grandmother brought it +over in the first, and it's never been let die out." + +"My mother the same," said Donald. "It's the first blossom I remember, +an' I'm thinking it will be the last," he continued, gazing at Katie +absently; but his face did not look as if it were absently he gazed. +There was a glow on his cheeks, and an intense expression in his eyes +which Katie had never seen there. They warmed her heart. + +"Yes," she said, "one can never forget what one has loved in the youth." + +"True, Katie, true. There's nothing like one's own and earliest," +replied Donald, full of his new and thrilling emotion; and as he said it +he reached out his hand and took hold of Katie's, as if they were boy +and girl together. "Many's the time I've raced wi' ye this way, Katie," +he said affectionately. + +"Ay, when I was a wee thing; an' ye always let go my hand at last, and +pretended I could outrin ye," laughed Katie, blissful tears filling her +eyes. + +What a happy day was this! Had it not been an inspiration to bring +Donald back to the old farm-house? Katie was sure it had. She was filled +with sweet reveries; and so silent on the way home that her merry +friends joked her unmercifully about her long walk inland with the +Captain. + +It was late in the night, or rather it was early the next morning, when +the "Heather Bell" reached her wharf. + +"I'll go up with ye, Katie," said Donald. "It's not decent for ye to go +alone." + +And when he bade her good-night he looked half-wistfully in her face, +and said: "But it's a lonely house for ye to come to, Katie, an' not a +soul but yourself in it." And he held her hand in his affectionately, as +a cousin might. + +Katie's heart beat like a hammer in her bosom at these words, but she +answered gravely: "Yes, it was sorely lonely at first, an' I wearied +myself out to get them to give me Elspie to learn the business wi' me; +but I'm more used to it now." + +"That is what I was thinkin'," said Donald, "that if the two o' ye were +here together, ye'd not be so lonely. Would she not like to come?" + +"Ay, that would she," replied the unconscious Katie; "she pines to be +with me. I'm more her mother than the mother herself; but they'll never +consent." + +"She's bonny," said Donald. I'd not seen her since she was little." + +"She's as good as she is bonny," said Katie, warmly; and that was the +last word between Katie and Donald that night. + +"As good as she is bonny." It rang in Donald's ears like a refrain of +heavenly music as he strode away. "As good as she is bonny;" and how +good must that be? She could not be as good as she was bonny, for she +was the bonniest lass that ever drew breath. Gray eyes and golden hair +and pink cheeks and pink heather all mingled in Donald's dreams that +night in fantastic and impossible combinations; and more than once he +waked in terror, with the sweat standing on his forehead from some +nightmare fancy of danger to the "Heather Bell" and to Elspie, both +being inextricably entangled together in his vision. + +The visions did not fade with the day. They pursued Donald, and haunted +his down-sitting and his uprising. He tried to shake them off, drive +them away; for when he came to think the thing over soberly, he called +himself an old fool to be thus going daft about a child like Elspie. + +"Barely twenty at the most, and me forty. She'd not look at an old +fellow like me, and maybe't would be like a sin if she did," said Donald +to himself over and over again. But it did no good. "As good as she is +bonny, bonny, bonny," rang in his ears, and the blue eyes and golden +hair and merry smile floated before his eyes. There was no help for it. +Since the world began there have been but two roads out of this sort of +mystic maze in which Donald now found himself lost,--but two roads, one +bright with joy, one dark with sorrow. And which road should it be +Donald's fate to travel must be for the child Elspie to say. After a few +days of bootless striving with himself, during which time he had spent +more hours with Katie than he had for a year before,--it was such a +comfort to him to see in her face the subtle likeness to Elspie, and to +hear her talk about plans of bringing her to Charlottetown for a visit +if nothing more,--after a few days of this, Captain Donald, one Saturday +afternoon, sailing past Orwell Head, suddenly ran into the inlet where +he had taken the picnic party, and, mooring the "Heather Bell" at Spruce +Wharf, announced to his astonished mate that he should lie by there till +Monday. + +It was a bold step of Captain Donald's. But he was not a man for +half-and-half ways in anything; and he had said grimly to himself that +this matter must be ended one way or the other,--either he would win the +child or lose her. He would know which. Girls had loved men twenty years +older than themselves, and girls might again. + +The Sunday passed off better than his utmost hopes. Everybody except +Elspie was cordially glad to see him. Visitors were not so common at the +Orwell Head farm-houses that they could fail of welcome. The McCloud +boys were thankful to hear all that Donald had to tell, and with the old +father and mother he had always been a prime favorite. It had been a +sore disappointment to them, as year after year went by, to see that +there seemed no likelihood of his becoming Katie's husband. As the day +wore on, even Elspie relaxed a little from her indifferent attention to +him, and began to perceive that, spite of the odious freckles, he was, +as the girls had said, a handsome man. + +Partly because of this, and partly from innate coquetry, she said, when +he was taking leave, "Ye'll not be comin' again for another year, +maybe?" + +"Ye'll see, then!" laughed Donald, with a sudden wise impulse to refrain +from giving the reply which sprang to his lips,--"To-morrow, if ye'd ask +me!" + +And from the same wise, strangely wise impulse he curbed his desire to +go again the next Sunday and the next. Not until three weeks had passed +did he go; and then Elspie was clearly and unmistakably glad to see him. +This was all Donald wanted. "I'll win her, the bonny thing!" he said to +himself. "An' I'll not be long, either." + +And he was right. A girl would have been hard indeed that would not +have been touched by the beaming, tender face which Donald wore, now +that hope lighted it up. His masterful bearing, too, was a pleasure to +the spirited Elspie, who had no liking for milksops, and had sent off +more than one lover because he came crawling too humbly to her feet. +Elspie had none of the gentle, quiet blood which ran in Katie's veins. +She had even been called Firebrand in her younger, childish days, so hot +was her temper, so hasty her tongue. But the firm rule of the Scottish +household and the pressure of the stern Scotch Calvinism preached in +their kirk had brought her well under her own control. + +"Eh, but the bonny lass has hersel' well in hand," thought the admiring +Donald more than once, as he saw her in some family discussion or +controversy keep silence, with flushing cheeks, when sharp words rose to +her tongue. + +All this time Katie was plodding away at her millinery, inexpressibly +cheered by Donald's new friendliness. He came often to see her, and told +her with the greatest frankness of his visits at the farm. He would take +her some day, he said; the trouble was, he could never be sure +beforehand when it would answer for him to stop there. Katie sunned +herself in this new familiar intercourse, and the thought of Donald +running up to the old farm of a Sunday as if he were one of the brothers +going home. In the contentment of these thoughts she grew younger and +prettier,--began to look as she did at twenty. And Donald, gazing +scrutinizingly in her face one day, seeking, as he was always doing, for +stray glimpses of resemblance to Elspie, saw this change, and +impulsively told her of it. + +"But ye're growin' young, Katie--d'ye know it?--young and bonny, my +girl." + +And Katie listened to the words with such sweet joy she feared her face +would tell too much, and put up her hands to hide it, crying: "Ah, ye're +tryin' to make me silly, you Donald, with such flatterin'. We're gettin' +old, Donald, you an' me," she added, with a guilty little undercurrent +of thought in her mind. "D'ye mind that I was thirty last month?" + +"Ay," replied Donald, gloomily, his face darkening,--"ay; I mind, by the +same token, I'm forty. It's no need ye have to be callin' yersel' old. +But I'm old, an' no mistake." The thought, as Katie had put it, had been +gall and wormwood to him. If Katie thought him old, what must he seem to +Elspie! + +It was early in June that Elspie had had the spinning-bee to which Katie +had brought the unwelcome Donald. The summer sped past, but a faster +summer than any reckoned on the calendar of months and days was speeding +in Elspie's heart. Such great love as Donald's reaches and warms its +object as inevitably as the heat of a fire warms those near it. Early in +June the spinning-bee, and before the last flax was pulled, early in +September, Elspie knew that she was restless till Donald came, glad when +he was by her side, and strangely sorry when he went away. Still, she +was not ready to admit to herself that it was anything more than her +natural liking for any pleasant friend who broke in on the lonely +monotony of the farm life. + +The final drying of the flax, which is an important crop on most of the +Prince Edward Island farms, is put off until autumn. After its first +drying in the fields where it grew, it is stored in bundles under cover +till all the other summer work is done, and autumn brings leisure. Then +the flax camp, as it is called, is built,--a big house of spruce boughs; +walls, flat roof, all of the green spruce boughs, thick enough to keep +out rain. This is usually in the heart of a spruce grove. Thither the +bundles of flax are carried and stacked in piles. In the centre of the +inclosure a slow fire is lighted, and above this on a frame of slats the +stalks of flax are laid for their last drying. It is a difficult and +dangerous process to keep the fire hot enough and not too hot, to shift +and turn and lift the flax at the right moment. Sometimes only a sudden +flinging of moist earth upon the fire saves it from blazing up into the +flax, and sometimes one careless second's oversight loses the +whole,--flax, spruce-bough house, all, in a light blaze, and gone in a +breath. + +The McClouds' flax camp had been built in the edge of the spruce grove +where the picnickers had held their dance and merry-making on that June +day, memorable to Donald and Elspie and Katie. It was well filled with +flax, in the drying of which nobody was more interested than Elspie. She +had big schemes for spinning and weaving in the coming winter. A whole +piece of linen she had promised to Katie, and a piece for herself, and, +as Elspie thought it over, maybe a good many more pieces than one she +might require for herself before spring. Who knew? + +It was October now, and many a Sunday evening had Elspie walked with +Donald alone down to Spruce Wharf, and lingered there watching the last +curl of steam from the "Heather Bell" as she rounded the point, bearing +Donald away. Elspie could not doubt why Donald came. Soon she would +wonder why he came and went so many times silent; that is, silent in +words, eloquent of eye and hand,--even the touch of his hand was like a +promise. + +No one was defter and more successful in this handling of the flax over +the fire than Elspie. It had sometimes happened that she, with the help +of one brother, had dried the whole crop. It was not thought safe for +one person to work at it alone for fear of accident with the fire. But +it fell out on this October afternoon, a Saturday, that Elspie, feeling +sure of Donald's being on his way to spend the Sunday with her, had +walked down to the wharf to meet him. Seeing no signs of the boat, she +went back to the flax camp, lighted the fire, and began to spread the +flax on the slats. There was not much more left to be dried,--"not more +than three hours' work in all," she said to herself. "Eh, but I'd like +to have done with it before the Sabbath!" And she fell to work with a +will, so briskly to work that she did not realize how time was +flying,--did not, strangest of all, hear the letting off of steam when +the "Heather Bell" moored at the wharf; and she was still busily turning +and lifting and separating the stalks of flax, bending low over the +frame, heated, hurrying, her whole heart in her work, when Donald came +striding up the field from the wharf,--striding at his greatest pace, +for he was disturbed at not finding Elspie at the landing to meet him. +He turned his head toward the spruce grove, thinking vaguely of the June +picnic, and what had come of his walking away from the dance that +morning, when suddenly a great column of smoke and fire rolled up from +the grove, and in the same second came piercing shrieks in Elspie's +voice. The grove was only a few rods away, but it seemed to Donald an +eternity before he reached the spot, to see not only the spruce boughs +and flax on fire, but Elspie tossing up her arms like one crazed, her +gown all ablaze. The brave, foolish girl, at the first blazing of the +stalks on the slats, had darted into the corner of the house and +snatched an armful of the piled flax there to save it; but as she passed +the flaming centre the whole sheaf she carried had caught fire also, and +in a twinkling of an eye had blazed up around her head, and when she +dropped it, had blazed up again fiercer than ever around her feet. + +With a groan Donald seized her. The flames leaped on him, too, as if to +wrestle with him; his brown beard crackled, his hair, but he fought +through it all. Throwing Elspie on the ground, he rolled her over and +over, crying aloud, "Oh, my darlin', if I break your sweet bones, it is +better than the fire!" And indeed it seemed as if it must break her +bones, so fiercely he rolled her over and over, tearing off his woollen +coat to smother the fire; beating it with his tartan cap, stamping it +with his knees and feet "Oh, my darlin'! make yourself easy. I'll save +ye! I'll save ye if I die for it," he cried. + +And through the smoke and the fire and the terror Elspie answered back: +"I'll not leave ye, my Donald. We're gettin' it under." And with her own +scorched hands she pulled the coat-flaps down over the smouldering bits +of flax, and tore off her burning garments. + +Not a coward thread in her whole body had little Elspie, and in less +time than the story could ever be told, all was over, and safely; and +there they sat on the ground, the two, locked in each other's +arms,--Donald's beard gone, and much of his hair; Elspie's pretty golden +hair also blackened, burned. It was the first thing Donald saw after he +made sure danger was past. Laying his hand on her head, he said, with a +half-sob,--he was hysterical now there was nothing more to be done: "Oh, +your bonny hair, my darlin'! It's all scorched away." + +"It'll grow!" said Elspie, looking up in his eyes archly. Her head was +on his shoulder, and she nestled closer; then she burst into tears and +laughter together, crying: "Oh, Donald, it was for you I was callin'. +Did ye hear me? I said to myself when the fire took hold, 'O God, send +Donald to save me!'" + +"An' he sent me, my darlin'," answered Donald. "Ye are my own darlin'; +say it, Elspie, say it!" he continued. "Oh, ye bonny bairn, but I've +loved ye like death since the first day I set eyes on your bonny face! +Say ye're my darlin'!" + +But he knew it without her saying a word; and the whispered "Yes, +Donald, I'm your darlin' if you want me," did not make him any surer. + +There was a great outcrying and trembling of hearts at the farm-house +when Donald and Elspie appeared in this sorry plight of torn and burned +clothes, blackened faces, scorched and singed hair. But thankfulness +soon swept away all other emotions,--thankfulness and a great joy, too; +for Donald's second word was, turning to the old father: "An' it is my +own that I've saved; she's gien hersel' to me for all time, an' we'll +ask for your blessin' on us without any waitin'!" Tears filled the +mother's eyes. She thought of another daughter. A dire instinct smote +her of woe to Katie. + +"Ay, Donald," she said, "it's a good day to us to see ye enter the +house as a son; but I never thought o'--" She stopped. + +Donald's quick consciousness imagined part of what she had on her mind. +"No," he said, half sad in the midst of his joy, "o' course ye didn't; +an' I wonder at mysel'. It's like winter weddin' wi' spring, ye'll be +sayin'. But I'll keep young for her sake. Ye'll see she's no old man for +a husband. There's nothing in a' the world I'll not do for the bairn. +It's no light love I bear her." + +"Ye'll be tellin' Katie on the morrow?" said the unconscious Elspie. + +"Ay, ay," replied the equally unconscious Donald; "an' she'll be main +glad o' 't. It's a hundred times in the summer that she's been sayin' +how she longed to have you in the town wi' her. An' now ye're comin', +comin' soon, oh, my bonny. I'll make a good home for ye both. Katie's +the same's my own, too, for always." + +The mother gazed earnestly at Donald. Could it be that he was so unaware +of Katie's heart? "Donald," she said suddenly, "I'll go down wi' ye if +ye'll take me. I've been wantin' to go. There's a many things I've to +do in the town." + +It had suddenly occurred to her that she might thus save Katie the shock +of hearing the news first from Donald's lips. + +It was well she did. When, with stammering lips and she hardly knew in +what words, she finally broke it to Katie that Donald had asked Elspie +to be his wife, and that Elspie loved him, and they would soon be +married, Katie stared into her face for a moment with wide, vacant eyes, +as if paralyzed by some vision of terror. Then, turning white, she +gasped out, "Mother!" No word more. None was necessary. + +"Ay, my bairn, I know," said the mother, with a trembling voice; "an' I +came mysel' that no other should tell ye." + +A long silence followed, broken only by an occasional shuddering sigh +from Katie; not a tear in her eyes, and her cheeks as scarlet as they +had been white a few moments before. The look on her face was +terrifying. + +"Will it kill ye, bairn?" sobbed the mother at last. "Don't look so. It +must be borne, my bairn; it must be borne." + +It was a shrill voice, unlike Katie's, which replied: "Ay, I'll bear +it; it must be borne. There's none knows it but you, mother," she added, +with a shade of relief in the tone. + +"An' never will if ye're brave, bairn," answered the mother. + +"It was the day of the picnic," cried Katie; "was't not? I remember he +said she was bonny." + +"Ay, 'twas then," replied the mother, so sorely torn between her love +for the two daughters, between whom had fallen this terrible sword. "Ay, +it was then. He says she has not been out of his mind by the night or by +the day since it." + +Katie shivered. "And it was I brought him," she said, with a tearless +sob bitterer than any loud weeping. "Ye'll be goin' back the night?" she +added drearily. + +"I'll bide if ye want me," said the mother. + +"I'm better alone, mother," said Katie, her voice for the first time +faltering. "I'll bear it. Never fear me, mother; but I'm best alone for +a bit. Ye'll give my warm love to Elspie, an' send her down here to me +to stay till she's married. I'll help her best if she's here. There'll +be much to be done. I'll do 't, mother; never fear me." + +"Are ye countin' too much on yer strength, bairn?" asked the now weeping +mother. "I'd rather see ye give way like." + +"No, no," cried Katie, impatiently. "Each one has his own way, mother; +let me have mine. I'll work for Donald and Elspie all I can. Ye know she +was always like my own bairn more than a sister. The quicker she comes +the better for me, mother. It'll be all over then. Eh, but she'll be a +bonny bride!" And at these words Katie's tears at last flowed. + +"There, there, bairn! Have out the tears; they're healin' to grief," +exclaimed her mother, folding her arms tight around her and drawing her +head down on her shoulder as she had done in her babyhood. + +Katie was right. When she had Elspie by her side, and was busily at work +in helping on all the preparations for the wedding, the worst was over. +There was a strange blending of pang and pleasure in the work. Katie +wondered at herself; but it grew clearer and clearer to her each day +that since Donald could not be hers she was glad he was Elspie's. "If +he'd married a stranger it would ha' broke my heart far worse, far +worse," she said many a time to herself as she sat patiently stitching, +stitching, on Elspie's bridal clothes. "He's my own in a way, after a', +so long's he's my brother. There's nobody can rob me o' that." And the +sweet light of unselfish devotion beamed more and more in her +countenance, till even the mother that bore her was deceived, and said +in her heart that Katie could not have been so very much in love with +Donald after all. + +There was one incident which for a few moments sorely tested Katie's +self-control. The spray of white heather blossom which she had worn to +the June picnic she had on the next day put back in her box of flowers +for sale, hoping that she might yet find a customer for it. The delicate +bells were not injured either in shape or color. It was a shame to lose +it for one day's wear, thought the thrifty Katie; and most surely she +herself would never wear it again. She could not even see it without a +flush of mortification as she recalled Donald's contempt for it. The +privileged Elspie, rummaging among all Katie's stores, old and new, +spied this white heather cluster one day, and snatching it up exclaimed: +"The very thing for my weddin' bonnet, Katie! I'll have it in. The bride +o' the master o' the 'Heather Bell' should be wed with the heather bloom +on her." + +Katie's face flushed. "It's been worn, Elspie," she said; "I had it in a +bonnet o' my own. Don't ye remember I wore it to the picnic? an' then it +didna suit, an' I put it back in the box. It's not fit for ye. I've a +bunch o' lilies o' the valley, better." + +"No; I'll have this," pursued Elspie. "It's as white's the driven snow, +an' not hurt at all. I'm sure Donald'll like it better than all the +other flowers i' the town." + +"Indeed, then, he won't," said Katie, sharply; on which Elspie turned +upon her with a flashing eye, and said,-- + +"An' which 'll be knowin' best, do ye think? What is it ye mean?" + +"Nothing," said Katie, meekly; "only he said, that day I'd the bonnet +on, it was no more than sticks, an' not like the true heather at all." + +"All he knows, then! Ye'll see he'll not say it looks like sticks when +it's on the bonnet I'm goin' to church in," retorted Elspie, dancing to +the looking-glass, and holding the white heather bells high up against +her golden curls. "It's the only flower in all yer boxes I want, Katie, +and ye'll not grudge it to me, will ye, dear?" And the sparkling Elspie +threw herself on the floor by Katie, and flung her arms across her +knees, looking up into her face with a wilful, loving smile. + +"No wonder Donald loves her so,--the bonny thing!" thought Katie. "God +knows I'd grudge ye nothing on earth, Elspie," she said, in a voice so +earnest that Elspie looked wonderingly at her. + +"Is it a very dear flower, sister?" she said penitently. "Does it cost +too much money for Elspie?" + +"No, bairn, it's not too dear," said Katie, herself again. "The lilies +were dearer. But ye'll have the heather an' welcome, if ye will; an' I +doubt not it'll look all right in Donald's eyes when he sees it this +time." + +It was indeed a good home that Donald made for his wife and her sister. +He was better to do in worldly goods than they had supposed. His long +years of seclusion from society had been years of thrift and prosperity. +No more milliner-work for Katie. Donald would not hear of it. So she was +driven to busy herself with the house, keeping from Elspie's willing and +eager hands all the harder tasks, and laying up stores of fine-spun +linen and wool for future use in the family. It was a marvel how content +Katie found herself as the winter flew by. The wedding had taken place +at Christmas, and the two sisters and Donald had gone together from the +church to Donald's new house, where, in a day or two, everything had +settled into peaceful grooves of simple, industrious habit, as if they +had been there all their lives. + +Donald's happiness was of the deep and silent kind. Elspie did not +realize the extent of it. A freer-spoken, more demonstrative lover would +have found heartier response and more appreciation from her. But she was +a loyal, loving, contented little wife, and there could not have been +found in all Charlottetown a happier household, to the eye, than was +Donald's for the first three months after his marriage. + +Then a cloud settled on it. For some inexplicable reason the blooming +Elspie, who had never had a day's illness in her life, drooped in the +first approach of the burden of motherhood. A strange presentiment also +seized her. After the first brief gladness at the thought of holding a +child of her own in her arms, she became overwhelmed with a melancholy +certainty of her own death. + +"I'll never live to see it, Katie," she said again and again. "It'll be +your bairn, an' not mine. Ye'll never give it up, Katie?--promise me. +Ye'll take care of it all your life?--promise." And Katie, terrified by +her earnestness, promised everything she asked, all the while striving +to reassure her that her fears were needless. + +No medicines did Elspie good; mind and body alike reacted on each other; +she failed hour by hour till the last; and when her time of trial came, +the sad presentiment fulfilled itself, and she died in giving birth to +her babe. + +When Katie brought the child to the stunned and stricken Donald, +saying, "Will ye not look at him, Donald? it is as fine a man-child's +was ever seen," he pushed her away, saying in a hoarse whisper,-- + +"Never let me see its face. She said it was to be your bairn and not +hers. Take it and go. I'll never look on it." + +Donald was out of his reason when he spoke these words, and for long +after. They bore with him tenderly and patiently, and did as they could +for the best; Katie, the wan and grief-stricken Katie, being the chief +adviser and planner of all. + +Elspie's body was carried home and buried near the spruce grove, in a +little copse of young spruces which Donald pointed out. This was the +only wish he expressed about anything. Katie took the baby with her to +the old homestead. She dared not try to rear it without her mothers +help. + +It was many months before Donald came to the farm. This seemed strange +to all except Katie. To her it seemed the most natural thing, and she +grew impatient with all who thought otherwise. + +"I'd feel that way mysel'," she repeated again and again. "He'll come +when he can, but it'll be long first. Ye none of ye know what a love it +was he'd in his heart for Elspie." + +When at last Donald came, the child, the little Donald, was just able to +creep,--a chubby, blue-eyed, golden-haired little creature, already +bearing the stamp and likeness of his mother's beauty. + +At the first sight of his face Donald staggered, buried his head in his +hands, and turned away. Then, looking again, he stretched out his arms, +took the baby in them, and kissed him convulsively over and over. Katie +stood by, looking on, silently weeping. "He's like her," she said. + +"Ay," said Donald. + +The healing had begun. "A little child shall lead them," is of all the +Bible prophecies the one oftenest fulfilled. It soon grew to be Donald's +chiefest pleasure to be with his boy, and he found more and more irksome +the bonds of business which permitted him so few intervals of leisure to +visit the farm. At last one day he said to Katie,-- + +"Katie, couldn't ye make your mind up to come up to Charlottetown? I'd +get ye a good house, an' ye could have who ye'd like to live wi' ye. I'm +like one hungry all the time I'm out o' reach o' the little lad." + +Katie's eyes fell. She did not know what to reply. + +"I do not know, Donald," she faltered. "It's hard for you having him +away, but this is my home now, Donald. I've a dread o' leavin' it. And +there is nobody I know who could come to live with me." + +A strange thought shot through Donald's brain. "Katie," he said, then +paused. Something in the tone startled Katie. She lifted her eyes; read +in his the thought which had made the tone so significant to her ear. + +Unconsciously she cried out at the sight, "Oh, Donald!" + +"Ay, Katie," he said slowly, with a grave tenderness, "why might not I +come and live wi' ye? Are ye not the mother o' my child? Did she not +give him to ye with her own lips? An' how could ye have him without me? +I think she must ha' meant it so. Let me come, Katie." + +It was an unimpassioned wooing; but any other would have repelled +Katie's sense of loyalty and truth. + +"Have ye love for me, Donald?" she said searchingly. + +"All the love left in me is for the little lad and for you, Katie," +answered Donald. "I'll not deceive you, Katie. It's but a broken man I +am; but I've always loved ye, Katie. I'll be a good man t' ye, lass. +Come and be the little lad's mother, and let me live wi' my own once +more. Will ye come?" As he said these words, he stretched out his arms +toward Katie; and she, trembling, afraid to be glad, shadowed by the sad +past, yet trusting in the future, crept into them, and was folded close +to the heart she had so faithfully loved all her life. + +"I promised Elspie," she whispered, "that I'd never, never give him to +another." + +"Ay," said Donald, as he kissed her. "He's your bairn, my Katie. Ye'll +be content wi' me, Katie?" + +"Yes, Donald, if I make you content," she replied; and a look of +heavenly peace spread over her face. + +The next morning Katie went alone to Elspie's grave. It seemed to her +that only there could she venture to look her new future in the face. As +she knelt by the low mound, her tears falling fast, she murmured,-- + +"Eh, my bonny Elspie, ye'd the best o' his love. But it's me that'll be +doin' for him till I die, an' that's better than a' the love." + + + + +Dandy Steve. + + + +Everything in this world is relative, and nothing more so than the +significance of the same word in different localities. If Dandy Steve +had walked Broadway in the same clothes which he habitually wore in the +Adirondack wilderness, not only would nobody have called him a dandy, +but every one would have smiled sarcastically at the suggestion of that +epithet's being applied to him. Nevertheless, "Dandy Steve" was the name +by which he was familiarly known all through the Saranac region; and +judging by the wilderness standard, the adjective was not undeserved. No +such flannel shirts, no such jaunty felt hats, no such neckties, had +ever been worn by Adirondack guides as Dandy Steve habitually wore. And +as for his buck-skin trousers, they would not have disgraced a Sioux +chief,--always of the softest and yellowest skins, always daintily made, +the seams set full of leather fringes, and sometimes marked by lines of +delicate embroidery in white quills. There were those who said that +Dandy Steve had an Indian wife somewhere on the Upper Saranac, but +nobody knew; and it would have been a bold man who asked an intrusive +question of Dandy Steve, or ventured on any impertinent jesting about +his private affairs. Certain it was that none but Indian hands +embroidered the fine buckskins he wore; but, then, there were such +buckskins for sale,--perhaps he bought them. A man who would spend the +money he did for neckties and fine flannel shirts would not stop at any +extravagance in the price of trousers. The buckskins, however, were not +the only evidence in this case. There was a well-authenticated tale of a +brilliant red shawl--a woman's shawl--and a pair of silver bangles once +seen in Dandy Steve's cabin. A man had gone in upon him suddenly one +evening without the formality of knocking. Such foolish +conventionalities were not in vogue on the Saranac; this was before +Steve took to guiding. It was in the first year after he appeared in +that region, while he was living like a hermit alone, or supposed to be +alone, in a tiny log cabin on an island not much bigger than his cabin. + +This man--old Ben, the oldest guide there--having been hindered at some +of the portages, and finding himself too late to reach his destination +that night, seeing the glimmer of light from Steve's cabin, had rowed to +the island, landed, and, with the thoughtless freedom of the country, +walked in at the half-open door. + +He was fond of telling the story of his reception; and as he told it, it +had a suspicious sound, and no mistake. Steve was sitting in a big +arm-chair before his table; over the arm of the chair was flung the red +shawl. On the table lay an open book and the silver bangles in it, as if +some one had just thrown them off. At sound of entering footsteps Steve +sprang up, with an angry oath, and hastily closing the book threw it and +the bangles into the chair from which he had risen, then crowded the +shawl down upon them into as small a compass as possible. + +"His eyes blazed like lightnin', or sharper," said old Ben, "an' I +declare t' ye I was skeered. Fur a minut I thought he was a loonatic, +sure's death. But in a minut more he was all right, an' there couldn't +nobody treat a feller handsomer than he did me that night an' the next +mornin'; but I took notice that the fust thing he done was to heave a +big blanket kind o' careless like into the chair, an' cover the things +clean up; an' then in a little while he says, a-sweepin' the whole +bundle up in his arms, 'I'll just clear up this little mess, an' give ye +a comfortable chair to sit in;' an' he carried it all--blanket, book, +bracelets, shawl, an' all--into the next room, an' throwed 'em on the +floor in a pile in one corner. There wa'n't but them two rooms to the +cabin, so that wa'n't any place for her to be hid, if so be 's there was +any woman 'round; an' he said he was livin' alone, an' had been ever +since he come. An' it was nigh a year then since he come, so I never +know'd what to make on 't, an' I don't suppose there's anybody doos know +any more 'n I do; but if them wa'n't women's gear he had out there that +night I hain't never seen any women's gear, that's all! Whose'omeever +they was, I hain't no idea, nor how they got there; but they was women's +gear. Dandy's Steve is he couldn't ha' had any use for sech a shawl's +that, let alone sayin' what he'd wanted o' bracelets on his arms!" + +"That's so," was the universal ejaculation of Ben's audience when he +reached this point in his narrative, and there seemed to be little more +to be said on either side. This was all there was of the story. It must +stand in each man's mind for what it was worth, according to his +individual bias of interpretation. But it had become an old story long +before the time at which our later narrative of Dandy Steve's history +began; so old, in fact, that it had not been mentioned for years, until +the events now about to be chronicled revived it in the minds of Steve's +associates and fellow-guides. + +Before the end of Steve's first year in his wilderness retreat he had +become as conversant with every nook and corner of its labyrinthian +recesses as the oldest guides in the region. Not a portage, not a short +cut unfamiliar to him; not a narrow winding brook wide enough for a +canoe to float in that he did not know. He had spent all his days and +many of his nights in these solitary wanderings. Visitors to the region +grew wonted to the sight of the comely figure in the slight birch canoe, +shooting suddenly athwart their track, or found lying idly in some dark +and shaded stream-bed. On the approach of strangers he would instantly +away, lifting his hat courteously if there were ladies in the boats he +passed, otherwise taking no more note of the presence of human beings +than of that of the deer, or the wild fowl on the water. He was not a +handsome man, but there was a something in his face at which all looked +twice,--men as well as women. It was an unfathomable look,--partly of +pain, partly of antagonism. His eyes habitually sought the sky, yet they +did not seem to perceive what they gazed upon; it was as if they would +pierce beyond it. + +"What a strange face!" was a common ejaculation on the part of those +thus catching glimpses of his upturned countenance. More than once +efforts were made by hunters who encountered him to form his +acquaintance; but they were always courteously repelled. Finally he +came to be spoken of as the "hermit;" and it was with astonishment, +almost incredulity, that, in the spring of his third year in the +Adirondacks, he was found at "Paul Smith's" offering his services as +guide to a party of gentlemen who, their guide having fallen suddenly +ill, were in sore straits for some one to take them down again through +the lakes. + +Whether it was that he had grown suddenly weary of his isolation and +solitude, or whether need had driven him to this means of earning money, +no one knew, and he did not say. But once having entered on the life of +a guide, he threw himself into it as heartily as if it had been his +life-long avocation, and speedily became one of the best guides in the +region. It was observed, however, that whenever he could do so he +avoided taking parties in which there were ladies. Sometimes for a whole +season it would happen that he had not once been seen in charge of such +a party. Sometimes, when it was difficult, in fact impossible, for him +to assign any reason for refusing to go with parties containing members +of the obnoxious sex, he would at the last moment privately entreat some +other guide to take his place, and, voluntarily relinquishing all the +profits of the engagement, disappear and be lost for several days. +During these absences it was often said, "Steve's gone to see his wife," +or, "Off with that Indian wife o' his up North;" and these vague, idle, +gossiping conjectures slowly crystallized into a positive rumor which no +one could either trace or gainsay. + +And so the years went on,--one, two, three, four,--and Dandy Steve had +become one of the most popular and best-known guides in the Adirondack +country. His seeming effeminacy of attire had been long proved to mark +no effeminacy of nature, no lack of strength. There was not a better +shot, a stronger rower, on the list of summer guides; nor a better cook +and provider. Every party which went out under his care returned with +warm praise for Steve, with a friendly feeling also, which would in many +instances have warmed into familiar acquaintance if Steve would have +permitted it. But with all his cheerfulness and obliging good-will he +never lost a certain quantity of reserve. Even the men whose servant he +was for the time being were insensibly constrained to respect this, and +to keep the distance he, not they, determined. There remained always +something they could not, as the phrase was, "make out" about him. His +aversion to women was well known; so much so that it had come to be a +tacitly understood thing that parties of which women were members need +not waste their time trying to induce Dandy Steve to take them in +charge. + +But fate had not lost sight of Steve yet. He had had his period of +solitary independence, of apparent absolute control of his own +destinies. His seven years were up. If he had supposed that he was +serving them, like Jacob of old, for that best-beloved mistress, +Freedom, he was mistaken. The seven years were up. How little he dreamed +what the eighth would bring him! + +It was midsummer, and one of Steve's best patrons, Richard Cravath, of +Philadelphia, had not yet appeared. For three summers Mr. Cravath and +two or three of his friends had spent a month in the Adirondacks +hunting, fishing, camping under Steve's guidance. They were all rich +men, and generous, and, what was to Steve of far more worth than the +liberal pay, considerate of his feelings, tolerant of his reticence; not +a man of them but respected their queer, silent guide's individuality as +much as if he had been a man of their own sphere of life. Steve had +learned, by some unpleasant experience, that this delicate consideration +did not always obtain between employers and employed. It takes an +organization finer than the ordinary to perceive, and live up to the +perception, that the fact that you have hired a man for a certain sum of +money per month to cook your food or drive your horses gives you no +right to ask him in regard to his private, personal affairs prying +questions which you would not dare to put to common acquaintances in +society. + +As week after week went by and no news came from Mr. Cravath, Steve +found himself really saddened at the thought of not seeing him. He had +not realized how large a part of his summer's pleasure, as well as +profit, came from the month's sport with this Philadelphia party. +Wistfully he scrutinized the lists of arrivals at the different houses +day after day, for the familiar names; but they were not to be found. At +last, after he had given over looking for them, he was electrified, one +evening in September, by having his name called from the piazza of one +of the hotels,--"Steve, is that you? You're just the man I want; I was +afraid we were too late to get you!" + +It was Mr. Cravath, and with him the two friends whom Steve had liked +best of all who had been in Mr. Cravath's parties. It was the joy of the +sudden surprise which prevented Steve's giving his customary close +attention to Mr. Cravath's somewhat vague description of the party he +had brought this time. + +"You must arrange for eight, Steve," he said. "There may not be quite so +many. One or two of the fellows I hoped for have not arrived, and it is +too late to wait long for any one. If they are not here by day after +to-morrow we will start.--And oh, Steve," he continued, with an affected +careless ease, but all the while eying Steve's face anxiously, "I +forgot to mention that I have brought my wife along this time. She +positively refused to let me off. She said she was tired of hearing so +much about the Adirondacks! She was coming this time to see for herself. +You needn't have the least fear about having her along! She's as good a +traveller as I am, every bit; I've had her in training at it for thirty +years, and I tell her, old as we are, we are better campers than most of +the young people." + +"That's so, Mr. Cravath," replied Steve, his countenance clouded and his +voice less joyous, "I'll answer for it with you; but do you think, sir, +any lady could go where we went last year?" + +In his heart Steve was saying to himself: "The idea of bringing an old +woman out here! I wouldn't do it for anybody in the world but Mr. +Cravath." + +"My wife can go anywhere and do anything that I can, Steve," said Mr. +Cravath. "You need not begin to look blue, Steve; and if you back out, +or serve us any of your woman-hating tricks, such as I've heard of, I'll +never speak to you again,--never." + +"I wouldn't serve you any trick, Mr. Cravath, you know that," replied +Steve, proudly; "and I haven't the least idea of backing out. But I am +afraid Mrs. Cravath will be disappointed," he added, as he went down the +steps, and luckily did not turn his head to see Mr. Cravath's face +covered with the laughter he had been restraining during the last few +moments. + +"Caught him, by Jove!" he said, turning to his companion, a tall +dark-faced man,--"caught him, by Jove, Randall! He never once thought to +ask of what sex the other members of the party might be. He took it for +granted my wife was to be the only woman." + +"Do you think that was quite fair, Cravath?" replied Mr. Randall. "He +would never have taken us in the world if he had known there were three +women in the party." + +"Pshaw!" laughed Mr. Cravath. "Good enough for him for having such a +crotchet in his head. We'll take it out of him this trip." + +"Or set it stronger than ever," said Mr. Randall. "My mind misgives me. +We shall wish we had not done it. He may turn sulky and unmanageable on +our hands when he finds himself trapped." + +"I'll risk it," said Mr. Cravath, confidently. "If I can't bring him +around, Helen Wingate will. I never saw the man, woman, child, or dumb +beast yet that could resist her." + +Mr. Randall sighed. "Poor child!" he said. "Isn't her gayety something +wonderful? One would not think to look at her that she had ever had an +hour's sorrow; but my wife tells me that she cannot speak of that +husband of hers yet without the most passionate weeping!" + +"I know it! It's a shame," replied Mr. Cravath, "to see a glorious woman +like that throwing her life away on a memory. I did have a hope at one +time that she would marry again; but I've given it up. If she would have +married any one, it would have been George Walton last winter. No one +has ever come so near her as he did; but she sent him off at last, like +all the rest." + +The "two fellows" on whom Mr. Cravath was counting to make up his party +of eight did not appear; and on the second morning after the above +conversations Steve received orders to have his boats in readiness at +ten o'clock to start with the Cravath party, only six in number. + +Old Ben was on the wharf as Steve was making his final arrangements. + +"Wall, Steve," he said, shifting his quid of tobacco in a leisurely +manner from one side of his mouth to the other, "you've got a soft thing +again. You're a damned lucky fellow, Steve; dunno whether you know it or +not." + +"No, I don't know it," replied Steve, curtly; "and what's more, I don't +believe in luck." + +"Don't yer?" said Ben, reflectively. "Wall, I do; an' Lord knows 't +ain't because I've seen so much of it. Say, Steve," he added, "how'd ye +come to take on such a lot o' women folks, this trip?" + +"Lot o' women folks! what d' ye mean?" shouted Steve. "There's no +womenkind going except one,--Mr. Cravath's wife; and I wish to thunder +he'd left her behind." + +"Oh, is that all?" said Ben, half innocently, half mischievously,--he +was not quite sure of his ground; "be the rest on 'em goin' to stay +here? There's three women in the party. Mr. Randall he's got his wife, +and there's a widder along, too; mighty fine-lookin' she is; aren't +nothin' old about her, I can tell yer!" + +A flash shot from Steve's eyes. A half-smothered ejaculation came from +his lips as he turned fiercely towards Ben. + +"There they be, now, all a-comin' down the steps," continued Ben, +chuckling. "I reckon ye got took in for onst; but it's too late now." + +"Yes," thought Steve, angrily, as he looked at the smiling party coming +towards the landing,--three men and three women. + +"It's too late now. If it had been a half-hour sooner 'twould have been +early enough. But it's the last time I'm caught in any such way. What a +blamed fool I was not to ask who they were! Never thought of the Cravath +set lumbering themselves up with women!" And a very unpromising +sternness settled down on Steve's expressive features as he stooped down +to readjust some of the smaller packages in the boat. + +Meantime the members of the approaching party were not wholly at ease +in their minds. Mr. Cravath had confessed his suppression of the truth, +and Mr. Randall's evident misgiving as to the success of the experiment +had proved contagious. "If he's as queer as you say," murmured Mrs. +Cravath, "he can make it awfully disagreeable for us. I am almost afraid +to go." + +"Nonsense!" cried Helen Wingate, merrily. "I'll take that out of him +before night. Who ever heard of a man's really disliking women! It is +only some particular woman he's disliked. He won't dislike us! He +sha'n't dislike me! I'm going to take him by storm! Let me run ahead and +jump in first." And she danced on in advance of the rest. + +"Wait, Mrs. Wingate!" cried Mr. Cravath, hurrying after her. "Let me +come with you." + +But he was too late; she ran on, and as she reached the shore, sprang +lightly on the plank, calling out: "Oh, there are all our things in +already! Guide, guide, please give me your hand, quick! I want to be the +first one in the boat." + +Steve rose slowly,--turned. At the first glimpse of his face Helen +Wingate uttered a shriek which rang in the air, and fell backwards on +the sand insensible. + +"Good God! she lost her footing!" exclaimed Mr. Cravath. + +"She is killed!" cried the others, as they hurried breathlessly to the +spot. But when they reached it, there knelt Dandy Steve on the ground by +her side, his face whiter than hers, his eyes streaming with tears, his +arms around her, calling, "Helen! Helen!" + +At the sound of footsteps and voices he looked up, and, instantly +seeking Mr. Cravath's face, gasped: "She is my wife, Mr. Cravath!" + +The dumbness of unutterable astonishment fell on the whole party at +these words; but in another second, rallying from the shock; they knelt +around the seemingly lifeless woman, trying to arouse her. Presently she +opened her eyes, and, seeing Mrs. Randall's face bending above her, said +faintly: "It's Stephen! I always knew I should find him somewhere." Then +she sank away again into unconsciousness. + +The party for the lakes must be postponed; that was evident. Neither +would it go out under the guidance of Dandy Steve, nor would Mrs. +Wingate go with it; those two things were equally evident. + +Which facts, revolving slowly in Old Ben's brain, led him to seat +himself on the shore and abide the course of events. When, about noon, +Mr. Cravath appeared, coming to look after their hastily abandoned +effects, Old Ben touched his hat civilly, and said: "Good-day, sir; I +thought maybe I'd get this job o' guidin' now. Leastways, I'd stay by +yer truck here till somebody come to look it up." + +Old Ben was the guide of all others Mr. Cravath would have chosen, next +to Dandy Steve. + +"By Jove, Ben," he said, "this is luck! Can you go off with us at once? +Steve has got other business on hand. That lady is his wife, from whom +he has been separated many years." + +"So I heerd him say, sir, when he was a-pickin' her up," answered Ben, +composedly, as if such things were a daily occurrence in the +Adirondacks. + +"Can you go with us at once?" continued Mr. Cravath. + +"In an hour, sir," said Ben. + +And in an hour they were off, a bewildered but on the whole a relieved +and happier party than they had been in the morning. Helen Wingate's +long sorrow in the mysterious disappearance of her husband had ennobled +and purified her character, and greatly endeared her to her friends; but +that which had seemed to them to be explainable only by the fact of his +death or his unworthiness she knew was explainable by her own folly and +pride. + +The end of the story is best told in Old Ben's words. He was never tired +of telling it. + +"I never heered exactly the hull partikelers," he said, "for they'd gone +long before we got back, and the folks she was with wa'n't the kind that +talks much; but I could see they set a store by her. They'd always liked +Steve, too, up here's a guide. They niver know'd him while he was +a-livin' with her, else they'd ha' know'd him here; but he hadn't lived +with her but a mighty little while's near's I could make out. Yer see, +she was powerful rich, an' he hadn't but little; 'n' for all she was so +much in love with him, she couldn't help a-throwin' it up to him, sort +o', an' he couldn't stan' it. So he jest lit out; an' he'd never ha' +gone back to her,--never under the shining sun. He'd got jest that grit +in him. She'd been a-huntin' everywhere, they said,--all over Europe, +'n' Azhay, 'n' Africa, till she'd given up huntin'; an' he was right +close tu hum all the time. He was a first-rate feller, 'n' we was all +glad when his luck come ter him 't last. I wished I could ha' seen him +to 've asked him if he didn't b'leeve in luck now! Me 'n' him was +talkin' about luck that very mornin' while she was a-steppin' down the +landin' towards him's fast 's ever she could go! My eyes! how that woman +did come a runnin', an' a-callin', 'Guide! guide!' I sha'n't never +forgit it. I asked some o' the fellers how she looked when they went +off, an' they said her eyes was shinin' like stars; but there wasn't any +more of her face to be seen, for she was rolled up in a big red shawl, +It gits hoppin' cold here in September. I've always thought't was that +same red shawl he had in his cabin; but I dunno's 'twas." + +"Wall, I bet they had a fust-rate time on that weddin' journey o' +theirn," said one of Ben's rougher cronies one day at the end of the +narrative; "'t ain't every feller gets the chance o' two honeymoons with +the same woman." + +Old Ben looked at him attentively. "Youngster," said he, "'t ain't +strange, I suppose, young's you be, th't ye should look at it that way; +but ye're off, crony. Ye don't seem ter recolleck 'bout all them years +they'd lost out of their lives. I tell ye, it's kind o' harrowin' ter +me. Old's I am, and hain't never felt no call ter be married nuther, +it's kind o' harrowin' ter me yit ter think o' that woman's yell she +giv' when she seed Steve's face. If thar warn't jest a hull lifetime o' +misery in't, 'sides the joy o' findin' him, I ain't no jedge. I haven't +never felt no call ter marry, 's I sed; but if I had I wouldn't ha' been +caught cuttin' up no sech didos's that,--a-throwin' away years o' time +they might ha' hed together 'z well's not! Ther' ain't any too much o' +this life, anyhow; 't kinder looks ter you youngsters's ef 't 'd last +forever. I know how 'tis. I hain't forgot nothin', old's I am. But I +tell you, when ye're old's I am, 'n' look back on 't, ye'll be s'prised +ter see how short 'tis, an' ye'll reelize more what a fool a man is, or +a woman too,--an' I do s'pose they're the foolishest o' ther two,--ter +waste a minnit out on 't on querrils, or any other kind o' foolin'." + + + + +The Prince's Little Sweetheart. + + + +She was very young. No man had ever made love to her before. She +belonged to the people,--the common people. Her parents were poor, and +could not buy any wedding trousseau for her. But that did not make any +difference. A carriage was sent from the Court for her, and she was +carried away "just as she was," in her stuff gown,--the gown the Prince +first saw her in. He liked her best in that, he said; and, moreover, +what odds did it make about clothes? Were there not rooms upon rooms in +the palace, full of the most superb clothes for Princes' Sweethearts? + +It was into one of these rooms that she was taken first. On all sides of +it were high glass cases reaching up to the ceiling, and filled with +gowns and mantles and laces and jewels; everything a woman could wear +was there, and all of the very finest. What satins, what velvets, what +feathers and flowers! Even down to shoes and stockings,--every shade and +color of stockings of the daintiest silk. The Little Sweetheart gazed +breathless at them all. But she did not have time to wonder, for in a +moment more she was met by attendants, some young, some old, all dressed +gayly. She did not dream at first that they were servants, till they +began, all together, asking her what she would like to put on. Would she +have a lace gown, or a satin? Would she like feathers or flowers? And +one ran this way, and one that; and among them all, the Little +Sweetheart was so flustered she did not know if she were really alive +and on the earth, or had been transported to some fairy land. And before +she fairly realized what was being done, they had her clad in the most +beautiful gown that was ever seen,--white satin with gold butterflies on +it, and a white lace mantle embroidered in gold butterflies. All white +and gold she was, from top to toe, all but one foot; and there was +something very odd about that. She heard one of the women whispering to +the other, behind her back: "It is too bad there isn't any mate to this +slipper! Well, she will have to wear this pink one. It is too big; but +if we pin it up at the heel she can keep it on. The Prince really must +get some more slippers." + +And then they put on her left foot a pink satin slipper, which was so +much too big it had to be pinned up in plaits at each side, and the +pearl buckle on the top hid her foot quite out of sight. But the Little +Sweetheart did not care. In fact, she had no time to think, for the +Queen came sailing in and spoke to her, and crowds of ladies in dresses +so bright and beautiful that they dazzled her eyes; and the Prince was +there kissing her, and in a minute they were married, and went floating +off in a dance, which was so swift it did not feel so much like dancing +as it did like being carried through the air by a gentle wind. + +Through room after room,--there seemed no end to the rooms, and each one +more beautiful than the last,--from garden to garden,--some full of +trees, some with beautiful lakes in them, some full of solid beds of +flowers,--they went, sometimes dancing, sometimes walking, sometimes, it +seemed to the Little Sweetheart, floating. Every hour there was some new +beautiful thing to see, some new beautiful thing to do. And the Prince +never left her for more than a few minutes; and when he came back he +brought her gifts and kissed her. Gifts upon gifts he kept bringing, +till the Little Sweetheart's hands were so full she had to lay the +things down on tables or window-sills, wherever she could find place for +them,--which was not easy, for all the rooms were so full of beautiful +things that it was difficult to move about without knocking something +down. + +The hours flew by like minutes. The sun came up high in the heavens, but +nobody seemed tired; nobody stopped,--dance, dance, whirl, whirl, song +and laughter and ceaseless motion. That was all that was to be seen or +heard in this wonderful Court to which the Little Sweetheart had been +brought. + +Noon came, but nothing stopped. Nobody left off dancing, and the +musicians played faster than ever. + +And so it was all the long afternoon and through the twilight; and as +soon as it was really dark, all the rooms and the gardens and the lakes +blazed out with millions of lamps, till it was lighter far than day; and +the ladies' dresses, as they danced back and forth, shone and sparkled +like butterflies' wings. + +At last the lamps began, one by one, to go out, and by degrees a soft +sort of light, like moonlight, settled down on the whole place; and the +fine-dressed servants that had robed the Little Sweetheart in her white +satin gown took it off, and put her to bed in a gold bedstead, with +golden silk sheets. + +"Oh," thought the Little Sweetheart, "I shall never go to sleep in the +world, and I'm sure I don't want to! I shall just keep my eyes open all +night, and see what happens next." + +All the beautiful clothes she had taken off were laid on a sofa near the +bed,--the white satin dress at top, and the big pink satin slipper, with +its huge pearl buckle, on the floor in plain sight. "Where is the +other?" thought the Little Sweetheart. "I do believe I lost it off. +That's the way they come to have so many odd ones. But how queer! I lost +off the tight one! But the big one was pinned to my foot," she said, +speaking out loud before she thought; "that was what kept it on." + +"You are talking in your sleep, my love," said the Prince, who was close +by her side, kissing her. + +"Indeed, I am not asleep at all! I haven't shut my eyes," said the +Little Sweetheart. + +And the next thing she knew it was broad daylight, the sun streaming +into her room, and the air resounding in all directions with music and +laughter, and flying steps of dancers, just as it had been yesterday. + +The Little Sweetheart sat up in bed and looked around her. She thought +it very strange that she was all alone! the Prince gone,--no one there +to attend to her. In a few moments more she noticed that all her clothes +were gone, too. + +"Oh," she thought, "I suppose one never wears the same clothes twice in +this Court, and they will bring me others! I hope there will be two +slippers alike, to-day." + +Presently she began to grow impatient; but, being a timid little +creature, and having never before seen the inside of a Court or been a +Prince's sweetheart, she did not venture to stir, or to make any +sound,--only sat still in her bed, waiting to see what would happen. At +last she could not bear the sounds of the dancing and laughing and +playing and singing any longer. So she jumped up, and, rolling one of +the golden silk sheets around her, looked out of the window. There they +all were, the crowds of gay people, just as they had been the day before +when she was among them, whirling, dancing, laughing, singing. The tears +came into the Little Sweetheart's eyes as she gazed. What could it mean +that she was deserted in this way,--not even her clothes left for her? +She was as much a prisoner in her room as if the door had been locked. + +As hour after hour passed, a new misery began to oppress her. She was +hungry,--seriously, distressingly hungry. She had been too happy to eat +the day before! Though she had sipped and tasted many delicious +beverages and viands, which the Prince had pressed upon her, she had not +taken any substantial food, and now she began to feel faint for the +want of it. As noon drew near,--the time at which she was accustomed in +her father's house to eat dinner,--the pangs of her hunger grew +unbearable. + +"I can't bear it another minute," she said to herself. "I must, and I +will, have something to eat! I will slip down by some back way to the +kitchen. There must be a kitchen, I suppose." + +So saying, she opened one of the doors, and timidly peered into the next +room. It chanced to be the room with the great glass cases, full of fine +gowns and laces, where she had been dressed by the obsequious attendants +on the previous day. No one was in the room. Glancing fearfully in all +directions, she rolled the golden silk sheet tightly around her, and +flew, rather than ran, across the floor, and took hold of the handle of +one of the glass doors. Alas! it was locked. She tried another,--another; +all were locked. In despair she turned to fly back to her bedroom, when +suddenly she spied on the floor, in a corner close by the case where hung +her beautiful white satin dress, a little heap of what looked like brown +rags. She darted toward it, snatched it from the floor, and in a second +more was safe back in her room; it was her own old stuff gown. + +"What luck!" said the Little Sweetheart; "nobody will ever know me in +this. I'll put it on, and creep down the back stairs, and beg a mouthful +of food from some of the servants, and they'll never know who I am; and +then I'll go back to bed, and stay there till the Prince comes to fetch +me. Of course, he will come before long; and if he comes and finds me +gone, I hope he will be frightened half to death, and think I have been +carried off by robbers!" + +Poor foolish Little Sweetheart! It did not take her many seconds to slip +into the ragged old stuff gown; then she crept out, keeping close to the +walls, so that she could hide behind the furniture if any one saw her. + +She listened cautiously at each door before she opened it, and turned +away from some where she heard sounds of merry talking and laughing. In +the third room that she entered she saw a sight that arrested her +instantly and made her cry out in astonishment,--a girl who looked so +much like her that she might have been her own sister, and, what was +stranger, wore a brown stuff gown exactly like her own, was busily at +work in this room with a big broom killing spiders! As the Little +Sweetheart appeared in the doorway, this girl looked up, and said: "Oh, +ho! there you are, are you? I thought you'd be out before long." And +then she laughed unpleasantly. + +"Who are you?" said the Little Sweetheart, beginning to tremble all +over. + +"Oh, I'm a Prince's Sweetheart!" said the girl, laughing still more +unpleasantly; and, leaning on her broom, she stared at the Little +Sweetheart from top to toe. + +"But--" began the Little Sweetheart. + +"Oh, we're all Princes' Sweethearts!" interrupted several voices, coming +all at once from different corners of the big room; and, before the +Little Sweetheart could get out another word, she found herself +surrounded by half a dozen or more girls and women, all carrying brooms, +and all laughing unpleasantly as they looked at her. + +"What!" she gasped, as she gazed at their stuff gowns and their brooms. +"You were all of you Princes' Sweethearts? Is it only for one day, +then?" + +"Only for one day," they all replied. + +"And always after that do you have to kill spiders?" she cried. + +"Yes; that or nothing," they said. "You see it is a great deal of work +to keep all the rooms in this Court clean." + +"Isn't it very dull work to kill spiders?" said the Little Sweetheart. + +"Yes, very," they said, all speaking at once. "But it's better than +sitting still, doing nothing." + +"Don't the Princes ever speak to you?" sobbed the Little Sweetheart. + +"Yes, sometimes," they answered. + +Just then the Little Sweetheart's own Prince came hurrying by, all in +armor from head to foot,--splendid shining armor, that clinked as he +walked. + +"Oh, there he is!" cried the Little Sweetheart, springing forward; then +suddenly she recollected her stuff gown, and shrunk back into the group. +But the Prince had seen her. + +"Oh, how d' do!" he said kindly. "I was wondering what had become of +you. Good-bye! I'm off for the grand review to-day. Don't tire yourself +out over the spiders. Good-bye!" And he was gone. + +"I hate him!" cried the Little Sweetheart, her eyes flashing, and her +cheeks scarlet. + +"Oh no, you don't!" exclaimed all the spider-sweepers. "That's the worst +of it. You may think you do; but you don't. You love him all the time +after you've once begun." + +"I'll go home!" said the Little Sweetheart. + +"You can't," said the others. "It is not permitted." + +"Is it always just like this in this Court?" she asked. + +"Yes; always the same. One day just like another,--all whirl and dance +from morning till night, and new people coming and going all the time, +and spiders most of all. You can't think how fast brooms wear out in +this Court!" + +"I'll die!" said the Little Sweetheart. + +"Oh no, you won't!" they said. "There are some of us, in some of the +rooms here, that are wrinkled and gray-haired. The most of the +Sweethearts live to be old." + +"Do they?" said the Little Sweetheart, and burst into tears. + +"Heavens!" cried I, "what a dream!" as I opened my eyes. There stood the +Little Sweetheart in my room, vanishing away, so vivid had been the +dream. "A most extraordinary dream!" said I. "I will write it out. Some +of the Princes may read it!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN WHILES*** + + +******* This file should be named 10756-8.txt or 10756-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/5/10756 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10756-8.zip b/old/10756-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..59c915a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10756-8.zip diff --git a/old/10756-h.zip b/old/10756-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ee408f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10756-h.zip diff --git a/old/10756-h/10756-h.htm b/old/10756-h/10756-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2458e16 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10756-h/10756-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6416 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Between Whiles, by Helen Hunt Jackson</title> +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + + body { + margin .5em; + font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; + } + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + font-variant: small-caps + } + + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps } + + ul { + list-style-type: none; + } + + div.epi { + width: 40%; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Between Whiles, by Helen Hunt Jackson</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a> + +Title: Between Whiles + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: January 20, 2004 [eBook #10756] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN WHILES*** + + +</pre> + +<center> +<font face="Times New Roman"> +<b>E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</b> +</font> +</center> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> + +<h1 class="title">Between Whiles.</h1> + +<p align="center" class="smallcaps">by</p> + +<h2 class="author">Helen Jackson (H. H.)</h2> + + + +<h3>Author of<br /> "Ramona," "A Century of Dishonor," "Verses," "Sonnets and +Lyrics,"<br /> "Glimpses of Three Coasts," "Bits of Travel," "Bits of Travel +at Home,"<br /> "Zeph," "Mercy Philbrick's Choice," "Hetty's Strange History," +<br />"Bits of Talk about Home Matters," "Bits of Talk for Young Folks,"<br /> +"Nelly's Silver Mine," "Cat Stories."</h3> + + +<h4>1888</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="chapter" id="contents"> +<h2>Contents.</h2> + +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch01">The Inn of the Golden Pear</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch02">The Mystery of Wilhelm Rütter</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch03">Little Bel's Supplement</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch04">The Captain of the "Heather Bell"</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch05">Dandy Steve</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch06">The Prince's Little Sweetheart</a></li> +</ul> +</div> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1 class="title">Between Whiles.</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch01"> +<h2>The Inn of the Golden Pear.</h2> +<div class="section" id="sec1-1"> +<h3>I.</h3> + + +<div class="epi"><p>Who buys? Who buys? 'Tis like a market-fair;<br /> + The hubbub rises deafening on the air:<br /> + The children spend their honest money there;<br /> + The knaves prowl out like foxes from a lair.</p> + + <p>Who buys? Who sells? Alas, and still alas!<br /> + The children sell their diamond stones for glass;<br /> + The knaves their worthless stones for diamonds pass.<br /> + He laughs who buys; he laughs who sells. Alas!</p></div> + + +<p>In the days when New England was only a group of thinly settled +wildernesses called "provinces," there was something almost like the old +feudal tenure of lands there, and a relation between the rich land-owner +and his tenants which had many features in common with those of the +relation between margraves and vassals in the days of Charlemagne.</p> + +<p>Far up in the North, near the Canada line, there lived at that time an +eccentric old man, whose name is still to be found here and there on the +tattered parchments, written "WILLAN BLAYCKE, Gentleman."</p> + +<p>Tradition occupies itself a good deal with Willan Blaycke, and does not +give his misdemeanors the go-by as it might have done if he had been +either a poorer or a less clever man. Why he had crossed the seas and +cast in his lot with the pious Puritans, nobody knew; it was certainly +not because of sympathy with their God-reverencing faith and God-fearing +lives, nor from any liking for hardships or simplicity of habits. He had +gold enough, the stories say, to have bought all the land from the St. +Johns to the Connecticut if he had pleased; and he had servants and +horses and attire such as no governor in all the provinces could boast. +He built himself a fine house out of stone, and the life he led in it +was a scandal and a byword everywhere. For all that, there was not a man +to be found who had not a good word to say for Willan Blaycke, and not a +woman who did not look pleased and smile if he so much as spoke to her. +He was generous, with a generosity so princely that there were many who +said that he had no doubt come of some royal house. He gave away a farm +to-day, and another to-morrow, and thought nothing of it; and when +tenants came to him pleading that they were unable to pay their rent, he +was never known to haggle or insist.</p> + +<p>Naturally, with such ways as these he made havoc of his estates, vast as +they were, and grew less and less rich year by year. However, there was +enough of his land to last several generations out; and if he had +married a decent woman for his wife, his posterity need never have +complained of him. But this was what Willan Blaycke did,--and it is as +much a mystery now as it doubtless was then, why he did it,--he married +Jeanne Dubois, the daughter of a low-bred and evil-disposed Frenchman +who kept a small inn on the Canadian frontier. Jeanne had a handsome but +wicked face. She stood always at the bar, and served every man who came; +and a great thing it was for the house, to be sure, that she had such +bold black eyes, red cheeks, and a tongue even bolder than her glances. +But there was not a farmer in all the north provinces who would have +taken her to wife, not one, for she bore none too good a name; and men's +speech about her, as soon as they had turned their backs and gone on +their journeys, was quite opposite to the gallant and flattering things +they said to her face in the bar. Some people said that Willan Blaycke +was drunk when he married Jeanne, that she took him unawares by means of +a base plot which her father and she had had in mind a long time. Others +said that he was sober enough when he did it, only that he was like one +out of his mind,--he sorrowed so for the loss of his only son, Willan, +whom he had in the beginning of that year sent back to England to be +taught in school.</p> + +<p>He had brought the child out with him,--a little chap, with marvellously +black eyes and yellow curls, who wore always the costliest of +embroidered coats, which it was plain some woman's hand had embroidered +for him; but whether the child's mother were dead or alive Willan +Blaycke never told, and nobody dared ask.</p> + +<p>That the boy needed a mother sadly enough was only too plain. Riding +from county to county on his little white pony by his father's side, +sitting up late at roystering feasts till he nodded in his chair, seeing +all that rough men saw, and hearing all that rough men said, the child +was in a fair way to be ruined outright; and so Willan Blaycke at last +came to see, and one day, in a fit of unwonted conscientiousness and +wisdom, he packed the poor sobbing little fellow off to England in +charge of a trusty escort, and sternly made up his mind that the lad +should not return till he was a man grown. It was only a few months +after this that Jeanne Dubois became Mistress Willan Blaycke; so it +seemed not improbable that the bereaved father's loneliness had had much +to do with that extraordinary step.</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, whether he were drunk or sober when he married her, +he treated her as a gentleman should treat his wife, and did his best to +make her a lady. She was always clad in a rich fashion; and a fine show +she made in her scarlet petticoat and white hat with a streaming scarlet +feather in it, riding high on her pillion behind Willan Blaycke on his +great black horse, or sitting up straight and stiff in the swinging +coach with gold on the panels, which he had bought for her in Boston at +a sale of the effects of one of the disgraced and removed governors of +the province of Massachusetts. If there had been any roads to speak of +in those days, Jeanne Dubois would have driven from one end to the other +of the land in her fine coach, so proud was she of its splendor; but +even pride could not heal the bruises she got in jolting about in it, +nor the terror she felt of being overturned. So she gradually left off +using it, and consoled herself by keeping it standing in all good +weather in full sight from the highway, that everybody might know she +had it.</p> + +<p>It was a sore trial to Jeanne that she had no children,--a sore trial +also to her wicked old father, who had plotted that the great Blaycke +estates should go down in the hands of his descendants. Not so Willan +Blaycke. It was undoubtedly a consolation to him in his last days to +think that his son Willan would succeed to everything, and the Dubois +blood remain still in its own muddy channel. It is evident that before +he died he had come to think coldly of his wife; for his mention of her +in his will was of the curtest, and his provision for her during her +lifetime, though amply sufficient for her real needs, not at all in +keeping with the style in which she had dwelt with him.</p> + +<p>The exiled Willan had returned to America a year before his father's +death. He was a quiet, well-educated, rather scholarly young man. It +would be foolish to deny that his filial sentiment had grown cool during +the long years of his absence, and that it received some violent shocks +on his return to his father's house. But he was full of ambition, and +soon saw the opening which lay before him for distinction and wealth as +the ultimate owner of the Blaycke estates. To this end he bent all his +energies. He had had in England a good legal education; he was a clear +thinker and a ready speaker, and speedily made himself so well known and +well thought of, that when his father died there were many who said it +was well the old man had been taken away in time to leave the young +Willan a property worthy of his talents and industry.</p> + +<p>Willan had lived in his father's house more as a guest than as a son. To +the woman who was his father's wife, and sat at the head of his father's +table, he bore himself with a distant courtesy, which was far more +irritating to her coarse nature than open antagonism would have been. +But Jeanne Dubois was clever woman enough to comprehend her own +inferiority to both father and son, and to avoid collisions with either. +She had won what she had played for, and on the whole she had not been +disappointed. As she had never loved her husband, she cared little that +he did not love her; and as for the upstart of a boy with his fine airs, +well, she would bide her time for that, Jeanne thought,--for it had +never crossed Jeanne's mind that when her husband died she would not be +still the mistress of the fine stone house and the gilt panelled coach, +and have more money than she knew what to do with. Many malicious +reveries she had indulged in as to how, when that time came, she would +"send the fellow packing," "he shouldn't stay in her house a day." So, +when it came to pass that the cards were turned, and it was Willan who +said to her, on the morning after his father's funeral, "What are your +plans, Madame?" Jeanne was for a few seconds literally dumb with anger +and astonishment.</p> + +<p>Then she poured out all the pent-up hatred of her vulgar soul. It was a +horrible scene. Willan conducted himself throughout the interview with +perfect calmness; the same impassable distance which had always been so +exasperating to Jeanne was doubly so now. He treated her as if she were +merely some dependant of the house, for whom he, as the executor of the +will, was about to provide according to instructions.</p> + +<p>"If I can't live in my own house," cried the angry woman, "I'll go back +to my father and tend bar again; and how'll you like that?"</p> + +<p>"It is purely immaterial to me, Madame," replied Willan, "where you +live. I merely wish to know your address, that I may forward to you the +quarterly payments of your annuity. I should think it probable," he +added with an irony which was not thrown away on Jeanne, "that you +would be happier among your own relations and in the occupations to +which you were accustomed in your youth."</p> + +<p>Jeanne was not deficient in spirit. As soon as she had ascertained +beyond a doubt that all that Willan had told her was true, and that +there was no possibility of her ever getting from the estate anything +except her annuity, she packed up all her possessions and left the +house. No fine instinct had restrained her from laying, hands on +everything to which she could be said to have a shadow of +claim,--indeed, on many things to which she had not,--and even Willan +himself, who had been prepared for her probable greed, was surprised +when on returning to the house late one evening he found the piazza +piled high from one end to the other with her boxes. Jeanne stood by +with a defiant air, superintending the cording of the last one. She +anticipated some remonstrance or inquiry from Willan, and was half +disappointed when he passed by, giving no sign of having observed the +boxes at all, and simply lifting his hat to her with his usual +formality. The next morning, instead of the public vehicle which Jeanne +had engaged to call for her, her own coach and the gray horses she had +best liked were driven to the door. This unexpected tribute from Willan +almost disarmed her for the moment. It was her coach almost more than +her house which she had grieved to lose.</p> + +<p>"Well, really, Mr. Willan," she exclaimed, "I never once thought of +taking that, though there's no doubt about its being my own, and your +father'd tell you so if he was here; and the horses too. He always said +the grays were mine from the day he bought them. But I'm much obliged to +you, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"You have no occasion to thank me, Madame," replied Willan, standing on +the threshold of the house, pale with excitement at the prospect of +immediate freedom from the presence of the coarse creature. "The coach +is your own, and the horses; and if they had not been, I should not have +permitted them to remain here."</p> + +<p>"Oh ho!" sneered Jeanne, all her antagonism kindled afresh at this last +gratuitous fling. "You needn't think you can get rid of everything +that'll remind you of me, young man. You'll see me oftener than you +like, at the Golden Pear. You'll have to stop there, as your father did +before you." And Jeanne's black eyes snapped viciously as she drove off, +her piles of boxes following slowly in two wagon-loads behind.</p> + +<p>Willan was right in one thing. After the first mortification of +returning to her father's house, a widow, disgraced by being pensioned +off from her old home, had worn away, Jeanne was happier than she had +ever been in her life. Her annuity, which was small for Mistress Willan +Blaycke, was large for Jeanne, daughter of the landlord of the Golden +Pear; and into that position she sank back at once,--so contentedly, +too, that her father was continually reproaching her with a great lack +of spirit. It was a sad come-down from his old air-castles for her and +for himself,--he still the landlord of a shabby little inn, and Jeanne, +stout and middle-aged, sitting again behind the bar as she had done +fifteen years before. It was pretty hard. So long as he knew that Jeanne +was living in her fine house as Mistress Blaycke he had been content, +in spite of Willan Blaycke's having sternly forbidden him ever to show +his face there. But this last downfall was too much. Victor Dubois +ground his teeth and swore many oaths over it. But no swearing could +alter things; and after a while Victor himself began to take comfort in +having Jeanne back again. "And not a bit spoiled," as he would say to +his cronies, "by all the fine ways, to which she had never taken; thanks +to God, Jeanne was as good a girl yet as ever."--"And as handsome too," +the politic cronies would add.</p> + +<p>The Golden Pear was a much more attractive place since Jeanne had come +back. She was a good housekeeper, and she had learned much in Willan +Blaycke's house. Moreover, she was a generous creature, and did not in +the least mind spending a few dollars here and there to make things +tidier and more comfortable.</p> + +<p>A few weeks after Jeanne's return to the inn there appeared in the +family a new and by no means insignificant member. This was the young +Victorine Dubois, who was a daughter, they said, of Victor Dubois's son +Jean, the twin brother of Jeanne. He had gone to Montreal many years +ago, and had been moderately prosperous there as a wine-seller in a +small way. He had been dead now for two years, and his widow, being +about to marry again, was anxious to get the young Victorine off her +hands. So the story ran, and on the surface it looked probable enough. +But Montreal was not a great way off from the parish of St. Urbans, in +which stood Victor Dubois's inn; there were men coming and going often +who knew the city, and who looked puzzled when it was said in their +hearing that Victorine was the eldest child of Jean Dubois the +wine-seller. She had been kept at a convent all these years, old Victor +said, her father being determined that at least one of his children +should be well educated.</p> + +<p>Nobody could gainsay this, and Mademoiselle Victorine certainly had the +air of having been much better trained and taught than most girls in her +station. But somehow, nobody quite knew why, the tale of her being Jean +Dubois's daughter was not believed. Suspicions and at last rumors were +afloat that she was an illegitimate child of Jeanne's, born a few years +before her marriage to Willan Blaycke.</p> + +<p>Nothing easier, everybody knew, than for Mistress Willan Blaycke to +have supported half a dozen illegitimate children, if she had had them, +on the money her husband gave her so lavishly; and there was old Victor, +as ready and unscrupulous a go-between as ever an unscrupulous woman +needed. These rumors gained all the easier credence because Victorine +bore so striking a resemblance to her "Aunt Jeanne." On the other hand, +this ought not to have been taken as proof any more one way than the +other; for there were plenty of people who recollected very well that in +the days when little Jean and Jeanne toddled about together as children, +nobody but their mother could tell them apart, except by their clothes. +So the winds of gossiping breaths blew both ways at once in the matter, +and it was much discussed for a time. But like all scandals, as soon as +it became an old story nobody cared whether it were false or true; and +before Victorine had been a year at the Golden Pear, the question of her +relationship there was rarely raised.</p> + +<p>One thing was certain, that no mother could have been fonder or more +devoted to a child than Jeanne was to her niece; and everybody said +so,--some more civilly, some maliciously. Her pride in the girl's beauty +was touching to see. She seemed to have forgotten that she was ever a +beauty herself; and she had no need to do this, for Jeanne was not yet +forty, and many men found her piquant and pleasing still. But all her +vanity seemed now to be transferred to Victorine. It was Victorine who +was to have all the fine gowns and ornaments; Victorine who must go to +the dances and fêtes in costumes which were the wonder and the envy of +all the girls in the region; Victorine who was to have everything made +easy and comfortable for her in the house; and above all,--and here the +mother betrayed herself, for mother she was; the truth may as well be +told early as late in our story,--most of all, it was Victorine who was +to be kept away from the bar, and to be spared all contact with the +rough roysterers who frequented the Golden Pear.</p> + +<p>Very ingenious were Jeanne's excuses for these restrictions on her +niece's liberty. Still more ingenious her explanations of the occasional +exceptions she made now and then in favor of some well-to-do young +farmer of the neighborhood, or some traveller in whom her alert maternal +eye detected a possible suitor for Victorine's hand. Victorine herself +was not so fastidious. She was young, handsome, overflowing with +vitality, and with no more conscience or delicacy than her mother had +had before her. If the whole truth had been known concerning the last +four years of her life in the convent, it would have considerably +astonished those good Catholics, if any such there be, who still believe +that convents are sacred retreats filled with the chaste and the devout. +Victorine Dubois at the age of eighteen, when her grandfather took her +home to his house, was as well versed a young woman in the ways and the +wiles of love-making as if she had been free to come and go all her +life. And that this knowledge had been gained surreptitiously, in stolen +moments and brief experiences at the expense of the whole of her +reverence for religion, the whole of her faith in men's purity, was not +poor Victorine's fault, only her misfortune; but the result was no less +disastrous to her morals. She went out of the convent as complete a +little hypocrite as ever told beads and repeated prayers. Only a +certain sort of infantile superstitiousness of nature remained in her, +and made her cling to the forms, in which, though she knew they did not +mean what they pretended, she suspected there might be some sort of +mechanical efficacy at last; like the partly undeceived disciple and +assistant of a master juggler, who is not quite sure that there may not +be a supernatural power behind some of the tricks. Beyond an overflowing +animal vitality, and a passion for having men make love to her, there +really was not much of Victorine. But it is wonderful how far these two +qualities can pass in a handsome woman for other and nobler ones. The +animal life so keen, intense, sensuous, can seem like cleverness, wit, +taste; the passion for receiving homage from men can make a woman +graceful, amiable, and alluring. Some of the greatest passions the world +has ever seen have been inspired in men by just such women as this.</p> + +<p>Victorine was not without accomplishments and some smattering of +knowledge. She had read a good deal of French, and chattered it like +the true granddaughter of a Normandy <i>propriétaire</i>. She sang, in a +half-rude, half-melodious way, snatches of songs which sounded better +than they really were, she sang them with so much heartiness and +abandon. She embroidered exquisitely, and had learned the trick of +making many of the pretty and useless things at which nuns work so +patiently to fill up their long hours. She had an insatiable love of +dress, and attired herself daily in successions of varied colors and +shapes merely to look at herself in the glass, and on the chance of +showing herself to any stray traveller who might come.</p> + +<p>The inn had been built in a piecemeal fashion by Victor Dubois himself, +and he had been unconsciously guided all the while by his memories of +the old farmhouse in Normandy in which he was born; so that the house +really looked more like Normandy than like America. It had on one corner +a square tower, which began by being a shed attached to the kitchen, +then was promoted to bearing up a chamber for grain, and at last was +topped off by a fine airy room, projecting on all sides over the other +two, and having great casement windows reaching close up to the broad, +hanging eaves. A winding staircase outside led to what had been the +grain-chamber: this was now Jeanne's room. The room above was +Victorine's, and she reached it only by a narrow, ladder-like stairway +from her mother's bedroom; so the young lady's movements were kept well +in sight, her mother thought. It was an odd thing that it never occurred +to Jeanne how near the sill of Victorine's south window was to the stout +railing of the last broad platform of the outside staircase. This +railing had been built up high, and was partly roofed over, making a +pretty place for pots of flowers in summer; and Victorine never looked +so well anywhere as she did leaning out of her window and watering the +flowers which stood there. Many a flirtation went on between this +casement window and the courtyard below, where all the travellers were +in the habit of standing and talking with the ostlers, and with old +Victor himself, who was not the landlord to leave his ostlers to do as +they liked with horses and grain,--many a flirtation, but none that +meant or did any harm; for with all her wildness and love of frolic, +Mademoiselle Victorine never lost her head. Deep down in her heart she +had an ambition which she never confessed even to her aunt Jeanne. She +had read enough romances to believe that it was by no means an +impossible thing that a landlord's daughter should marry a gentleman; +and to marry a gentleman, if she married at all, Victorine was fully +resolved. She never tired of questioning her aunt about the details of +her life in Willan Blaycke's house; and she sometimes gazed for hours at +the gilt-panelled coach, which on all fine days stood in the courtyard +of the Golden Pear, the wonder of all rustics. On the rare occasions +when her aunt went abroad in this fine vehicle, Victorine sat by her +side in an ecstasy of pride and delight. It seemed to her that to be the +owner of such a coach as that, to live in a fine house, and have a fine +gentleman for one's husband must be the very climax of bliss. She +wondered much at her aunt's contentment in her present estate.</p> + +<p>"How canst thou bear it, Aunt Jeanne?" she said sometimes. "How canst +thou bear to live as we live here,--to be in the bar-room with the men, +and to sit always in the smoke, after the fine rooms and the company +thou hadst for so long?"</p> + +<p>"Bah!" Jeanne would reply. "It's little thou knowest of that fine +company. I had like to die of weariness more often than I was gay in it; +and as for fine rooms, I care nothing for them."</p> + +<p>"But thy husband, Aunt Jeanne," Victorine once ventured to say,--"surely +thou wert not weary when he was with thee?"</p> + +<p>Jeanne's face darkened. "Keep a civiller tongue in thy head," she +replied, "than to be talking to widows of the husbands they have buried. +He was a good man, Willan Blaycke,--a good man; but I liked him not +overmuch, though we lived not in quarrelling. He went his ways, as men +go, and I let him be."</p> + +<p>Victorine's curiosity was by no means satisfied. She asked endless +questions of all whom she met who could tell her anything about her +aunt's husband. Very much she regretted that she had not been taken from +the convent before this strange, free-hearted, rollicking gentleman had +died. She would have managed affairs better, she thought, than Aunt +Jeanne had done. Romantic visions of herself as his favorite flitted +through her brain.</p> + +<p>"Why didst thou not send for me sooner to come to thee, Aunt Jeanne," +she said, "that I too might have seen the life in the great stone +house?"</p> + +<p>A sudden flush covered Jeanne's face. Was she never to hear the end of +troublesome questions about the past?</p> + +<p>"Wilt thou never have done with it?" she said, half angrily. "Has it +never been said in thy hearing how that my husband would not permit even +my father to come inside of his house, much less one no nearer than +thou?" And Jeanne eyed Victorine sharply, with a suspicion which was +wholly uncalled for. Nobody had ever been bold or cruel enough to +suggest to Victorine any doubts regarding her birth. The girl was +indignant. She had never known before that her grandfather had been thus +insulted.</p> + +<p>"What had grandfather done?" she cried. "Was he not thy husband's +father, too, being thine? How dared thy husband treat him so?"</p> + +<p>Jeanne was silent for a few moments. A latent sense of justice to her +dead husband restrained her from assenting to Victorine's words.</p> + +<p>"Nay," she said; "there are many things thou canst not understand. Thy +grandfather never complained. Willan Blaycke treated me most fairly +while he lived; and if it had not been for the boy, I would have had +thee in the stone house to-day, and had all my rights."</p> + +<p>"Why did the boy hate thee?" asked Victorine. "What is he like?"</p> + +<p>"As like to a magpie as one magpie is to another," said Jeanne, +bitterly; "with his fine French cloth of black, and his white ruffles, +and his long words in his mouth. Ah, but him I hate! It is to him we owe +it all."</p> + +<p>"Dwells he now in the great house alone?" said Victorine.</p> + +<p>"Ay, that he does,--alone with his books, of which he has about as many +as there are leaves on the trees; one could not so much as step or sit +for a book in one's way. I did hear that he has now with him another of +his own order, and that the two are riding all over the country, +marking out the lines anew of all the farms, and writing new bonds which +are so much harder on men than the old ones were. Bah! but he has the +soul of a miser in him, for all his handsome face!"</p> + +<p>"Is he then so very handsome, Aunt Jeanne?" said Victorine, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, child. I'll give him his due for that, evilly as he has treated +me. He is a handsomer man than his father was; and when his father and I +were married there was not a woman in the provinces that did not say I +had carried off the handsomest man that ever strode a horse. I'd like to +have had thee see me, too, in that day, child. I was counted as handsome +as he, though thou'dst never think it now."</p> + +<p>"But I would think it!" cried Victorine, hotly and loyally. "What ails +thee, Aunt Jeanne? Did I not hear Father Hennepin himself saying to thee +only yesterday that thou wert comelier to-day than ever? and he saw thee +married, he told me."</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut, child!" replied Jeanne, looking pleased. "None know better +than the priests how to speak idle words to women. But what was he +telling thee? How came it that he spoke of the time when I was married?" +added Jeanne, again suspicious.</p> + +<p>"It was I that asked him," replied Victorine. "I wish always so much +that I had been with thee instead of in the convent, dear aunt. Does +this son of thy husband, this handsome young man who is so like unto a +magpie,--does he never in his journeyings come this way?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, often," replied Jeanne. "I know that he must, because a large part +of his estate lies beyond the border and joins on to this parish. It was +that which brought his father here, in the beginning, and there is no +other inn save this for miles up and down the border where he can tarry; +but it is likely that he will sooner lie out in the fields than sleep +under this roof, because I am here. I had looked to say my mind to him +as often as he came; and that it would be a sore thing to him to see his +father's wife in the bar, I know beyond a doubt. I have often said to +myself what a comfortable spleen I should experience when I might +courtesy to him and say, 'What would you be pleased to take, sir?' But +I think he is minded to rob me of that pleasure, for it is certain he +must have ridden this way before now."</p> + +<p>"I have a mind to burn a candle to the Virgin," said Victorine, slowly, +"that he may come here. I would like for once to set my eyes on his +face."</p> + +<p>An unwonted earnestness in Victorine's tone and a still more unwonted +seriousness in her face arrested Jeanne's attention.</p> + +<p>"What is it to thee to see him or not to see him, eh? What is it thou +hast in thy silly head. If thou thinkest thou couldst win him over to +take us back to live in his house again,--which is my own house, to be +sure, if I had my rights,--thy wits are wool-gathering, I can tell thee +that," cried Jeanne. "He has the pride of ten thousand devils in him. +There was that in his face when I drove away from the door,--and he +standing with his head uncovered too,--which I tell thee if I had been a +man I could have killed him for. He take us back! He! he!" And Jeanne +laughed a bitter laugh at the bare idea of the thing.</p> + +<p>"I had not thought of any such thing, Aunt Jeanne," replied Victorine, +still speaking slowly, and still with a dreamy expression on her face, +as she leaned out of the window and began idly plucking the blossoms +from a bough of the big pear-tree, which was now all white with flowers +and buzzing with bees. "Dost thou not think the bees steal a little +sweet that ought to go into the fruit?" continued the artful girl, who +did not choose that her aunt should question her any further as to the +reason of her desire to see Willan Blaycke. "I remember that once Father +Anselmo at the convent said to me he thought so. There was a vine of the +wild grape which ran all over the wall between the cloister and the +convent; and when it was in bloom the air sickened one, and thou couldst +hardly go near the wall for the swarming bees that were drinking the +honey from the flowers. And Father Anselmo said one evening that they +were thieves; they stole sweet which ought to go into the grapes."</p> + +<p>This was a clever diversion. It turned Jeanne's thoughts at once away +from Willan Blaycke, but it did not save Mademoiselle Victorine from a +catechising quite as sharp as she was in danger of on the other subject.</p> + +<p>"And what wert thou doing talking with a priest in the garden at night?" +cried Jeanne, fiercely. "Is that the way maidens are trained in a +convent! Shame on thee, Victorine! what hast thou revealed?"</p> + +<p>"The Virgin forbid," answered Victorine, piously, racking her brains +meanwhile for a ready escape from this dilemma, and trying in her fright +to recall precisely what she had just said. "I said not that he told it +to me in the garden; it was in the confessional that he said it. I had +confessed to him the grievous sin of a horrible rage I had been in when +one of the bees had stung me on the lip as I was gathering the cool vine +leaves to lay on the good Sister Clarice's forehead, who was ill with a +fever."</p> + +<p>"Eh, eh!" said Jeanne, relieved; "was that it? I thought it could not be +thou wert in the garden in the evening hours, and with a priest."</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said Victorine, demurely. "It was not permitted to converse +with the priests except in the chapel." And choking back an amused +little laugh she bounded to the ladder-like stairway and climbed up into +her own room.</p> + +<p>"Saints! what an ankle the girl has, to be sure!" thought Jeanne, as she +watched Victorine's shapely legs slowly vanishing up the stair. "What +has filled her head so full of that upstart Willan, I wonder!"</p> + +<p>A thought struck Jeanne; the only wonder was it had never struck her +before. In her sudden excitement she sprung from her chair, and began to +walk rapidly up and down the floor. She pressed her hand to her +forehead; she tore open the handkerchief which was crossed on her bosom; +her eyes flashed; her cheeks grew red; she breathed quicker.</p> + +<p>"The girl's handsome enough to turn any man's head, and twice as clever +as I ever was," she thought.</p> + +<p>She sat down in her chair again. The idea which had occurred to her was +over-whelming. She spoke aloud and was unconscious of it.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but that would be a triumph!" she said. "Who knows? who knows?"</p> + +<p>"Victorine!" she called; "Victorine!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, aunt," replied Victorine.</p> + +<p>"There's plenty of honey left in the flowers to keep pears sweet after +the bees are dead," said Jeanne, mischievously, and went downstairs +chuckling over her new secret thought. "I'll never let the child know +I've thought of such a thing," she mused, as she took her accustomed +seat in the bar. "I'll bide my time. Strange things have happened, and +may happen again."</p> + +<p>"What a queer speech of Aunt Jeanne's!" thought Victorine at her +casement window. "What a fool I was to have said anything about Father +Anselmo! Poor fellow! I wonder why he doesn't run away from the +monastery!"</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="sec1-2"> +<h3>II.</h3> + + +<div class="epi"><p> The south wind's secret, when it blows,<br /> + Oh, what man knows?<br /> + How did it turn the rose's bud<br /> + Into a rose?<br /> + What went before, no garden shows;<br /> + Only the rose!</p> + + <p>What hour the bitter north wind blows,<br /> + The south wind knows.<br /> + Why did it turn the rose's bud<br /> + Into a rose?<br /> + Alas, to-day the garden shows<br /> + A dying rose!</p></div> + + +<p>Jeanne had not to wait long. It was only a few days after this +conversation with Victorine,--the big pear-tree was still snowy-white +with bloom, and the tireless bees still buzzed thick among its +boughs,--when Jeanne, standing in the doorway at sunset, saw two riders +approaching the inn. At her first glance she recognized Willan Blaycke. +Jeanne's mind moved quickly. In the twinkling of an eye she had sprung +back into the bar-room, and said to her father,--</p> + +<p>"Father, father, be quick! Here comes Willan Blaycke riding; and +another, an old man, with him. Thou must tend the bar; for hand so much +as a glass of gin to that man will I never. I shut myself up till he is +gone."</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay, Jeanne," replied Victor; "I'll turn him from my door. He's to +get no lodging under this roof, he nor his,--I promise you that." And +Victor was bustling angrily to the door.</p> + +<p>This did not suit Mistress Jeanne at all. In great dismay inwardly, but +outwardly with slow and smooth-spoken accents, as if reflecting +discreetly, she replied, "He might do me great mischief if he were +angered, father. All the moneys go through his hand. I think it is safer +to speak him fair. He hath the devil's own temper if he be opposed in +the smallest thing. It has cost him sore enough, I'll be bound, to find +himself here at sundown, and beholden to thee for shelter; it is none of +his will to come, I know that well enough. Speak him fair, father, speak +him fair; it is a silly fowl that pecks at the hand which holds corn. I +will hide myself till he is away, though, for I misgive me that I should +be like to fly out at him."</p> + +<p>"But, Jeanne--" persisted Victor. But Jeanne was gone.</p> + +<p>"Speak him fair, father; take no note that aught is amiss," she called +back from the upper stair, from which she was vanishing into her +chamber. "I will send Victorine to wait at the supper. He hath never +seen her, and need not to know that she is of our kin at all,"</p> + +<p>"Humph!" muttered Victor. "Small doubt to whom the girl is kin, if a man +have eyes in his head." And he would have argued the point longer with +Jeanne, but he had no time left, for the riders had already turned into +the courtyard, and were giving their horses in charge to the +white-headed ostler Benoit. Benoit had served in the Golden Pear for a +quarter of a century. He had served Victor Dubois's father in Normandy, +had come with his young master to America, and was nominally his servant +still. But if things had gone by their right names at the Golden Pear, +old Benoit would not have been called servant for many a year back. Not +a secret in that household which Benoit had not shared; not a plot he +had not helped on. At Jeanne's marriage he was the only witness except +Father Hennepin; and there were some who recollected still with what +extraordinary chuckles of laughter Benoit had walked away from the +chapel after that ceremony had been completed. To the young Victorine +Benoit had been devoted ever since her coming to the inn. Whenever she +appeared in sight the old man came to gaze on her, and stood lingering +and admiring as long as she remained.</p> + +<p>"Thou art far handsomer than thy mother ever was," he had said to her +one morning soon after her arrival.</p> + +<p>"Oh, didst thou know my mother, then, when she was young?" cried +Victorine. "She is not handsome now, though she is newly wed; when she +came to see me in the convent, I thought her very ugly. When didst thou +know her, Benoit?"</p> + +<p>Benoit was very red in the face, and began to toss straw vigorously as +he looked away from Victorine and answered: "It was but once that I had +sight of her, when Master Jean brought her here after they were married. +Thou dost not favor her in the least. Thou art like Master Jean."</p> + +<p>"And the saints know that that last is the holy truth, whatever the +rest may be," thought Benoit, as he bustled about the courtyard.</p> + +<p>"But thy tongue is the tongue of an imbecile," said Victor, following +him into the stable.</p> + +<p>"Ay, that it is, sir," replied Benoit, humbly. "I had like to have +bitten it off before I had finished speaking; but no harm came."</p> + +<p>"Not this time," replied Victor; "but the next thou might not be so well +let off. The girl has a sharper wit than she shows ordinarily. She hath +learned too well the ways of convents. I trust her not wholly, Benoit. +Keep thy eyes open, Benoit. We'll not have her go the ways of her mother +if it can be helped." And the worldly and immoral old grandfather turned +on his heel with a wicked laugh.</p> + +<p>Benoit had never seen young Willan Blaycke, but he knew him at his first +glance.</p> + +<p>"The son!" he muttered under his breath, as he saw him alight. "Is he to +be lodged here? I doubt." And Benoit looked about for Victor, who was +nowhere to be seen. Slowly and with a surly face he came forward to +take the horses.</p> + +<p>"What're you about, old man? Wear you shoes of lead? Take our horses, +and see you to it they are well rubbed down before they have aught to +eat or drink. We have ridden more than ten leagues since the noon," +cried the elder of the two travellers.</p> + +<p>"And ought to have ridden more," said the younger in an undertone. It +was, as Jeanne had said, a sore thing to Willan Blaycke to be forced to +seek a night's shelter in the Golden Pear.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut!" said the other, "what odds! It is a whimsey, a weakness of +yours, boy. What's the woman to you?"</p> + +<p>Victor Dubois, who had come up now, heard these words, and his swarthy +cheek was a shade darker. Benoit, who had lingered till he should +receive a second order from the master of the inn as to the strangers' +horses, exchanged a quick glance with Victor, while he said in a +respectful tone, "Two horses, sir, for the night." The glance said, "I +know who the man is; shall we keep him?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, Benoit," Victor answered; "see that Jean gives them a good rubbing +at once. They have been hard ridden, poor beasts!" While Victor was +speaking these words his eyes said to Benoit, "Bah! It is even so; but +we dare not do otherwise than treat him fair."</p> + +<p>"Will you be pleased to walk in, gentlemen; and what shall I have the +honor of serving for your supper?" he continued. "We have some young +pigeons, if your worships would like them, fat as partridges, and still +a bottle or two left of our last autumn's cider."</p> + +<p>"By all means, landlord, by all means, let us have them, roasted on a +spit, man,--do you hear?--roasted on a spit, and let your cook lard them +well with fat bacon; there is no bird so fat but a larding doth help it +for my eating," said the elder man, rubbing his hands and laughing more +and more cheerily as his companion looked each moment more and more +glum.</p> + +<p>"No, I'll not go in," said Willan, as Victor threw open the door into +the bar-room. "It suits me better to sit here under the trees until +supper is ready." And he threw himself down at the foot of the great +pear-tree. He feared to see Jeanne sitting in the bar, as she had +threatened. The ground was showered thick with the soft white petals of +the blossoms, which were now past their prime. Willan picked up a +handful of them and tossed them idly in the air. As he did so, a shower +of others came down on his face, thick, fast; they half blinded him for +a moment. He sprung to his feet and looked up. It was like looking into +a snowy cloud. He saw nothing. "Some bird flying through," he thought, +and lay down again.</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Ah! luck for the bees,<br /> + The flowers are in flower;<br /> + Luck for the bees in spring.<br /> + Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour;<br /> + No summer is fair as the spring.<br /> + Ah! luck for the bees;<br /> + The honey in flowers<br /> + Is highest when they are on wing!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>came in a gay Provençal melody from the pear-tree above Willan's head, +and another shower of white petals fell on his face.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" said Willan Blaycke, under his breath, "what witchcraft is +going on here? what girl's voice is that?" And he sprang again to his +feet.</p> + +<p>The voice died slowly away; the singer was moving farther off,--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Ah! woe for the bees,<br /> + The flowers are dead;<br /> + No summer is fair as the spring.<br /> + Ah me, but the honey is thick in the comb;<br /> + 'Tis a long time now since spring.<br /> + Ah, woe for the bees<br /> + That honey is sweet,<br /> + Is sweeter than anything!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Sweeter than anything,--sweeter than anything!" the voice, grown faint +now, repeated this refrain over and over, as the syllables of sound died +away.</p> + +<p>It was Victorine going very slowly down the staircase from her room into +Jeanne's. And it was Victorine who had accidentally brushed the +pear-tree boughs as she watered her plants on the roof of the outside +stairway. She did not see Willan lying on the ground underneath, and she +did not think that Willan might be hearing her song; and yet was her +head full of Willan Blaycke as she went down the staircase, and not a +little did she quake at the thought of seeing him below.</p> + +<p>Jeanne had come breathless to her room, crying, "Victorine! Victorine! +That son of my husband's of whom we were talking, young Willan Blaycke, +is at the door,--he, and an old man with him; and they must perforce +stay here all night. Now, it would be a shame I could in no wise bear to +stand and serve him at supper. Wilt thou not do it in my stead? there +are but the two." And the wily Jeanne pretended to be greatly +distressed, as she sank into a chair and went on: "In truth, I do not +believe I can look on his face at all. I will keep my room till he have +gone his way,--the villain, the upstart, that I may thank for all my +trouble! Oh, it brings it all back again, to see his face!" And Jeanne +actually brought a tear or two into her wily eyes.</p> + +<p>The no less wily Victorine tossed her head and replied: "Indeed, then, +and the waiting on him is no more to my liking than to thine own, Aunt +Jeanne! I did greatly desire to see his face, to see what manner of man +he could be that would turn his father's widow out of her house; but I +think Benoit may hand the gentleman his wine, not I." And Victorine +sauntered saucily to the window and looked out.</p> + +<p>"A plague on all their tempers!" thought Jeanne, impatiently. Her plans +seemed to be thwarted when she least expected it. For a few moments she +was silent, revolving in her mind the wisdom of taking Victorine into +her counsels, and confiding to her the motive she had for wishing her to +be seen by Willan Blaycke. But she dreaded lest this might defeat her +object by making the girl self-conscious. Jeanne was perplexed; and in +her perplexity her face took on an expression as if she were grieved. +Victorine, who was much dismayed by her aunt's seeming acquiescence in +her refusal to serve the supper, exclaimed now,--</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay, Aunt Jeanne, do not look grieved. I will indeed go down and +serve the supper, if thou takest it so to heart. The man is nothing to +me, that I need fear to see him."</p> + +<p>"Thou art a good girl," replied Jeanne, much relieved, and little +dreaming how she had been gulled by Mademoiselle Victorine,--"thou art a +good girl, and thou shalt have my lavender-colored paduasoy gown if +thou wilt lay thyself out to see that all is at its best, both in the +bedrooms and for the supper. I would have Willan Blaycke perceive that +one may live as well outside of his house as in it. And, Victorine," she +added, with an attempt at indifference in her tone, "wear thy white gown +thou hadst on last Sunday. It pleased me better than any gown thou hast +worn this year,--that, and thy black silk apron with the red lace; they +become thee."</p> + +<p>So Victorine had arrayed herself in the white gown; it was of linen +quaintly woven, with a tiny star thrown up in the pattern, and shone +like damask. The apron was of heavy black silk, trimmed all around with +crimson lace, and crimson lace on the pockets. A crimson rose in +Victorine's black hair and crimson ribbons at her throat and on her +sleeves completed the toilet. It was ravishing; and nobody knew it +better than Mademoiselle Victorine herself, who had toiled many an hour +in the convent making the crimson lace for the precise purpose of +trimming a black apron with it, if ever she escaped from the convent, +and who had chosen out of fifty rose-bushes at the last Parish Fair the +one whose blossoms matched her crimson lace. There is a picture still to +be seen of Victorine in this costume; and many a handsome young girl, +having copied the costume exactly for a fancy ball, has looked from the +picture to herself and from herself to the picture, and gone to the ball +dissatisfied, thinking in her heart,--</p> + +<p>"After all, I don't look half as well in it as that French girl did."</p> + +<p>As Victorine came leisurely down the stairs, half singing, half +chanting, her little song, Jeanne looked at her in admiration.</p> + +<p>"Well, and if either of the men have an eye for a pretty girl clad in +attire that becomes her, they can look at thee, my Victorine. That black +apron will go well with the lavender paduasoy also."</p> + +<p>"That it will, Aunt Jeanne," answered Victorine, her face glowing with +pleasure. "I can never thank thee enough. I did not think ever to have +the paduasoy for my own."</p> + +<p>"All my gowns are for thee," said Jeanne, in a voice of great +tenderness. "I shall presently take to the wearing of black; it better +suits my years. Thou canst be young; it is enough. I am an old woman."</p> + +<p>Victorine bent over and kissed her aunt, and whispered: "Fie on thee, +Aunt Jeanne! The Father Hennepin does not think thee an old woman; +neither Pierre Gaspard from the mill. I hear the men when they are +talking under my window of thee. Thou knowest thou mightest wed any day +if thou hadst the mind."</p> + +<p>Jeanne shook her head. "That I have not, then," she said. "I keep the +name of Willan Blaycke for all that of any man hereabouts which can be +offered to me. Thou art the one to wed, not I. But far off be that day," +she added hastily; "thou art young for it yet."</p> + +<p>"Ay," replied the artful young maiden, "that am I, and I think I will be +old before any man make a drudge of me. I like my freedom better. And +now will I go down and serve thy stepson,--the handsome magpie, the +reader of books." And with a mocking laugh Victorine bounded down the +staircase and went into the kitchen. Her grandfather was running about +there in great confusion, from dresser to fireplace, to table, to +pantry, back and forth, breathless and red in the face. The pigeons were +sputtering before the fire, and the odor of the frying bacon filled the +place.</p> + +<p>"Diable! Girl, out of this!" he cried; "this is no place for thee. Go to +thine aunt."</p> + +<p>"She did bid me come and serve the supper for the strangers," replied +Victorine. "She herself will not come down."</p> + +<p>"Go to the devil! Thou shalt not, and it is I that say it," shouted +Victor; and Victorine, terrified, fled back to Jeanne, and reported her +grandfather's words.</p> + +<p>Poor Jeanne was at her wit's end now. "Why said he that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I know not," replied Victorine, demurely. "He was in one of his great +rages, and I do think that the pigeons are fast burning, by the smell."</p> + +<p>"Bah!" cried Jeanne, in disgust. "Is this a house to live in, where one +cannot be let down from one's chamber except in sight of the highway? +Run, Victorine! Look over and see if the strangers be in sight. I must +go down to the kitchen. I would a witch were at hand with a broom or a +tail of a mare. I'd mount and down the chimney, I warrant me!"</p> + +<p>Laughing heartily, Victorine ran to reconnoitre. "There is none in +sight," she cried. "Thou canst come down. A man is asleep under the +pear-tree, but I think not he is one of them."</p> + +<p>Jeanne ran quickly down the stairs, followed by Victorine, who, as she +entered the kitchen again, took up her position in one corner, and stood +leaning against the wall, tapping her pretty little black slippers with +their crimson bows impatiently on the floor. Jeanne drew her father to +one side, and whispered in his ear. He retorted angrily, in a louder +tone. Not a look or tone was lost on Victorine. Presently the old man, +shrugging his shoulders, went back to the pigeons, and began to turn the +spit, muttering to himself in French. Jeanne had conquered.</p> + +<p>"Thy grandfather is in a rage," she said to Victorine, "because we must +give meat and drink to the man who has treated me so ill; that is why he +did not wish thee to serve. But I have persuaded him that it is needful +that we do all we can to keep Willan Blaycke well disposed to us. He +might withhold from me all my money if he so chose; and he is rich, and +we are but poor people. We could not find any redress. So do thou take +care and treat him as if thou hadst never heard aught against him from +me. It will lie with thee, child, to see that he goes not away angered; +for thy grandfather is in a mood when the saints themselves could not +hold his tongue if he have a mind to speak. Keep thou out of his sight +till supper be ready. I stay here till all is done."</p> + +<p>Between the kitchen and the common living-room, which was also the +dining-room, was a long dark passage-way, at one end of which was a +small storeroom. Here Victorine took refuge, to wait till her aunt +should call her to serve the supper. The window of this storeroom was +wide open. The shutter had fallen off the hinges several days before, +and Benoit had forgotten to put it up. Victorine seated herself on a +cider cask close to the window, and leaning her head against the wall +began to sing again in a low tone. She had a habit of singing at all +times, and often hardly knew that she sang at all. The Provençal melody +was still running in her head.</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Ah! luck for the bees,<br /> + The flowers are in flower;<br /> + Luck for the bees in spring.<br /> + Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour;<br /> + No summer is fair as the spring.<br /> + Ah! luck for the bees;<br /> + The honey in flowers<br /> + Is highest when they are on wing!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>she sang. Then suddenly breaking off she began singing a wild, sad +melody of another song:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "The sad spring rain,<br /> + It has come at last.<br /> + The graves lie plain,<br /> + And the brooks run fast;<br /> + And drip, drip, drip,<br /> + Falls the sad spring rain;<br /> + And tears fall fresh,<br /> + In the sad spring air,<br /> + From lovers' eyes,<br /> + On the graves laid bare."</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was very dark in the storeroom; it was dark out of doors. The moon +had been up for an hour, but the sky was overcast thick with clouds. +Willan Blaycke was still asleep under the pear-tree. His head was only a +few feet from the storeroom window. The sound of Victorine's singing +reached his ears, but did not at first waken him, only blended +confusedly with his dreams. In a few seconds, however, he waked, sprang +to his feet, and looked about him in bewilderment. Out of the darkness, +seemingly within arm's reach, came the low sweet notes,--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "And drip, drip, drip,<br /> + Falls the sad spring rain;<br /> + And tears fall fresh,<br /> + In the sad spring air,<br /> + From lovers' eyes,<br /> + On the graves laid bare."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Groping his way in the direction from which the voice came, Willan +stumbled against the wall of the house, and put his hand on the +window-sill. "Who sings in here?" he cried, fumbling in the empty space.</p> + +<p>"Holy Mother!" shrieked Victorine, and ran out of the storeroom, letting +the door shut behind her with all its force. The noise echoed through +the inn, and waked Willan's friend, who was also taking a nap in one of +the old leather-cushioned high-backed chairs in the bar-room. Rubbing +his eyes, he came out to look for Willan. He met him on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, "where have you been all this time? I have slept in a +chair, and am vastly rested."</p> + +<p>"The Lord only knows where I have been," answered Willan, laughing. "I +too have slept; but a woman with a voice like the voice of a wild bird +has been singing strange melodies in my ear."</p> + +<p>The elder man smiled. "The dreams of young men," he said, "are wont to +have the sound of women's voices in them."</p> + +<p>"This was no dream," retorted Willan. "She was so near me I heard the +panting breath with which she cried out and fled when I made a step +towards her."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, will it please you to walk in to supper?" said Victor, +appearing in the doorway with a clean white apron on, and no trace, in +his smiling and obsequious countenance, of the rage in which he had been +a few minutes before.</p> + +<p>A second talk with Jeanne after Victorine had left the kitchen had +produced a deep impression on Victor's mind. He was now as eager as +Jeanne herself for the meeting between Victorine and Willan Blaycke.</p> + +<p>The pigeons were not burned, after all. Most savory did they smell, and +Willan Blaycke and his friend fell to with a will.</p> + +<p>"Saidst thou not thou hadst some of thy famous pear cider left, +landlord?" asked Willan.</p> + +<p>"Ay, sir, my granddaughter has gone to draw it; she will be here in a +trice."</p> + +<p>As he spoke the door opened, and Victorine entered, bearing in her left +hand a tray with two curious old blue tankards on it; in her right hand +a gray stone jug with blue bands at its neck. Both the jug and the +tankards had come over from Normandy years ago. Victorine raised her +eyes, and looking first at Willan, then at his friend, went immediately +to the older man, and courtesying gracefully, set her tray down on the +table by his side, and filled the two tankards. The cider was like +champagne; it foamed and sparkled. The old man eyed it keenly.</p> + +<p>"This looks like the cidre mousseux I drank at Littry," he said, and +taking up his tankard tossed it off at a draught. "Tastes like it, too, +by Jove!" he said. "Old man, out of what fruits in this bleak country +dost thou conjure such a drink?"</p> + +<p>Victor smiled. Praise of the cider of the Golden Pear went to his heart +of hearts. "Monsieur has been in Calvados," he said. "It is kind of him +then to praise this poor drink of mine, which would be but scorned +there. There is not a warm enough sunshine to ripen our pears here to +their best, and the variety is not the same; but such as they are, I +have an orchard of twenty trees, and it is by reason of them that the +inn has its name."</p> + +<p>Willan was not listening to this conversation. He held his fork, with a +bit of untasted pigeon on it, uplifted in one hand; with the other he +drummed nervously on the table. His eyes were riveted on Victorine, who +stood behind the old man's chair, her soft black eyes glancing quietly +from one thing to another on the table to see if all were right. +Willan's gaze did not escape the keen eyes of Victorine's grandfather. +Chuckling inwardly, he assumed an expression of great anxiety, and +coming closer to Willan's chair said in a deprecating tone,--</p> + +<p>"Are not the pigeons done to your liking, sir? You do not eat."</p> + +<p>Willan started, dropped his fork, then hastily took it up again.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," he said, "that they are; done to a turn." And he fell to +eating again. But do what he would, he could not keep his eyes off the +face of the girl. If she moved, his gaze followed her about the room, as +straight as a steel follows on after a magnet; and when she stood still, +he cast furtive glances that way each minute. In very truth, he might +well be forgiven for so doing. Not often does it fall to the lot of men +to see a more bewitching face than the face of Victorine Dubois. Many a +woman might be found fairer and of a nobler cast of feature; but in the +countenance of Victorine Dubois was an unaccountable charm wellnigh +independent of feature, of complexion, of all which goes to the ordinary +summing up of a woman's beauty. There was in the glance of her eye a +something, I know not what, which no man living could wholly resist. It +was at once defiant and alluring, tender and mocking, artless and +mischievous. No man could make it out; no man might see it twice alike +in the space of an hour. No more was the girl herself twice alike in an +hour, or a day, for that matter. She was far more like some frolicsome +creature of the woods than like a mortal woman. The quality of wildness +which Willan had felt in her voice was in her nature. Neither her +grandfather nor her mother had in the least comprehended her during the +few months she had lived with them. A certain gentleness of nature, +which was far more physical than mental, far more an idle nonchalance +than recognition of relations to others, had blinded them to her real +capriciousness and selfishness. They rarely interfered with her, or +observed her with any discrimination. Their love was content with her +surface of good humor, gayety, and beauty; she was an ever-present +delight and pride to them both, and that she might only partially +reciprocate this fondness never crossed their minds. They did not +realize that during all these eighteen years that they had been caring, +planning, and plotting for her their names had represented nothing in +her mind except unseen, unknown relatives to whom she was indebted for +support, but to whom she also owed what she hated and rebelled +against,--her imprisonment in the convent. Why should she love them? +Blood tells, however; and when Victorine found herself free, and face to +face with the grandfather of whom she had so long heard and only once +seen, and the Aunt Jeanne who had been described to her as the loving +benefactress of her youth, she had a new and affectionate sentiment +towards them. But she would at any minute have calmly sacrificed them +both for the furtherance of her own interests; and the thoughts she was +thinking while Willan Blaycke gazed at her so ardently this night were +precisely as follows:--</p> + +<p>"If I could only have a good chance at him, I could make him marry me. I +see it in his face. I suppose I'd never see Aunt Jeanne again, or +grandfather; but what of that? I'd play my cards better than Aunt Jeanne +did, I know that much. Let me once get to be mistress of that stone +house--" And the color grew deeper and deeper on Victorine's cheeks in +the excitement of these reflections.</p> + +<p>"Poor girl!" Willan Blaycke was thinking. "I must not gaze at her so +constantly. The color in her cheeks betrays that I distress her." And +the honest gentleman tried his best to look away and bear good part in +conversation with his friend. It was a doubly good stroke on the part of +the wily Victorine to take her place behind the elder man's chair. It +looked like a proper and modest preference on her part for age; and it +kept her out of the old man's sight, and in the direct range of Willan's +eyes as he conversed with his friend. When she had occasion to hand +anything to Willan she did so with an apparent shyness which was +captivating; and the tone of voice in which she spoke to him was low and +timid.</p> + +<p>Old Victor could hardly contain himself. He went back and forth between +the dining-room and kitchen far oftener than was necessary, that he +might have the pleasure of saying to Jeanne: "It works! it works! He +doth gaze the eyes out of his head at her. The girl could not do better. +She hath affected the very thing which will snare him the quickest."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, father! Thou mistakest Victorine. She hath no plan of snaring +him; it was with much ado I got her to consent to serve him at all. It +was but for my sake she did it."</p> + +<p>Victor stared at Jeanne when she said this. "Thou hast not told her, +then?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Nay, that would have spoiled all; if the girl herself had it in her +head, he would have seen it."</p> + +<p>Victor walked slowly back into the dining-room, and took further and +closer observations of Mademoiselle Victorine's behavior and +expressions. When he went next to the kitchen he clapped Jeanne on the +shoulder, and said with a laugh: "'Tis a wise mother knows her own +child. If that girl in yonder be not bent on turning the head of Willan +Blaycke before she sleeps to-night, may the devil fly away with me!"</p> + +<p>"Well, likely he may, if thou prove not too heavy a load," retorted the +filial Jeanne. "I tell thee the girl's heart is full of anger against +Willan Blaycke. She is but doing my bidding. I charged her to see to it +that he was pleased, that he should go away our friend."</p> + +<p>"And so he will go," replied Victor, dryly; "but not for thy bidding or +mine. The man is that far pleased already that he shifteth as if the +very chair were hot beneath him. A most dutiful niece thou hast, +Mistress Jeanne!"</p> + +<p>When supper was over Willan Blaycke walked hastily out of the house. He +wanted to be alone. The clouds had broken away, and the full moon shone +out gloriously. The great pear-tree looked like a tree wrapped in cloud, +its blossoms were so thick and white. Willan paced back and forth +beneath it, where he had lain sleeping before supper. He looked toward +the window from whence he had heard the singing voice. "It must have +been she," he said. "How shall I bring it to pass to see her again? for +that I will and must." He went to the window and looked in. All was +dark. As he turned away the door at the farther end opened, and a ray of +light flashing in from the hall beyond showed Victorine bearing in her +hand the jug of cider. She had made this excuse to go to the storeroom +again, having observed that Willan had left the house.</p> + +<p>"He might seek me again there," thought she.</p> + +<p>Willan heard the sound, turned back, and bounding to the window +exclaimed, "Was it thou who sang?"</p> + +<p>Victorine affected not to hear. Setting down her jug, she came close to +the window and said respectfully: "Didst thou call? What can I fetch, +sir?"</p> + +<p>Willan Blaycke leaned both his arms on the window-sill, and looking into +the eyes of Victorine Dubois replied: "Marry, girl, thou hast already +fetched me to such a pass that thy voice rings in my ears. I asked thee +if it were thou who sang?"</p> + +<p>Retreating from the window a step or two, Victorine said sorrowfully: "I +did not think that thou hadst the face of one who would jest lightly +with maidens." And she made as if she would go away.</p> + +<p>"Pardon, pardon!" cried Willan. "I am not jesting; I implore thee, think +it not. I did sleep under this tree before supper, and heard such +singing! I had thought it a bird over my head except that the song had +words. I know it was thou. Be not angry. Why shouldst thou? Where didst +thou learn those wild songs?"</p> + +<p>"From Sister Clarice, in the convent," answered Victorine. "It is only +last Easter that my grandfather fetched me from the convent to live with +him and my aunt Jeanne."</p> + +<p>"Thy aunt Jeanne," said Willan, slowly. "Is she thy aunt?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Victorine, sadly; "she that was thy father's wife, whom thou +wilt not have in thy house."</p> + +<p>This was a bold stroke on Victorine's part. To tell truth, she had had +no idea one moment before of saying any such thing; but a sudden emotion +of resentment got the better of her, and the words were uttered before +she knew it.</p> + +<p>Willan was angry. "All alike," he thought to himself,--"a bad lot. I +dare say the woman has set the girl here for nothing else than to try to +play on my feelings." And it was in a very cold tone that he replied to +Victorine,--</p> + +<p>"Thou art not able to judge of such matters at thy age. Thy aunt is +better here than there. Thou knowest," he added in a gentler tone, +seeing Victorine's great black eyes swimming in sudden tears, "that she +was never as mother to me. I had never seen her till I returned a man +grown."</p> + +<p>Victorine was sobbing now. "Oh," she cried, "what ill luck is mine! I +have angered thee; and my aunt did especially charge me that I was to +treat thee well. She doth never speak an ill word of thee, sir, never! +Do not thou charge my hasty words to her." And Victorine leaned out of +the window, and looked up in Willan Blaycke's face with a look which she +had had good reason to know was well calculated to move a man's heart.</p> + +<p>Willan Blaycke had led a singularly pure life. He was of a reticent and +partly phlegmatic nature; though he looked so like his father, he +resembled him little in temperament. This calmness of nature, added to a +deep-seated pride, had stood him in stead of firmly rooted principles of +virtue, and had carried him safe through all the temptations of his +unprotected and lonely youth. He had the air and bearing, and had had in +most things the experience, of a man of the world; and yet he was as +ignorant of the wily ways of a wily woman as if he had never been out of +the wilderness. Victorine's tears smote on him poignantly.</p> + +<p>"Thou poor child!" he said most kindly, "do not weep. Thou hast done no +harm. I bear no ill will to thine aunt, and never did; and if I had, +thou wouldst have disarmed it. This inn seems to me no place for a young +maiden like thee."</p> + +<p>Victorine glanced cautiously around her, and whispered: "It were +ungrateful in me to say as much; but oh, sir, if thou didst but know how +I wish myself back in the convent! I like not the ways of this place; +and I fear so much the men who are often here. When thou didst speak at +first I did think thou wert like them; but now I perceive that thou art +quite different. Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister Clarice +did tell me." Victorine stopped, called up a blush to her cheeks, and +said: "But I must not stay talking with thee. My aunt will be looking +for me."</p> + +<p>"Stay," said Willan. "What did the Sister Clarice tell thee of men? I +thought not that nuns conversed on such matters."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" replied Victorine, innocently, "it was different with the Sister +Clarice. She was a noble lady who had been betrothed, and her betrothed +died; and it was because there were none left so noble and so good as +he, she said, that she had taken the veil and would die in the convent. +She did talk to me whole nights about this young lord whom she was to +have wed, and she did think often that she saw his face look down +through the roof of the cell."</p> + +<p>Clever Victorine! She had invented this tale on the spur of the instant. +She could not have done better if she had plotted long to devise a +method of flattering Willan Blaycke. It is strange how like inspiration +are the impulses of artful women at times. It would seem wellnigh +certain that they must be prompted by malicious fiends wishing to lure +men on to destruction in the surest way.</p> + +<p>Victorine had talked with Willan perhaps five minutes. In that space of +time she had persuaded him of four things, all false,--that she was an +innocent, guileless girl; that she had been seized with a sudden and +reverential admiration for him; that she had no greater desire in life +than to be back again in the safe shelter of the convent; and that her +aunt Jeanne had never said an ill-word of him.</p> + +<p>"Victorine! Victorine!" called a sharp loud voice,--the voice of +Jeanne,--who would have bitten her tongue out rather than have broken +in on this interview, if she had only known. "Victorine, where art thou +loitering?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, for heaven's sake, sir, do not thou tell my grandfather that I have +talked with thee!" cried Victorine, in feigned terror. "Here I am, aunt; +I will be there in one second," she cried aloud, and ran hastily down +the storeroom. At the door she stopped, hesitated, turned back, and +going towards the window said wistfully: "Thou hast never been here +before all these three months. I suppose thou travellest this way very +seldom."</p> + +<p>The full moon shone on Victorine's face as she said this. Her expression +was like that of a wistful little child. Willan Blaycke did not quite +know what he was doing. He reached his hand across the window-sill +towards Victorine; she did not extend hers. "I will come again sooner," +he said. "Wilt thou not shake hands?"</p> + +<p>Victorine advanced, hesitated, advanced again; it was inimitably done. +"The next time, if I know thee better, I might dare," she whispered, and +fled like a deer.</p> + +<p>"Where hast thou been?" said Jeanne, angrily. "The supper dishes are +yet all to wash."</p> + +<p>Victorine danced gayly around the kitchen floor. "Talking with the son +of thy husband," she said. "He seems to me much cleverer than a magpie."</p> + +<p>Jeanne burst out laughing. "Thou witch!" she said, secretly well +pleased. "But where didst thou fall upon him? Thou hast not been in the +bar-room?"</p> + +<p>"Nay, he fell upon me, the rather," replied Victorine, artlessly, "as I +was resting me at the window of the long storeroom. He heard me singing, +and came there."</p> + +<p>"Did he praise thy voice?" asked Jeanne. "He is a brave singer himself."</p> + +<p>"Is he?" said Victorine, eagerly. "He did not tell me that. He said my +voice was like the voice of a wild bird. And there be birds and birds +again, I was minded to tell him, and not all birds make music; but he +seemed to me not one to take jests readily."</p> + +<p>"So," said Jeanne; "that he is not. Leaves he early in the morning?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," replied Victorine. "He did not tell me, but I heard the +elder man say to Benoit to have the horses ready at earliest light."</p> + +<p>"Thou must serve them again in the morning," said Jeanne. "It will be +but the once more."</p> + +<p>"Nay," answered Victorine, "I will not."</p> + +<p>Something in the girl's tone arrested her aunt's attention. "And why?" +she said sharply, looking scrutinizingly at her.</p> + +<p>Victorine returned the gaze with one as steady. It was as well, she +thought, that there should be an understanding between her aunt and +herself soon as late.</p> + +<p>"Because he will come again the sooner, Aunt Jeanne, if he sees me no +more after to-night." And Victorine gave a little mocking nod with her +head, turned towards the dresser piled high with dishes, and began to +make a great clatter washing them.</p> + +<p>Jeanne was silent. She did not know how to take this.</p> + +<p>Victorine glanced up at her mischievously, and laughed aloud. "Better a +grape for me than two figs for thee. Dost know the old proverb, Aunt +Jeanne? Thou hadst thy figs; I will e'en pluck the grape."</p> + +<p>"Bah, child! thou talkest wildly," said Jeanne; "I know not what thou +'rt at."</p> + +<p>But she did know very well; only she did not choose to seem to +understand. However, as she thought matters over later in the evening, +in the solitude of her own room, one thing was clear to her, and that +was that it would probably be safe to trust Mademoiselle Victorine to +row her own boat; and Jeanne said as much to her father when he inquired +of her how matters had sped.</p> + +<p>In spite of Victorine's refusal to serve at the breakfast, she had not +the least idea of letting Willan go away in the morning without being +reminded of her presence. She was up before light, dressed in a pretty +pink and white flowered gown, which set off her black hair and eyes +well, and made her look as if she were related to an apple-blossom. She +watched and listened till she heard the sound of voices and the horses' +feet in the courtyard below; then throwing open her casement she leaned +out and began to water her flowers on the stairway roof. At the first +sound Willan Blaycke looked up and saw her. It was as pretty a picture +as a man need wish to see, and Willan gazed his fill at it. The window +was so high up in the air that the girl might well be supposed not to +see anything which was going on in the courtyard; indeed, she never once +looked that way, but went on daintily watering plant after plant, +picking off dead leaves, crumpling them up in her fingers and throwing +them down as if she were alone in the place; singing, too, softly in a +low tone snatches of a song, the words of which went floating away +tantalizingly over Willan's head, in spite of all his efforts to hear.</p> + +<p>It was a great tribute to Victorine's powers as an actress that it never +once crossed Willan's mind that she could possibly know he was looking +at her all this time. It was equally a token of another man's estimate +of her, that when old Benoit, hearing the singing, looked up and saw her +watering her flowers at this unexampled hour, he said under his breath, +"Diable!" and then glancing at the face of Willan, who stood gazing up +at the window utterly unconscious of the old ostler's presence, said +"Diable!" again, but this time with a broad and amused smile.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="sec1-3"> +<h3>III.</h3> + +<div class="epi"><p> + The fountain leaps as if its nearest goal<br /> + Were sky, and shines as if its life were light.<br /> + No crystal prism flashes on our sight<br /> + Such radiant splendor of the rainbow's whole<br /> + Of color. Who would dream the fountain stole<br /> + Its tints, and if the sun no more were bright<br /> + Would instant fade to its own pallid white?<br /> + Who dream that never higher than the dole<br /> + Of its own source, its stream may rise?<br /> + Thus we<br /> + See often hearts of men that by love's glow<br /> + Are sudden lighted, lifted till they show<br /> + All semblances of true nobility;<br /> + The passion spent, they tire of purity,<br /> + And sink again to their own levels low!</p></div> + +<p>The next time Willan Blaycke came to the Golden Pear he did not see +Victorine. This was by no device of hers, though if she had considered +beforehand she could not better have helped on the impression she had +made on him than by letting him go away disappointed, having come hoping +to see her. She was away on a visit at the home of Pierre Gaspard the +miller, whose eldest daughter Annette was Victorine's one friend in the +parish. There was an eldest son, also, Pierre second, on whom +Mademoiselle Victorine had cast observant glances, and had already +thought to herself that "if nothing else turned up--but there was time +enough yet." Not so thought Pierre, who was madly in love with +Victorine, and was so put about by her cold and capricious ways with him +that he was fast coming to be good for nothing in the mill or on the +farm. But he is of no consequence in this account of the career of +Mademoiselle, only this,--that if it had not been for him she had not +probably been away from the Golden Pear on the occasion of Willan +Blaycke's second visit. Pierre had not shown himself at the inn for some +weeks, and Victorine was uneasy about him. Spite of her plans about a +much finer bird in the bush, she was by no means minded to lose the bird +she had in hand. She was too clear-sighted a young lady not to perceive +that it would be no bad thing to be ultimately Mistress Gaspard of the +mill,--no bad thing if she could not do better, of which she was as yet +far from sure. So she had inveigled her aunt into taking the notion into +her head that she needed change, and the two had ridden over to +Gaspard's for a three days' visit, the very day before Willan arrived.</p> + +<p>"I warrant me he was set aback when I did tell him as he alighted that I +feared me he would not be well served just at present, as there was no +woman about the house," said Victor, chuckling as he told Jeanne the +story. "He did give a little start,--not so little but that I saw it +well, though he fetched himself up with his pride in a trice, and said +loftily: 'I have no doubt all will be sufficient; it is but a bite of +supper and a bed that I require. I must go on at daybreak,' But Benoit +saw him all the evening pacing back and forth under the pear-tree, and +many times looking up at the shut casement of the window where he had +seen Victorine standing on the morning when he was last here."</p> + +<p>"Did he ask aught about her?" said Jeanne.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said Victor, contemptuously. "Dost take him for a fool? He will +be farther gone than he is yet, ere he will let either thee or me see +that the girl is aught to him."</p> + +<p>"I wish he had found her here," said Jeanne. "It was an ill bit of luck +that took her away; and that Pierre, he is like to go mad about her, +since these three days under one roof. I knew not he was so daft, or I +had not taken her there."</p> + +<p>"She were well wed to Pierre Gaspard," said Victor; "mated with one's +own degree is best mated, after all. What shall we say if the lad come +asking her hand? He will not ask twice, I can tell you that of a +Gaspard."</p> + +<p>"Trust the girl to keep him from asking till she be ready to say him yea +or nay," replied Jeanne. "I know not wherever the child hath learnt such +ways with men; surely in the convent she saw none but priests."</p> + +<p>"And are not priests men?" sneered Victor, with an evil laugh. "Faith, +and I think there is nought which other men teach which they do not +teach better!"</p> + +<p>"Fie, father! thou shouldst not speak ill of the clergy; it is bad +luck," said Jeanne. Jeanne was far honester of nature than either her +father or her child; she was not entirely without reverence, and as far +as she could, without too much inconvenience, kept good faith with her +religion.</p> + +<p>When Victorine heard that Willan Blaycke had been at the inn in their +absence, she shrugged her pretty shoulders, and said, laughingly, "Eh, +but that is good!"</p> + +<p>"Why sayest thou so?" replied Jeanne. "I say it is ill."</p> + +<p>"And I say it is good," retorted Victorine; and not another word could +Jeanne get out of her on the matter.</p> + +<p>Victorine was right. As Willan Blaycke rode away from the Golden Pear, +he was so vexed with the unexpected disappointment that he was in a mood +fit to do some desperate thing. He had tried with all his might to put +Victorine's face and voice and sweet little form out of his thoughts, +but it was beyond his power. She haunted him by day and by night,--worse +by night than by day,--for he dreamed continually of standing just the +other side of a window-sill across which Victorine reached snowy little +hands and laid them in his, and just as he was about to grasp them the +vision faded, and he waked up to find himself alone. Willan Blaycke had +never loved any woman. If he had,--if he had had even the least +experience in the way of passionate fancies, he could have rated this +impression which Victorine had produced on him for what it was worth and +no more, and taking counsel of his pride have waited till the discomfort +of it should have passed away. But he knew no better than to suppose +that because it was so keen, so haunting, it must last forever. He was +almost appalled at the condition in which he found himself. It more than +equalled all the descriptions which he had read of unquenchable love. He +could not eat; he could not occupy himself with any affairs: all +business was tedious to him, and all society irksome. He lay awake long +hours, seeing the arch black eyes and rosy cheeks and piquant little +mouth; worn out by restlessness, he slept, only to see the eyes and +cheeks and mouth more vividly. It was all to no purpose that he reasoned +with himself,--that he asked himself sternly a hundred times a day,--</p> + +<p>"Wilt thou take the granddaughter of Victor Dubois to be the mother of +thy children? Is it not enough that thy father disgraced his name for +that blood? Wilt thou do likewise?"</p> + +<p>The only answer which came to all these questions was Victorine's soft +whisper: "Oh, if thou didst but know, sir, how I wish myself safe back +in the convent!" and, "Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister +Clarice did tell me."</p> + +<p>"Poor little girl!" he said; "she is of their blood, but not of their +sort. Her mother was doubtless a good and pure woman, even though she +had not good birth or breeding; and this child hath had good training +from the Sisters in the convent. She is of a most ladylike bearing, and +has a fine sense of all which is proper and becoming, else would she not +so dislike the ways of an inn, and have such fear of the men that gaze +on her there."</p> + +<p>So touching is the blindness of those blinded by love! It is enough to +make one weep sometimes to see it,--to see, as in this instance of +Willan Blaycke, an upright, modest, and honest gentleman creating out of +the very virtues of his own nature the being whom he will worship, and +then clothing this ideal with a bit of common clay, of immodest and +ill-behaved flesh, which he hath found ready-made to his hand, and full +of the snare of good looks.</p> + +<p>When Willan Blaycke rode away this time from the Golden Pear, he was, as +we say, in a mood ready to do some desperate thing, he was so vexed and +disappointed. What he did do, proved it; he turned his horse and rode +straight for Gaspard's mill. The artful Benoit had innocently dropped +the remark, as he was holding the stirrup for Willan to mount, that +Mistress Jeanne and her niece were at Pierre Gaspard's; that for his +part he wished them back,--there was no luck about a house without a +woman in it.</p> + +<p>Willan Blaycke made some indifferent reply, as if all that were nothing +to him, and galloped off. But before he had gone five miles Benoit's +leaven worked, and he turned into a short-cut lane he knew which led to +the mill. He did not stop to ask himself what he should do there; he +simply galloped on towards Victorine. It was only a couple of leagues to +the mill, and its old tower and wheel were in sight before he thought of +its being near. Then he began to consider what errand he could make; +none occurred to him. He reined his horse up to a slow walk, and fell +into a reverie,--so deep a one that he did not see what he might have +seen had he looked attentively into a copse of poplars on a high bank +close to his road,--two young girls sitting on the ground peeling +slender willow stems for baskets. It was Annette Gaspard and Victorine; +and at the sound of a horse's feet they both leaned forward and looked +down into the road.</p> + +<p>"Oh, see, Victorine!" Annette cried; "a brave rider goes there. Who can +he be? I wonder if he goes to the mill? Perhaps my father will keep him +to dinner."</p> + +<p>At the first glance Victorine recognized Willan Blaycke, but she gave no +sign to her friend that she knew him.</p> + +<p>"He sitteth his horse like one asleep," she said, "or in a dream. I call +him not a brave rider. He hath forgotten something," she added; "see, he +is turning about!" And with keen disappointment the girls saw the +horseman wheel suddenly, and gallop back on the road he had come. At the +last moment, by a mighty effort, Willan had wrenched his will to the +decision that he would not seek Victorine at the mill.</p> + +<p>And this was why, when her aunt told her that he had been at the inn +during their absence, Victorine shrugged her shoulders, and said with so +pleased a laugh, "Eh! that is good." She understood by a lightning +intuition all which had happened,--that he had ridden towards the mill +seeking her, and had changed his mind at the last, and gone away. But +she kept her own counsel, told nobody that she had seen him, and said in +her mischievous heart, "He will be back before long."</p> + +<p>And so he was; but not even Victorine, with all her confidence in the +strength of the hold she had so suddenly acquired on him, could have +imagined how soon and with what purpose he would return. On the evening +of the sixth day, just at sunset, he appeared, walking with his +saddle-bags on his shoulders and leading his horse. The beast limped +badly, and had evidently got a sore hurt. Old Benoit was standing in the +arched entrance of the courtyard as they approached.</p> + +<p>"Marry, but that beast is in a bad way!" he exclaimed, and went to meet +them. Benoit loved a horse; and Willan Blaycke's black stallion was a +horse to which any man's heart might well go out, so knowing, docile, +proud, and swift was the creature, and withal most beautifully made. The +poor thing went haltingly enough now, and every few minutes stopped and +looked around piteously into his master's face.</p> + +<p>"And the man doth look as distressed as the beast," thought Benoit, as +he drew near; "it is a good man that so loves an animal." And Benoit +warmed toward Willan as he saw his anxious face.</p> + +<p>If Benoit had only known! No wonder Willan's face was sorrow-stricken! +It was he himself that had purposely lamed the stallion, that he might +have plain and reasonable excuse for staying at the Golden Pear some +days. He had not meant to hurt the poor creature so much, and his +conscience pricked him horribly at every step the horse took. He patted +him on his neck, spoke kindly to him, and did all in his power to atone +for his cruelty. That all was very little, however, for each step was +torture to the beast; his fore feet were nearly bleeding. This was what +Willan had done: the day before he had taken off two of the horse's +shoes, and then galloped fast over miles of rough and stony road. The +horse had borne himself gallantly, and shown no fatigue till nightfall, +when he suddenly went lame, and had grown worse in the night, so that +Willan had come very near having to lie by at an inn some leagues to the +north, where he had no mind to stay. A heavy price he was paying for the +delight of looking on Victorine's face, he began to think, as he toiled +along on foot, mile after mile, the saddle-bags on his shoulders, and +the hot sun beating down on his head; but reach the Golden Pear that day +he would, and he did,--almost as footsore as the stallion. Neither +master nor beast was wonted to rough ways.</p> + +<p>"My horse is sadly lame," Willan said to Benoit as he came up. "He cast +two shoes yesterday, and I was forced to ride on, spite of it, for there +was no blacksmith on the road I came. I fear me thou canst not shoe him +to-night, his feet have grown so sore!"</p> + +<p>"No, nor to-morrow nor the day after," cried Benoit, taking up the +inflamed feet and looking at them closely. "It was a sin, sir, to ride +such a creature unshod; he is a noble steed."</p> + +<p>"Nay, I have not ridden a step to-day," answered Willan, "and I am +wellnigh as sore as he. We have come all the way from the north +boundary,--a matter of some six leagues, I think,--from the inn of Jean +Gauvois."</p> + +<p>"But he is a farrier himself!" cried Benoit. "How let he the beast go +out like this?"</p> + +<p>"It was I forbade him to touch the horse," replied the wily Willan. "He +did lame a good mare for me once, driving a nail into the quick. I +thought the horse would be better to walk this far and get thy more +skilful handling. There is not a man in this country, they tell me, can +shoe a horse so well as thou. Dost thou not know some secret of +healing," he continued, "by which thou canst harden the feet, so that +they will be fit to shoe to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>Benoit shook his head. "Thy horse hath been too tenderly reared," he +said. "A hurt goes harder with him than with our horses. But I will do +my best, sir. I doubt not it will inconvenience thee much to wait here +till he be well. If thou couldst content thee with a beast sorry to look +at, but like the wind to go, we have a nag would carry thee along, and +thou couldst leave the stallion till thy return."</p> + +<p>"But I come not back this way," replied Willan, strangely ready with his +lies, now he had once undertaken the rôle of a manoeuvrer. "I go far +south, even down to the harbors of the sound. I must bide the beast's +time now. He hath made time for me many a day, and I do assure you, good +Benoit, I love him as if he were my brother."</p> + +<p>"Ay," replied the ostler; "so thought I when I saw thee bent under thy +saddle-bags and leading the horse by the rein. It's an evil man likes +not his beast. We say in Normandy, sir,--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "'Evil master to good beast,<br /> + Serve him ill at every feast!'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"So he deserves," replied Willan, heartily; and in his heart he added, +"I hope I shall not get my deserts."</p> + +<p>Benoit led the poor horse away toward the stables, and Willan entered +the house. No one was to be seen. Benoit had forgotten to tell him that +no one was at home except Victorine. It was a market-day at St. Urban's; +and Victor and Jeanne had gone for the day, and would not be back till +late in the evening.</p> + +<p>Willan roamed on from room to room,--through the bar-room, the +living-room, the kitchen; all were empty, silent. As he retraced his +steps he stopped for a second at the foot of the stairs which led from +the living-room to the narrow passage-way overhead.</p> + +<p>Victorine was in her aunt's room, and heard the steps. "Who is there?" +she called. Willan recognized her voice; he considered a second what he +should reply.</p> + +<p>"Benoit! is it thou?" Victorine called again impatiently; and the next +minute she bounded down the stairway, crying, "Why dost thou terrify me +so, thou bad Benoit, not answering me when I--" She stopped, face to +face with Willan Blaycke, and gave a cry of honest surprise.</p> + +<p>"Ah! but is it really thou?" she said, the rosy color mounting all over +her face as she recollected how she was attired. She had been asleep +all the warm afternoon, and had on only a white petticoat and a short +gown of figured stuff, red and white. Her hair was falling over her +shoulders. Willan's heart gave a bound as he looked at her. Before he +had fairly seen her, she had turned to fly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is I,--it is I," he called after her. "Wilt thou not come +back?"</p> + +<p>"Nay," answered Victorine, from the upper stair; "that I may not do, for +the house is alone." Victorine was herself now, and was wise enough not +to go quite out of sight. She looked entrancing between the dark wooden +balustrades, one slender hand holding to them, and the other catching up +part of her hair. "When my aunt returns, if she bids me to wait at +supper I shall see thee." And Victorine was gone.</p> + +<p>"Then sing for me at thy window," entreated Willan.</p> + +<p>"I know not the whole of any song," cried Victorine; but broke, as she +said it, into a snatch of a carol which seemed to the poor infatuated +man at the foot of the stairway like the song of an angel. He hurried +out, and threw himself down under the pear-tree where he had lain +before. The blossoms had all fallen from the pear-tree now, and through +the thinned branches he could see Victorine's window distinctly. She +could see him also.</p> + +<p>"It would be no hard thing to love such a man as he, methinks," she said +to herself as she went on leisurely weaving the thick braids of her +hair, and humming a song just low enough for Willan to half hear and +half lose the words.</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Once in a hedge a bird went singing,<br /> + Singing because there was nobody near.<br /> + Close to the hedge a voice came crying,<br /> + 'Sing it again! I am waiting to hear.<br /> + Sing it forever! 'T is sweet to hear.'</p> + +<p> "Never again that bird went singing<br /> + Till it was surer that no one was near.<br /> + Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting,<br /> + Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear.<br /> + Sing it again! It was sweet to hear.'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"I wonder if Sister Clarice's lover had asked her to sing, as Willan +Blaycke just now asked me, that she did make this song," thought +Victorine. "It hath a marvellous fitness, surely." And she repeated the +last three lines.</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting,<br /> + Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear.<br /> + Sing it again! It was sweet to hear.'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"But I should be silent like the bird, and not sing," she reflected, and +paused for a while. Willan listened patiently for a few moments. Then +growing impatient, he picked up a handful of turf and flung it up at the +window. Victorine laughed to herself as she heard it, but did not sing. +Another soft thud against the casement; no reply from Victorine. Then in +a moment more, in a rich deep voice, and a tune far sweeter than any +Victorine had sung, came these words:--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "Faint and weary toiled a pilgrim,<br /> + Faint and weary of his load;<br /> + Sudden came a sweet bird winging<br /> + Glad and swift across his road.</p> + +<p> "'Blessed songster!' cried the pilgrim,<br /> + 'Where is now the load I bore?<br /> + I forget it in thy singing;<br /> + Hearing thee, I faint no more,'</p> + +<p> "While he spoke the bird went winging<br /> + Higher still, and soared away;<br /> + 'Cruel songster!' cried the pilgrim,<br /> + 'Cruel songster not to stay!'</p> + +<p> "Was the songster cruel? Never!<br /> + High above some other road<br /> + Glad and swift he still was singing,<br /> + Lightening other pilgrims' load!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Victorine bent her head and listened intently to this song. It touched +the best side of her nature.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, that is a good song," she said to herself, "but it fitteth not +my singing. I make choice for whom I sing; I am not minded so to give +pleasure to all the world."</p> + +<p>She racked her brains to recall some song which would be as pertinent a +reply to Willan's song as his had been to hers; but she could think of +none. She was vexed; for the romance of this conversing by means of +songs pleased her mightily. At last, half in earnest and half in fun, +she struck boldly into a measure on which she would hardly have ventured +could she have seen the serious and tender expression on the face of her +listener under the pear-tree. As Willan caught line after line of the +rollicking measure, his countenance changed.</p> + +<p>"An elfish mood is upon her," he thought. "She doth hold herself so safe +in her chamber that she may venture on words she had not sung nearer at +hand. She is not without mischief in her blood, no doubt." And Willan's +own look began to grow less reverential and more eager as he listened.</p> + +<blockquote><p> "The bee is a fool in the summer;<br /> + He knows it when summer is flown:<br /> + He might, for all good of his honey,<br /> + As well have let flowers alone.</p> + +<p> "The butterfly, he is the wiser;<br /> + He uses his wings when they 're grown;<br /> + He takes his delight in the summer,<br /> + And dies when the summer is done.</p> + +<p> "A heart is a weight in the bosom;<br /> + A heart can be heavy as stone:<br /> + Oh, what is the use of a lover?<br /> + A maiden is better alone."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Victorine was a little frightened herself, as she sang this last stanza. +However, she said to herself: "I will bear me so discreetly at supper +that the man shall doubt his very ears if he have ever heard me sing +such words or not. It is well to perplex a man. The more he be +perplexed, the more he meditateth on thee; and the more he meditateth on +thee, the more his desire will grow, if it have once taken root."</p> + +<p>A very wise young lady in her generation was this graduate of a convent +where no men save priests ever came!</p> + +<p>Just as Victorine had sung the last verse of her song, she heard the +sound of wheels and voices on the road. Victor and Jeanne were coming +home. Willan heard the sounds also, and slowly arose from the ground and +sauntered into the courtyard. He had an instinct that it would be better +not to be seen under the pear-tree.</p> + +<p>Great was the satisfaction of Victor and Jeanne when they found that +Willan Blaycke was a guest in the inn; still greater when they learned +that he would be kept there for at least two days by the lameness of his +horse.</p> + +<p>"Thou need'st not make great haste with the healing of the beast," said +Victor to Benoit; "it might be a good turn to keep the man here for a +space." And the master exchanged one significant glance with his man, +and saw that he need say no more.</p> + +<p>There was no such specific understanding between Jeanne and Victorine. +From some perverse and roguish impulse the girl chose to take no counsel +in this game she had begun to play; but each woman knew that the other +comprehended the situation perfectly.</p> + +<p>When Victorine came into the dining-room to serve Willan Blaycke's +supper, she looked, to his eyes, prettier than ever. She wore the same +white gown and black silk apron with crimson lace she had worn before. +Her cheeks and her eyes were bright from the excitement of the +serenading and counter-serenading in which she had been engaged. Her +whole bearing was an inimitable blending of shyness and archness, +tempered by almost reverential respect. Willan Blaycke would have been +either more or less than mortal man if he had resisted it. He did +not,--he succumbed then and there and utterly to his love for Victorine; +and the next morning when breakfast was ready he electrified Victor +Dubois by saying, with a not wholly successful attempt at jocularity,--</p> + +<p>"Look you! your man tells me I am like to be kept here a matter of some +three days or more, before my horse be fit to bear me. Now, it irks me +to be the cause of so much trouble, seeing that I am the only traveller +in the house. I pray you that I may sit down with you all at meal-times, +as is your wont, and that you make no change in the manner of your +living by reason of my being in the house. I shall be better pleased +so."</p> + +<p>There was about as much command as request in Willan's manner; and after +some pretended hesitancy Victor yielded, only saying, by way of +breaking down the last barrier,--</p> + +<p>"My daughter hath desired not to see thee. I know not how she may take +this request of thine; it seemeth but reasonable unto me, and it will be +that saving of work for her. I think she may consent."</p> + +<p>Nothing but her love for Victorine would have induced Jeanne to sit +again at meat with her stepson, but for Victorine's sake Jeanne would +have done much harder things; and indeed, after the first few moments of +awkwardness had passed by, she found that she was much less +uncomfortable in Willan's presence than she had anticipated.</p> + +<p>Willan's own manner did much to bring this about. He was so deeply in +love with Victorine that it had already transformed his sentiments on +most points, and on none more than in regard to Jeanne. He thought no +better of her character than he had thought before; but he found himself +frequently recollecting, as he had never done before, or at least had +never done in a kindly way, that, after all, she had been his father's +wife for ten years, and it would perhaps have been a more dignified +thing in him to have attempted to make her continue in a style of living +suitable to his father's name than to have relegated her, as he had +done, to her original and lower social station.</p> + +<p>Jeanne's behavior towards him was very judicious. Affection is the best +teacher of tact in many an emergency in life; we see it every day among +ignorant and untaught people.</p> + +<p>Jeanne knew, or felt without knowing, that the less she appeared to be +conscious of anything unusual or unpleasant in this resumption of +familiar relations on the surface, between herself and Willan, the more +free his mind would be to occupy itself with Victorine; and she acted +accordingly. She never obtruded herself on his attention; she never +betrayed any antagonism toward him, or any recollection of the former +and different footing on which they had lived. A stranger sitting at the +table would not have dreamed, from anything in her manner to him, that +she had ever occupied any other position than that of the landlord's +daughter and landlady of the inn.</p> + +<p>A clear-sighted observer looking on at affairs in the Golden Pear for +the next three days would have seen that all the energies of both Victor +and Jeanne were bent to one end,--namely, leaving the coast clear for +Willan Blaycke to fall in love with Victorine. But all that Willan +thought was that Victor and his daughter were far quieter and modester +people than he had supposed, and seemed disposed to keep themselves to +themselves in a most proper fashion. It never crossed his mind that +there was anything odd in his finding Victorine so often and so long +alone in the living-room; in the uniform disappearance of both Victor +and Jeanne at an early hour in the evening. Willan was too much in love +to wonder at or disapprove of anything which gave him an opportunity of +talking with Victorine, or, still better, of looking at her.</p> + +<p>What he liked best was silently to watch her as she moved about, doing +her light duties in her own graceful way. He was not a voluble lover; he +was still too much bewildered at his own condition. Moreover, he had not +yet shaken himself free from the tormenting disapproval of his +conscience; he lost sight of that very fast, however, as the days sped +on. Victorine played her cards most admirably. She did not betray even +by a look that she understood that he loved her; she showed towards him +an open and honest admiration, and an eager interest in all that he said +or did,--an almost affectionate good-will, too, in serving his every +want, and trying to make the time of his detention pass pleasantly to +him.</p> + +<p>"It must be a sore trial, sir, for thee to be kept in a poor place like +this so many days. Benoit says that he thinks not thy horse can go +safely for yet some days," she said to Willan one morning. "Would it +amuse thee to ride over to Pierre Gaspard's mill to-day? If thou couldst +abide the gait of my grandfather's nag, I might go on my pony, and show +thee the way. The river is high now, and it is a fair sight to see the +white blossoms along the banks."</p> + +<p>Cunning Victorine! She had all sorts of motives in this proposition. She +thought it would be well to show Willan Blaycke to Pierre. "He may +discover that there are other men beside himself in the world," she +mused; and, "It would please me much to go riding up to the door for +Annette to see with the same brave rider she did so admire;" and, "There +are many ways to bring a man near one in riding through the woods." All +these and many more similar musings lay hid behind the innocent look she +lifted to Willan's face as she suggested the ride.</p> + +<p>It was only the third morning of Willan's stay at the inn; but the time +had been put to very good use. Already it had become natural to him to +come and go with Victorine,--to stay where she was, to seek her if she +were missing. Already he had learned the way up the outside staircase to +the platform where she kept her flowers and sometimes sat. He was living +in a dream,--going the way of all men, head-long, blindfold, into a life +of which he knew and could know nothing.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, and that is what I should like best of all things," he replied +to Victorine. "Will thy aunt let thee go?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked Victorine, opening her eyes wide in astonishment. "I +ride all over the parish on my pony alone."</p> + +<p>"Stupid of me!" ejaculated Willan, inwardly: "as if these people could +know any scruples about etiquette!"</p> + +<p>"These people," as Willan contemptuously called them, stood at the door +of the inn, and watched him riding away with Victorine with hardly +disguised exultation. Not till the riders were fairly out of sight did +Victor venture to turn his face toward Jeanne's. Then, bursting into a +loud laugh, he clapped Jeanne on the shoulder, and said: "We'll see thee +grandmother of thy husband's grandchildren yet, Jeanne. Ha! ha!"</p> + +<p>Jeanne flushed. She was not without a sense of shame. Her love for +Victorine made her sensitive to the stain on her birth.</p> + +<p>"Thinkest thou it could ever be known?" she asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Never," replied her father,--"never; 'tis as safe as if we were all +dead. And for that, the living are safer than the dead, if there be +tight enough lock on their mouths."</p> + +<p>"He doth seem to be as much in love as one need," said Jeanne.</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Victor, "more than ever his father was with thee."</p> + +<p>"Canst thou not let that alone?" said Jeanne, angrily. "Surely it is +long enough gone by, and small profit came of it."</p> + +<p>"Not so, not so, daughter," replied Victor, soothingly; "if we can but +set the girl in thy shoes, thou didst not wear thine for nought, even +though they pinched thee for a time."</p> + +<p>"That they did," retorted Jeanne; "it gives me a cramp now but to +remember them."</p> + +<p>Willan and Victorine galloped merrily along the river road. The woods +were sweet with spring fragrances; great thickets of dogwood trees were +white with flowers; mossy hillocks along the roadside were pink with the +dainty bells of the Linnaea. The road was little more than a woodman's +path, and curved now right, now left, in seeming caprice; now forded a +stream, now came out into a cleared field, again plunged back into dense +groves of larch and pine.</p> + +<p>"Never knew I that the woods were so beautiful thus early in the year," +said the honest Willan.</p> + +<p>"Nor I, till to-day," said the artful Victorine, who knew well enough +what Willan did not know himself.</p> + +<p>"Dost thou ride here alone?" asked Willan. "It is a wild place for thee +to be alone."</p> + +<p>"If I came not alone, I could not come at all," replied Victorine, +sorrowfully. "My grandfather is too busy, and my aunt likes not to ride +except she must, on a market day or to go to church. No one but thou +hast ever walked or ridden with me," she added in a low voice, sighing; +"and now after two days or three thou wilt be gone."</p> + +<p>Willan sighed also, but did not speak. The words, "I will always ride by +thy side, Victorine," were on his lips, but he felt himself still +withheld from speaking them.</p> + +<p>The visit at the mill was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, +and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine riding +familiarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of the +richest men in the country, and a young man at that,--and a young man, +moreover, who looked and behaved as if he were in love with his +companion,--how could the poor miller be expected to be cordial and +unconstrained with such a sight before his eyes! Annette also was more +overawed even than Victorine had desired she should be by the sight of +the handsome stranger,--so overawed, and withal perhaps a little +curious, that she was dumb and awkward; and as for <i>Mère</i> Gaspard, she +never under any circumstances had a word to say. So the visit was very +stupid, and everybody felt ill at ease,--especially Willan, who had lost +his temper in the beginning at a speech of Pierre's to Victorine, which +seemed to his jealous sense too familiar.</p> + +<p>"I thought thou never wouldst take leave," he said ill-naturedly to +Victorine, as they rode away.</p> + +<p>Victorine turned towards him with an admirably counterfeited expression +of surprise. "Oh, sir," she said, "I did think I ought to wait for thee +to take leave. I was dying with the desire I had to be back in the woods +again; and only when I could not bear it any longer, did I bethink me to +say that my aunt expected us back to dinner."</p> + +<p>Long they lingered on the river-banks on their way home. Even the +plotting brain of Victorine was not insensible to the charm of the sky, +the air, the budding foliage, and the myriads of blossoms. "Oh, sir," +she said, "I think there never was such a day as this before!"</p> + +<p>"I know there never was," replied Willan, looking at her with an +expression which was key to his words. But the daughter of Jeanne Dubois +was not to be wooed by any vague sentimentalisms. There was one sentence +which she was intently waiting to hear Willan Blaycke speak. Anything +short of that Mademoiselle Victorine was too innocent to comprehend.</p> + +<p>"Sweet child!" thought Willan to himself, "she doth not know the speech +of lovers. I mistrust that if I wooed her outright, she would be +afraid."</p> + +<p>It was long past noon when they reached the Golden Pear. Dinner had +waited till the hungry Victor and Jeanne could wait no longer; but a +very pretty and dainty little repast was ready for Willan and Victorine. +As she sat opposite him at the table, so bright and beaming, her whole +face full of pleasure, Willan leaned both his arms on the table and +looked at her in silence for some minutes.</p> + +<p>"Victorine!" he said. Victorine started. She was honestly very hungry, +and had been so absorbed in eating her dinner she had not noticed +Willan's look. She dropped her knife and sprang up.</p> + +<p>"What is it, sir?" she said; "what shall I fetch?" Her instantaneous +resumption of the serving-maid's relation to him jarred on Willan at +that second indescribably, and shut down like a floodgate on the words +he was about to speak.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, nothing," said he. "I was only going to say that thou must +sleep this afternoon; thou art tired."</p> + +<p>"Nay, I am not tired," said Victorine, petulantly. "What is a matter of +six leagues of a morning? I could ride it again between this and sunset, +and not be tired."</p> + +<p>But she was tired, and she did sleep, though she had not meant to do so +when she threw herself on her bed, a little later; she had meant only to +rest herself for a few minutes, and then in a fresh toilette return to +Willan. But she slept on and on until after sunset, and Willan wandered +aimlessly about, wondering what had become of her. Jeanne saw him, but +forebore to take any note of his uneasiness. She had looked in upon +Victorine in her slumber, and was well content that it should be so.</p> + +<p>"The girl will awake refreshed and rosy," thought Jeanne; "and it will +do no harm, but rather good, if he have missed her sorely all the +afternoon."</p> + +<p>Supper was over, and the evening work all done when Victorine waked. It +was dusk. Rubbing her eyes, she sprang up and went to the window. Jeanne +heard her steps, and coming to the foot of the stairs called: "Thou +need'st not to come down; all is done. What shall I bring thee to eat?"</p> + +<p>"Why didst thou not waken me?" replied Victorine, petulantly; "I meant +not to sleep."</p> + +<p>"I thought the sleep was better," replied her aunt. "Thou didst look +tired, and it suits no woman's looks to be tired."</p> + +<p>Victorine was silent. She saw Willan walking up and down under the +pear-tree. She leaned out of her window and moved one of the +flower-pots. Willan looked up; in a second more he had bounded up the +staircase, and eagerly said: "Art thou there? Wilt thou never come +down?"</p> + +<p>Victorine was uncertain in her own mind what was the best thing to do +next; so she replied evasively: "Thou wert right, after all. I did not +feel myself tired, but I have slept until now."</p> + +<p>"Then thou art surely rested. Canst thou not come and walk with me in +the pear orchard?" said Willan.</p> + +<p>"I fear me I may not do that after nightfall," replied Victorine. "My +aunt would be angry."</p> + +<p>"She need not know," replied the eager Willan. "Thou canst come down by +this stairway, and it is already near dark."</p> + +<p>Victorine laughed a little low laugh. This pleased her. "Yes," she said, +"I have often come down by, that post from my window; but truly, I fear +I ought not to do it for thee. What should I say to my aunt if she +missed me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she thinks thee asleep," said Willan. "She told me at supper that +she would not waken thee."</p> + +<p>All of which Mistress Jeanne heard distinctly, standing midway on the +wide staircase, with Victorine's supper of bread and milk in her hand. +She had like to have spilled the whole bowlful of milk for laughing. But +she stood still, holding her breath lest Victorine should hear her, till +the conversation ceased, and she heard Victorine moving about in her +room again. Then she went in, and kissing Victorine, said: "Eat thy +supper now, and go to bed; it is late. Good-night. I'll wake thee early +enough in the morning to pay for not having called thee this afternoon. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>Then Jeanne went down to her own room, blew out her candle, and seated +herself at the window to hear what would happen.</p> + +<p>"My aunt's candle is out; she hath gone to bed," whispered Victorine, as +holding Willan's hand she stole softly down the outer stair. "I do doubt +much that I am doing wrong."</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay," whispered Willan. "Thou sweet one, what wrong can there be +in thy walking a little time with me? Thy aunt did let thee ride with me +all the day." And he tenderly guided Victorine's steps down the steep +stairs.</p> + +<p>"Pretty well! pretty well!" laughed Mistress Jeanne behind her casement; +and as soon as the sound of Willan's and Victorine's steps had died +away, she ran downstairs to tell Victor what had happened. Victor was +not so pleased as Jeanne; he did not share her confidence in Victorine's +character.</p> + +<p>"Sacre!" he said; "what wert thou thinking of? Dost want another niece +to be fetched up in a convent? Thou mayst thank thyself for it, if thou +art grandmother to one. I trust no man out of sight, and no girl. The +man's in love with the girl, that is plain; but he means no marrying."</p> + +<p>"That thou dost not know," retorted Jeanne. "I tell thee he is an +honorable, high-minded man, and as pure as if he were but just now +weaned. I know him, and thou dost not. He will marry her, or he will +leave her alone."</p> + +<p>"We shall see," muttered the coarse old man as he walked away,--"we +shall see. Like mother, like child. I trust them not." And in a thorough +ill-humor Victor betook himself to the courtyard. What he heard there +did not reassure him. Old Benoit had seen Willan and Victorine going +down through the poplar copse toward the pear orchard. "And may the +saints forsake me," said Benoit, "if I do not think he had his arm +around her waist and her head on his shoulder. Think'st thou he will +marry her?"</p> + +<p>"Nay," growled Victor; "he's no fool. That Jeanne hath set her heart on +it, and thinketh it will come about; but not so I."</p> + +<p>"He seems of a rare fine-breeding and honorable speech," said Benoit.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," replied Victor, "words are quick said, and fine manners come +easy to some; but a man looks where he weds."</p> + +<p>"His father did not have chance for much looking," sneered Benoit.</p> + +<p>"This is another breed, even if his father begot him," replied Victor. +"He goeth no such way as that." And thoroughly disquieted, Victor +returned to the house to report to Jeanne what Benoit had seen. She was +still undisturbed.</p> + +<p>"Thou wilt see," was her only reply; and the two sat down together in +the porch to await the lovers' return. Hour after hour passed; even +Jeanne began to grow alarmed. It was long after midnight.</p> + +<p>"I fear some accident hath befallen them," she said at last. "Would it +be well, thinkest thou, to go in search of them?"</p> + +<p>"Not a step!" cried Victor. "He took her away, and he must needs bring +her back. We await them here. He shall see whether he may tamper with +the granddaughter of Victor Dubois."</p> + +<p>"Hush, father!" said Jeanne, "here they come."</p> + +<p>Walking very slowly, arm in arm, came Willan and Victorine. They had +evidently no purpose of entering the house clandestinely, but were +approaching the front door.</p> + +<p>"Hoity, toity!" muttered Victor; "he thinks he can lord it over us, +surely."</p> + +<p>"Be quiet, father!" entreated Jeanne. Her quick eye saw something new in +the bearing of both Willan and Victorine. But Victor was not to be +quieted. With an angry oath, he sprung forward from the porch, and began +to upbraid Willan in no measured tones.</p> + +<p>Willan lifted his right hand authoritatively. "Wait!" he said. "Do not +say what thou wilt repent, Victor Dubois. Thy granddaughter hath +promised to be my wife."</p> + +<p>So the new generation avenged the old; and Willan Blaycke, in the prime +of his cultured and fastidious manhood, fell victim to a spell less +coarsely woven but no less demoralizing than that which had imbittered +the last years of his father's life.</p> + +<p>[Footnote: Note.--"The Inn of the Golden Pear" includes three chapters +of a longer story entitled "Elspeth Pynevor,"--a story of such +remarkable vigor and promise, and planned on such noble and powerful +lines as to deepen regret that its author's death left it but half +finished. A single sentence has been added by another hand to round the +episode of Willan Blaycke's infatuation to conclusion.]</p> +</div></div> + + +<div class='chapter' id='ch02'> +<h2>The Mystery of Wilhelm Rütter.</h2> + +<p> + +It was long past dusk of an August evening. Farmer Weitbreck stood +leaning on the big gate of his barnyard, looking first up and then down +the road. He was chewing a straw, and his face wore an expression of +deep perplexity. These were troublous times in Lancaster County. Never +before had the farmers been so put to it for farm service; harvest-time +had come, and instead of the stream of laborers seeking employment, +which usually at this season set in as regularly as river freshets in +spring, it was this year almost impossible to hire any one.</p> + +<p>The explanation of this nobody knew or could divine; but the fact was +indisputable, and the farmers were in dismay,--nobody more so than +Farmer Weitbreck, who had miles of bottom-lands, in grain of one sort +and another, all yellow and nodding, and ready for the sickle, and +nobody but himself and his son John to swing scythe, sickle, or flail on +the place.</p> + +<p>"Never I am caught this way anoder year," thought he, as he gazed +wearily up and down the dark, silent road; "but that does to me no goot +this time that is now."</p> + +<p>Gustavus Weitbreck had lived so long on his Pennsylvania farm that he +even thought in English instead of in German, and, strangely enough, in +English much less broken and idiomatic than that which he spoke. But his +phraseology was the only thing about him that had changed. In modes of +feeling, habits of life, he was the same he had been forty years ago, +when he farmed a little plot of land, half wheat, half vineyard, in the +Mayence meadows in the fatherland,--slow, methodical, saving, stupid, +upright, obstinate. All these traits "Old Weitbreck," as he was called +all through the country, possessed to a degree much out of the ordinary; +and it was a combination of two of them--the obstinacy and the +savingness--which had brought him into his present predicament.</p> + +<p>In June he had had a good laborer,--one of the best known, and eagerly +sought by every farmer in the county; a man who had never yet been +beaten in a mowing-match or a reaping. By his help the haying had been +done in not much more than two thirds the usual time; but when John +Weitbreck, like a sensible fellow, said, "Now, we would better keep Alf +on till harvest; there is plenty of odds-and-ends work about the farm he +can help at, and we won't get his like again in a hurry," his father had +cried out,--</p> + +<p>"Mein Gott! It is that you tink I must be made out of money! I vill not +keep dis man on so big wages to do vat you call odd-and-end vork. We do +odd-and-end vork ourself."</p> + +<p>There was no discussion of the point. John Weitbreck knew better than +ever to waste his time and breath or temper in trying to change a +purpose of his father's or convince him of a mistake. But he bided his +time; and he would not have been human if he had not now taken secret +satisfaction, seeing his father's anxiety daily increase as the August +sun grew hotter and hotter, and the grain rattled in the husks waiting +to be reaped, while they two, straining their arms to the utmost, and in +long days' work, seemed to produce small impression on the great fields.</p> + +<p>"The women shall come work in field to-morrow," thought the old man, as +he continued his anxious reverie. "It is not that they sit idle all day +in house, when the wheat grows to rattle like the peas in pod. They can +help, the mütter and Carlen; that will be much help; they can do." And +hearing John's steps behind him, the old man turned and said,--</p> + +<p>"Johan, dere comes yet no man to reap. To-morrow must go in the field +Carlen and the mütter; it must. The wheat get fast too dry; it is more +as two men can do."</p> + +<p>John bit his lips. He was aghast. Never had he seen his mother and +sister at work in the fields. John had been born in America; and he was +American, not German, in his feeling about this. Without due +consideration he answered,--</p> + +<p>"I would rather work day and night, father, than see my mother and +sister in the fields. I will do it, too, if only you will not make them +go!"</p> + +<p>The old man, irritated by the secret knowledge that he had nobody but +himself to blame for the present dilemma, still more irritated, also, by +this proof of what was always exceedingly displeasing to him,--his son's +having adopted American standards and opinions,--broke out furiously +with a wrath wholly disproportionate to the occasion,--</p> + +<p>"You be tam, Johan Weitbreck. You tink we are fine gentlemen and ladies, +like dese Americans dat is too proud to vork vid hands. I say tam dis +country, vere day say all is alike, an' vork all; and ven you come here, +it is dat nobody vill vork, if he can help, and vimmins ish shame to be +seen vork. It is not shame to be seen vork; I vork, mein vife vork too, +an' my childrens vork too, py tam!"</p> + +<p>John walked away,--his only resource when his father was in a passion. +John occupied that hardest of all positions,--the position of a +full-grown, mature man in a father's home, where he is regarded as +nothing more than a boy.</p> + +<p>As he entered the kitchen and saw his pretty sister Carlen at the high +spinning-wheel, walking back and forth drawing the fine yarn between +her chubby fingers, all the while humming a low song to which the +whirring of the wheel made harmonious accompaniment, he thought to +himself bitterly: "Work, indeed! As if they did not work now longer than +we do, and quite as hard! She's been spinning ever since daylight, I +believe."</p> + +<p>"Is it hard work spinning, Liebchen?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Carlen turned her round blue eyes on him with astonishment. There was +something in his tone that smote vaguely on her consciousness. What +could he mean, asking such a question as that?</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "it is not hard exactly. But when you do it very long it +does make the arms ache, holding them so long in the same position; and +it tires one to stand all day!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," said John, "that is the way it tires one to reap; my back is near +broke with it to-day."</p> + +<p>"Has no one come to help yet?" she said.</p> + +<p>"No!" said John, angrily, "and that is what I told father when he let +Alf go. It is good enough for him for being so stingy and short-sighted; +but the brunt of it comes on me,--that's the worst of it. I don't see +what's got all the men. There have always been plenty round every year +till now."</p> + +<p>"Alf said he shouldn't be here next year," said Carlen, each cheek +showing a little signal of pink as she spoke; but it was a dim light the +one candle gave, and John did not see the flush. "He was going to the +west to farm; in Oregon, he said."</p> + +<p>"Ay, that's it!" replied John. "That's where everybody can go but me! +I'll be going too some day, Carlen. I can't stand things here. If it +weren't for you I'd have been gone long ago."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't leave mother and father for all the world, John," cried +Carlen, warmly, "and I don't think it would be right for you to! What +would father do with the farm without you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, why doesn't he see that, then, and treat me as a man ought to be +treated?" exclaimed John; "he thinks I'm no older than when he used to +beat me with the strap."</p> + +<p>"I think fathers and mothers are always that way," said the gentle, +cheery Carlen, with a low laugh. "The mother tells me each time how to +wind the warp, as she did when I was little; and she will always look +into the churn for herself. I think it is the way we are made. We will +do the same when we are old, John, and our children will be wondering at +us!"</p> + +<p>John laughed. This was always the way with Carlen. She could put a man +in good humor in a few minutes, however cross he felt in the beginning.</p> + +<p>"I won't, then!" he exclaimed. "I know I won't. If ever I have a son +grown, I'll treat him like a son grown, not like a baby."</p> + +<p>"May I be there to see!" said Carlen, merrily,--</p> + +<blockquote><p> "And you remember free<br /> + The words I said to thee.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Hold the candle here for me, will you, that's a good boy. While we have +talked, my yarn has tangled."</p> + +<p>As they stood close together, John holding the candle high over Carlen's +head, she bending over the tangled yarn, the kitchen door opened +suddenly, and their father came in, bringing with him a stranger,--a +young man seemingly about twenty-five years of age, tall, well made, +handsome, but with a face so melancholy that both John and Carlen felt a +shiver as they looked upon it.</p> + +<p>"Here now comes de hand, at last of de time, Johan," cried the old man. +"It vill be that all can vel be done now. And it is goot that he is from +mine own country. He cannot English speak, many vords; but dat is +nothing; he can vork. I tolt you dere vould be mans come!"</p> + +<p>John looked scrutinizingly at the newcomer. The man's eyes fell.</p> + +<p>"What is your name?" said John.</p> + +<p>"Wilhelm Rütter," he answered.</p> + +<p>"How long have you been in this country?"</p> + +<p>"Ten days."</p> + +<p>"Where are your friends?"</p> + +<p>"I haf none."</p> + +<p>"None?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>These replies were given in a tone as melancholy as the expression of +the face.</p> + +<p>Carlen stood still, her wheel arrested, the yarn between her thumb and +ringer, her eyes fastened on the stranger's face. A thrill of +unspeakable pity stirred her. So young, so sad, thus alone in the world; +who ever heard of such a fate?</p> + +<p>"But there were people who came with you in the ship?" said John. "There +is some one who knows who you are, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"No, no von dat knows," replied the newcomer.</p> + +<p>"Haf done vid too much questions," interrupted Farmer Weitbreck. "I haf +him asked all. He stays till harvest be done. He can vork. It is to be +easy see he can vork."</p> + +<p>John did not like the appearance of things. "Too much mystery here," he +thought. "However, it is not long he will be here, and he will be in the +fields all the time; there cannot be much danger. But who ever heard of +a man whom no human being knew?"</p> + +<p>As they sat at supper, Farmer Weitbreck and his wife plied Wilhelm with +questions about their old friends in Mayence. He was evidently familiar +with all the localities and names which they mentioned. His replies, +however, were given as far as possible in monosyllables, and he spoke no +word voluntarily. Sitting with his head bent slightly forward, his eyes +fixed on the floor, he had the expression of one lost in thoughts of the +gloomiest kind.</p> + +<p>"Make yourself to be more happy, mein lad," said the farmer, as he bade +him good-night and clapped him on the shoulder. "You haf come to house +vere is German be speaked, and is Germany in hearts; dat vill be to you +as friends."</p> + +<p>A strange look of even keener pain passed over the young man's face, and +he left the room hastily, without a word of good-night.</p> + +<p>"He's a surly brute!" cried John; "nice company he'll be in the field! I +believe I'd sooner have nobody!"</p> + +<p>"I think he has seen some dreadful trouble," said Carlen. "I wish we +could do something for him; perhaps his friends are all dead. I think +that must be it, don't you think so, mütter?"</p> + +<p>Frau Weitbreck was incarnate silence and reticence. These traits were +native in her, and had been intensified to an abnormal extent by thirty +years of life with a husband whose temper and peculiarities were such as +to make silence and reticence the sole conditions of peace and comfort. +To so great a degree had this second nature of the good frau been +developed, that she herself did not now know that it was a second +nature; therefore it stood her in hand as well as if she had been +originally born to it, and it would have been hard to find in Lancaster +County a more placid and contented wife than she. She never dreamed that +her custom of silent acquiescence in all that Gustavus said--of waiting +in all cases, small and great, for his decision--had in the outset been +born of radical and uncomfortable disagreements with him. And as for +Gustavus himself, if anybody had hinted to him that his frau could +think, or ever had thought, any word or deed of his other than right, he +would have chuckled complacently at that person's blind ignorance of the +truth.</p> + +<p>"Mein frau, she is goot," he said; "goot frau, goot mütter. American +fraus not goot so she; all de time talk and no vork. American fraus, +American mans, are sheep in dere house."</p> + +<p>But in regard to this young stranger, Frau Weitbreck seemed strangely +stirred from her usual phlegmatic silence. Carlen's appeal to her had +barely been spoken, when, rising in her place at the head of the table, +the old woman said solemnly, in German,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, Liebchen, he goes with the eyes like eyes of a man that saw always +the dead. It must be as you say, that all whom he loves are in the +grave. Poor boy! poor boy! it is now that one must be to him mother and +father and brother."</p> + +<p>"And sister too," said Carlen, warmly. "I will be his sister."</p> + +<p>"And I not his brother till he gets a civiller tongue in his head," said +John.</p> + +<p>"It is not to be brother I haf him brought," interrupted the old man. +"Alvays you vimmen are too soon; it may be he are goot, it may be he are +pad; I do not know. It is to vork I haf him brought."</p> + +<p>"Yes," echoed Frau Weitbreck; "we do not know."</p> + +<p>It was not so easy as Carlen and her mother had thought, to be like +mother and sister to Wilhelm. The days went by, and still he was as much +a stranger as on the evening of his arrival. He never voluntarily +addressed any one. To all remarks or even questions he replied in the +fewest words and curtest phrases possible. A smile was never seen on his +face. He sat at the table like a mute at a funeral, ate without lifting +his eyes, and silently rose as soon as his own meal was finished. He had +soon selected his favorite seat in the kitchen. It was on the right-hand +side of the big fireplace, in a corner. Here he sat all through the +evenings, carving, out of cows' horns or wood, boxes and small figures +such as are made by the peasants in the German Tyrol. In this work he +had a surprising skill. What he did with the carvings when finished, no +one knew. One night John said to him,--</p> + +<p>"I do not see, Wilhelm, how you can have so steady a hand after holding +the sickle all day. My arm aches, and my hand trembles so that I can but +just carry my cup to my lips."</p> + +<p>Wilhelm made no reply, but held his right hand straight out at arm's +length, with the delicate figure he was carving poised on his +forefinger. It stood as steady as on the firm ground.</p> + +<p>Carlen looked at him admiringly. "It is good to be so steady-handed," +she said; "you must be strong, Wilhelm."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I haf strong;" and went on carving.</p> + +<p>Nothing more like conversation than this was ever drawn from him. Yet he +seemed not averse to seeing people. He never left the kitchen till the +time came for bed; but when that came he slipped away silent, taking no +part in the general good-night unless he was forced to do so. Sometimes +Carlen, having said jokingly to John, "Now, I will make Wilhelm say +good-night to-night," succeeded in surprising him before he could leave +the room; but often, even when she had thus planned, he contrived to +evade her, and was gone before she knew it.</p> + +<p>He slept in a small chamber in the barn,--a dreary enough little place, +but he seemed to find it all sufficient. He had no possessions except +the leather pack he had brought on his back. This lay on the floor +unlocked; and when the good Frau Weitbreck, persuading herself that she +was actuated solely by a righteous, motherly interest in the young man, +opened it, she found nothing whatever there, except a few garments of +the commonest description,--no book, no paper, no name on any article. +It would not appear possible that a man of so decent a seeming as +Wilhelm could have come from Germany to America with so few personal +belongings. Frau Weitbreck felt less at ease in her mind about him after +she examined this pack.</p> + +<p>He had come straight from the ship to their house, he had said, when he +arrived; had walked on day after day, going he knew not whither, asking +mile by mile for work. He did not even know one State's name from +another. He simply chose to go south rather than north,--always south, +he said.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>He did not know.</p> + +<p>He was indeed strong. The sickle was in his hand a plaything, so +swift-swung that he seemed to be doing little more than simply striding +up and down the field, the grain falling to right and left at his steps. +From sunrise to sunset he worked tirelessly. The famous Alf had never +done so much in a day. Farmer Weitbreck chuckled as he looked on.</p> + +<p>"Vat now you say of dat Alf?" he said triumphantly to John; "vork he as +dis man? Oh, but he make swing de hook!"</p> + +<p>John assented unqualifiedly to this praise of Wilhelm's strength and +skill; but nevertheless he shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," he said, "I never saw his equal; but I like him not. What +carries he in his heart to be so sour? He is like a man bewitched. I +know not if there be such a thing as to be sold to the devil, as the +stories say; but if there be, on my word, I think Wilhelm has made some +such bargain. A man could not look worse if he had signed himself away."</p> + +<p>"I see not dat he haf fear in his face," replied the old man.</p> + +<p>"No," said John, "neither do I see fear. It is worse than fear. I would +like to see his face come alive with a fear. He gives me cold shivers +like a grave underfoot. I shall be glad when he is gone."</p> + +<p>Farmer Weitbreck laughed. He and his son were likely to be again at +odds on the subject of a laborer.</p> + +<p>"But he vill not go. I haf said to him to stay till Christmas, maybe +always."</p> + +<p>John's surprise was unbounded.</p> + +<p>"To stay! Till Christmas!" he cried. "What for? What do we need of a man +in the winter?"</p> + +<p>"It is not dat to feed him is much, and all dat he make vid de knife is +mine. It is home he vants, no oder ting; he vork not for money."</p> + +<p>"Father," said John, earnestly, "there must be something wrong about +that man. I have thought so from the first. Why should he work for +nothing but his board,--a great strong fellow like that, that could make +good day's wages anywhere? Don't keep him after the harvest is over. I +can't bear the sight of him."</p> + +<p>"Den you can turn de eyes to your head von oder way," retorted his +father. "I find him goot to see; and," after a pause, "so do Carlen."</p> + +<p>John started. "Good heavens, father!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you need not speak by de heavens, mein son!" rejoined the old man, +in a taunting tone. "I tink I can mine own vay, vidout you to be help. I +was not yesterday born!"</p> + +<p>John was gone. Flight was his usual refuge when he felt his temper +becoming too much for him; but now his steps were quickened by an +impulse of terrible fear. Between him and his sister had always been a +bond closer than is wont to link brother and sister. Only one year apart +in age, they had grown up together in an intimacy like that of twins; +from their cradles till now they had had their sports, tastes, joys, +sorrows in common, not a secret from each other since they could +remember. At least, this was true of John; was he to find it no longer +true of Carlen? He would know, and that right speedily. As by a flash of +lightning he thought he saw his father's scheme,--if Carlen were to wed +this man, this strong and tireless worker, this unknown, mysterious +worker, who wanted only shelter and home and cared not for money, what +an invaluable hand would be gained on the farm! John groaned as he +thought to himself how little anything--any doubt, any misgiving, +perhaps even an actual danger--would in his father's mind outweigh the +one fact that the man did not "vork for money."</p> + +<p>As he walked toward the house, revolving these disquieting conjectures, +all his first suspicion and antagonism toward Wilhelm revived in full +force, and he was in a mood well calculated to distort the simplest +acts, when he suddenly saw sitting in the square stoop at the door the +two persons who filled his thoughts, Wilhelm and Carlen,--Wilhelm +steadily at work as usual at his carving, his eyes closely fixed on it, +his figure, as was its wont, rigidly still; and Carlen,--ah! it was an +unlucky moment John had taken to search out the state of Carlen's +feeling toward Wilhelm,--Carlen sitting in a posture of dreamy reverie, +one hand lying idle in her lap holding her knitting, the ball rolling +away unnoticed on the ground; her other arm thrown carelessly over the +railing of the stoop, her eyes fixed on Wilhelm's bowed head.</p> + +<p>John stood still and watched her,--watched her long. She did not move. +She was almost as rigidly still as Wilhelm himself. Her eyes did not +leave his face. One might safely sit in that way by the hour and gaze +undetected at Wilhelm. He rarely looked up except when he was addressed.</p> + +<p>After standing thus a few moments John turned away, bitter and sick at +heart. What had he been about, that he had not seen this? He, the loving +comrade brother, to be slower of sight than the hard, grasping parent!</p> + +<p>"I will ask mother," he thought. "I can't ask Carlen now! It is too +late."</p> + +<p>He found his mother in the kitchen, busy getting the bountiful supper +which was a daily ordinance in the Weitbreck religion. To John's +sharpened perceptions the fact that Carlen was not as usual helping in +this labor loomed up into significance.</p> + +<p>"Why does not Carlen help you, mütter?" he said hastily. "What is she +doing there, idling with Wilhelm in the stoop?"</p> + +<p>Frau Weitbreck smiled. "It is not alvays to vork, ven one is young," she +said. "I haf not forget!" And she nodded her head meaningly.</p> + +<p>John clenched his hands. Where had he been? Who had blinded him? How had +all this come about, so soon and without his knowledge? Were his father +and his mother mad? He thought they must be.</p> + +<p>"It is a shame for that Wilhelm to so much as put his eyes on Carlen's +face," he cried. "I think we are fools; what know we about him? I doubt +him in and out. I wish he had never darkened our doors."</p> + +<p>Frau Weitbreck glanced cautiously at the open door. She was frying sweet +cakes in the boiling lard. Forgetting everything in her fear of being +overheard, she went softly, with the dripping skimmer in her hand, +across the kitchen, the fat falling on her shining floor at every step, +and closed the door. Then she came close to her son, and said in a +whisper, "The fader think it is goot." At John's angry exclamation she +raised her hand in warning.</p> + +<p>"Do not loud spraken," she whispered; "Carlen will hear."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, she shall hear!" cried John, half beside himself. "It is +high time she did hear from somebody besides you and father! I reckon +I've got something to say about this thing, too, if I'm her brother. +By----, no tramp like that is going to marry my sister without I know +more about him!" And before the terrified old woman could stop him, he +had gone at long strides across the kitchen, through the best room, and +reached the stoop, saying in a loud tone: "Carlen! I want to see you."</p> + +<p>Carlen started as one roused from sleep. Seeing her ball lying at a +distance on the ground, she ran to pick it up, and with scarlet cheeks +and uneasy eyes turned to her brother.</p> + +<p>"Yes, John," she said, "I am coming."</p> + +<p>Wilhelm did not raise his eyes, or betray by any change of feature that +he had heard the sound or perceived the motion. As Carlen passed him her +eyes involuntarily rested on his bowed head, a world of pity, +perplexity, in the glance. John saw it, and frowned.</p> + +<p>"Come with me," he said sternly,--"come down in the pasture; I want to +speak to you."</p> + +<p>Carlen looked up apprehensively into his face; never had she seen there +so stern a look.</p> + +<p>"I must help mütter with the supper," she said, hesitating.</p> + +<p>John laughed scornfully. "You were helping with the supper, I suppose, +sitting out with yon tramp!" And he pointed to the stoop.</p> + +<p>Carlen had, with all her sunny cheerfulness, a vein of her father's +temper. Her face hardened, and her blue eyes grew darker.</p> + +<p>"Why do you call Wilhelm a tramp," she said coldly.</p> + +<p>"What is he then, if he is not a tramp?" retorted John.</p> + +<p>"He is no tramp," she replied, still more doggedly.</p> + +<p>"What do you know about him?" said John.</p> + +<p>Carlen made no reply. Her silence irritated John more than any words +could have done; and losing self-control, losing sight of prudence, he +poured out on her a torrent of angry accusation and scornful reproach.</p> + +<p>She stood still, her eyes fixed on the ground. Even in his hot wrath, +John noticed this unwonted downcast look, and taunted her with it.</p> + +<p>"You have even caught his miserable hangdog trick of not looking anybody +in the face," he cried. "Look up now! look me in the eye, and say what +you mean by all this."</p> + +<p>Thus roughly bidden, Carlen raised her blue eyes and confronted her +brother with a look hardly less angry than his own.</p> + +<p>"It is you who have to say to me what all this means that you have been +saying," she cried. "I think you are out of your senses. I do not know +what has happened to you." And she turned to walk back to the house.</p> + +<p>John seized her shoulders in his brawny hands, and whirled her round +till she faced him again.</p> + +<p>"Tell me the truth!" he said fiercely; "do you love this Wilhelm?"</p> + +<p>Carlen opened her lips to reply. At that second a step was heard, and +looking up they saw Wilhelm himself coming toward them, walking at his +usual slow pace, his head sunk on his breast, his eyes on the ground. +Great waves of blushes ran in tumultuous flood up Carlen's neck, cheeks, +forehead. John took his hands from her shoulders, and stepped back with +a look of disgust and a smothered ejaculation. Wilhelm, hearing the +sound, looked up, regarded them with a cold, unchanged eye, and turned +in another direction.</p> + +<p>The color deepened on Carlen's face. In a hard and bitter tone she said, +pointing with a swift gesture to Wilhelm's retreating form: "You can see +for yourself that there is nothing between us. I do not know what craze +has got into your head." And she walked away, this time unchecked by her +brother. He needed no further replies in words. Tokens stronger than any +speech had answered him. Muttering angrily to himself, he went on down +to the pasture after the cows. It was a beautiful field, more like New +England than Pennsylvania; a brook ran zigzagging through it, and here +and there in the land were sharp lifts where rocks cropped out, making +miniature cliffs overhanging some portions of the brook's-course. Gray +lichens and green mosses grew on these rocks, and belts of wild flag and +sedges surrounded their base. The cows, in a warm day, used to stand +knee-deep there, in shade of the rocks.</p> + +<p>It was a favorite place of Wilhelm's. He sometimes lay on the top of one +of these rocks the greater part of the night, looking down into the +gliding water or up into the sky. Carlen from her window had more than +once seen him thus, and passionately longed to go down and comfort his +lonely sorrow.</p> + +<p>It was indeed true, as she had said to her brother, that there was +"nothing between" her and Wilhelm. Never a word had passed; never a look +or tone to betray that he knew whether she were fair or not,--whether +she lived or not. She came and went in his presence, as did all others, +with no more apparent relation to the currents of his strange veiled +existence than if they or he belonged to a phantom world. But it was +also true that never since the first day of his mysterious coming had +Wilhelm been long absent from Carlen's thoughts; and she did indeed find +him--as her father's keen eyes, sharpened by greed, had observed--good +to look upon. That most insidious of love's allies, pity, had stormed +the fortress of Carlen's heart, and carried it by a single charge. What +could a girl give, do, or be, that would be too much for one so +stricken, so lonely as was Wilhelm! The melancholy beauty of his face, +his lithe figure, his great strength, all combined to heighten this +impression, and to fan the flames of the passion in Carlen's virgin +soul. It was indeed, as John had sorrowfully said to himself, "too late" +to speak to Carlen.</p> + +<p>As John stood now at the pasture bars, waiting for the herd of cows, +slow winding up the slope from the brook, he saw Wilhelm on the rocks +below. He had thrown himself down on his back, and lay there with his +arms crossed on his breast. Presently he clasped both hands over his +eyes as if to shut out a sight that he could no longer bear. Something +akin to pity stirred even in John's angry heart as he watched him.</p> + +<p>"What can it be," he said, "that makes him hate even the sky? It may be +it is a sweetheart he has lost, and he is one of that strange kind of +men who can love but once; and it is loving the dead that makes him so +like one dead himself. Poor Carlen! I think myself he never so much as +sees her."</p> + +<p>A strange reverie, surely, for the brother who had so few short moments +ago been angrily reproaching his sister for the disgrace and shame of +caring for this tramp. But the pity was short-lived in John's bosom. His +inborn distrust and antagonism to the man were too strong for any +gentler sentiment toward him to live long by their side. And when the +family gathered at the supper-table he fixed upon Wilhelm so suspicious +and hostile a gaze that even Wilhelm's absent mind perceived it, and he +in turn looked inquiringly at John, a sudden bewilderment apparent in +his manner. It disappeared, however, almost immediately, dying away in +his usual melancholy absorption. It had produced scarce a ripple on the +monotonous surface of his habitual gloom. But Carlen had perceived all, +both the look on John's face and the bewilderment on Wilhelm's; and it +roused in her a resentment so fierce toward John, she could not forbear +showing it. "How cruel!" she thought. "As if the poor fellow had not all +he could bear already without being treated unkindly by us!" And she +redoubled her efforts to win Wilhelm's attention and divert his +thoughts, all in vain; kindness and unkindness glanced off alike, +powerless, from the veil in which he was wrapped.</p> + +<p>John sat by with roused attention and sharpened perception, noting all. +Had it been all along like this? Where had his eyes been for the past +month? Had he too been under a spell? It looked like it. He groaned in +spirit as he sat silently playing with his food, not eating; and when +his father said, "Why haf you not appetite, Johan?" he rose abruptly, +pushed back his chair, and leaving the table without a word went out and +down again into the pasture, where the dewy grass and the quivering +stars in the brook shimmered in the pale light of a young moon. To John, +also, the mossy rocks in this pasture were a favorite spot for rest and +meditation. Since the days when he and Carlen had fished from their +edges, with bent pins and yarn, for minnows, he had loved the place: +they had spent happy hours enough there to count up into days; and not +the least among the innumerable annoyances and irritations of which he +had been anxious in regard to Wilhelm was the fact that he too had +perceived the charm of the field, and chosen it for his own melancholy +retreat.</p> + +<p>As he seated himself on one of the rocks, he saw a figure gliding +swiftly down the hill.</p> + +<p>It was Carlen.</p> + +<p>As she drew near he looked at her without speaking, but the loving girl +was not repelled. Springing lightly to the rock, she threw her arms +around his neck, and kissing him said: "I saw you coming down here, +John, and I ran after you. Do not be angry with me, brother; it breaks +my heart."</p> + +<p>A sudden revulsion of shame for his unjust suspicion filled John with +tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Mein Schwester," he said fondly,--they had always the habit of using +the German tongue for fond epithets,--"mein Schwester klein, I love you +so much I cannot help being wretched when I see you in danger, but I am +not angry."</p> + +<p>Nestling herself close by his side, Carlen looked over into the water.</p> + +<p>"This is the very rock I fell off of that day, do you remember?" she +said; "and how wet you got fishing me out! And oh, what an awful beating +father gave you! and I always thought it was wicked, for if you had not +pulled me out I should have drowned."</p> + +<p>"It was for letting you fall in he beat me," laughed John; and they +both grew tender and merry, recalling the babyhood times.</p> + +<p>"How long, long ago!" cried Carlen.</p> + +<p>"It seems only a day," said John.</p> + +<p>"I think time goes faster for a man than for a woman," sighed Carlen. +"It is a shorter day in the fields than in the house."</p> + +<p>"Are you not content, my sister?" said John.</p> + +<p>Carlen was silent.</p> + +<p>"You have always seemed so," he said reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"It is always the same, John," she murmured. "Each day like every other +day. I would like it to be some days different."</p> + +<p>John sighed. He knew of what this new unrest was born. He longed to +begin to speak of Wilhelm, and yet he knew not how. Now that, after +longer reflection, he had become sure in his own mind that Wilhelm cared +nothing for his sister, he felt an instinctive shrinking from +recognizing to himself, or letting it be recognized between them, that +she unwooed had learned to love. His heart ached with dread of the +suffering which might be in store for her.</p> + +<p>Carlen herself cut the gordian knot.</p> + +<p>"Brother," she whispered, "why do you think Wilhelm is not good?"</p> + +<p>"I said not that, Carlen," he replied evasively. "I only say we know +nothing; and it is dangerous to trust where one knows nothing."</p> + +<p>"It would not be trust if we knew," answered the loyal girl. "I believe +he is good; but, John, John, what misery in his eyes! Saw you ever +anything like it?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied; "never. Has he never told you anything about himself, +Carlen?"</p> + +<p>"Once," she answered, "I took courage to ask him if he had relatives in +Germany; and he said no; and I exclaimed then, 'What, all dead!' 'All +dead,' he answered, in such a voice I hardly dared speak again, but I +did. I said: 'Well, one might have the terrible sorrow to lose all one's +relatives. It needs only that three should die, my father and mother and +my brother,--only three, and two are already old,--and I should have no +relatives myself; but if one is left without relatives, there are always +friends, thank God!' And he looked at me,--he never looks at one, you +know; but he looked at me then as if I had done a sin to speak the word, +and he said, 'I have no friends. They are all dead too,' and then went +away! Oh, brother, why cannot we win him out of this grief? We can be +good friends to him; can you not find out for me what it is?"</p> + +<p>It was a cruel weapon to use, but on the instant John made up his mind +to use it. It might spare Carlen grief, in the end.</p> + +<p>"I have thought," he said, "that it might be for a dead sweetheart he +mourned thus. There are men, you know, who love that way and never smile +again."</p> + +<p>Short-sighted John, to have dreamed that he could forestall any +conjecture in the girl's heart!</p> + +<p>"I have thought of that," she answered meekly; "it would seem as if it +could be nothing else. But, John, if she be really dead--" Carlen did +not finish the sentence; it was not necessary.</p> + +<p>After a silence she spoke again: "Dear John, if you could be more +friendly with him I think it might be different. He is your age. Father +and mother are too old, and to me he will not speak." She sighed deeply +as she spoke these last words, and went on: "Of course, if it is for a +dead sweetheart that he is grieving thus, it is only natural that the +sight of women should be to him worse than the sight of men. But it is +very seldom, John, that a man will mourn his whole life for a +sweetheart; is it not, John? Why, men marry again, almost always, even +when it is a wife that they have lost; and a sweetheart is not so much +as a wife."</p> + +<p>"I have heard," said the pitiless John, "that a man is quicker healed of +grief for a wife than for one he had thought to wed, but lost."</p> + +<p>"You are a man," said Carlen. "You can tell if that would be true."</p> + +<p>"No, I cannot," he answered, "for I have loved no woman but you, my +sister; and on my word I think I will be in no haste to, either. It +brings misery, it seems to me."</p> + +<p>If Carlen had spoken her thought at these words, she would have said, +"Yes, it brings misery; but even so it is better than joy." But Carlen +was ashamed; afraid also. She had passed now into a new life, whither +her brother, she perceived, could not follow. She could barely reach +his hand across the boundary line which parted them.</p> + +<p>"I hope you will love some one, John," she said. "You would be happy +with a wife. You are old enough to have a home of your own."</p> + +<p>"Only a year older than you, my sister," he rejoined.</p> + +<p>"I too am old enough to have a home of my own," she said, with a gentle +dignity of tone, which more impressed John with a sense of the change in +Carlen than all else which had been said.</p> + +<p>It was time to return to the house. As he had done when he was ten, and +she nine, John stood at the bottom of the steepest rock, with +upstretched arms, by the help of which Carlen leaped lightly down.</p> + +<p>"We are not children any more," she said, with a little laugh.</p> + +<p>"More's the pity!" said John, half lightly, half sadly, as they went on +hand in hand.</p> + +<p>When they reached the bars, Carlen paused. Withdrawing her hand from +John's and laying it on his shoulder, she said: "Brother, will you not +try to find out what is Wilhelm's grief? Can you not try to be friends +with him?"</p> + +<p>John made no answer. It was a hard thing to promise.</p> + +<p>"For my sake, brother," said the girl. "I have spoken to no one else but +you. I would die before any one else should know; even my mother."</p> + +<p>John could not resist this. "Yes," he said; "I will try. It will be +hard; but I will try my best, Carlen. I will have a talk with Wilhelm +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>And the brother and sister parted, he only the sadder, she far happier, +for their talk. "To-morrow," she thought, "I will know! To-morrow! oh, +to-morrow!" And she fell asleep more peacefully than had been her wont +for many nights.</p> + +<p>On the morrow it chanced that John and Wilhelm went separate ways to +work and did not meet until noon. In the afternoon Wilhelm was sent on +an errand to a farm some five miles away, and thus the day passed +without John's having found any opportunity for the promised talk. +Carlen perceived with keen disappointment this frustration of his +purpose, but comforted herself, thinking, with the swift forerunning +trust of youth: "To-morrow he will surely get a chance. To-morrow he +will have something to tell me. To-morrow!"</p> + +<p>When Wilhelm returned from this errand, he came singing up the road. +Carlen heard the voice and looked out of the window in amazement. Never +before had a note of singing been heard from Wilhelm's voice. She could +not believe her ears; neither her eyes, when she saw him walking +swiftly, almost running, erect, his head held straight, his eyes gazing +free and confident before him.</p> + +<p>What had happened? What could have happened? Now, for the first time, +Carlen saw the full beauty of his face; it wore an exultant look as of +one set free, triumphant. He leaped lightly over the bars; he stooped +and fondled the dog, speaking to him in a merry tone; then he whistled, +then broke again into singing a gay German song. Carlen was stupefied +with wonder. Who was this new man in the body of Wilhelm? Where had +disappeared the man of slow-moving figure, bent head, downcast eyes, +gloom-stricken face, whom until that hour she had known? Carlen clasped +her hands in an agony of bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"If he has found his sweetheart, I shall die," she thought. "How could +it be? A letter, perhaps? A message?" She dreaded to see him. She +lingered in her room till it was past the supper hour, dreading what she +knew not, yet knew. When she went down the four were seated at supper. +As she opened the door roars of laughter greeted her, and the first +sight she saw was Wilhelm's face, full of vivacity, excitement. He was +telling a jesting story, at which even her mother was heartily laughing. +Her father had laughed till the tears were rolling down his cheeks. John +was holding his sides. Wilhelm was a mimic, it appeared; he was +imitating the ridiculous speech, gait, gestures, of a man he had seen in +the village that afternoon.</p> + +<p>"I sent you to village sooner as dis, if I haf known vat you are like +ven you come back," said Farmer Weitbreck, wiping his eyes.</p> + +<p>And John echoed his father. "Upon my word, Wilhelm, you are a good +actor. Why have you kept your light under a bushel so long?" And John +looked at him with a new interest and liking. If this were the true +Wilhelm, he might welcome him indeed as a brother.</p> + +<p>Carlen alone looked grave, anxious, unhappy. She could not laugh. Tale +after tale, jest after jest, fell from Wilhelm's lips. Such a +story-teller never before sat at the Weitbreck board. The old kitchen +never echoed with such laughter.</p> + +<p>Finally John exclaimed: "Man alive, where have you kept yourself all +this time? Have you been ill till now, that you hid your tongue? What +has cured you in a day?"</p> + +<p>Wilhelm laughed a laugh so ringing, it made him seem like a boy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have been ill till to-day," he said; "and now I am well." And he +rattled on again, with his merry talk.</p> + +<p>Carlen grew cold with fear; surely this meant but one thing. Nothing +else, nothing less, could have thus in an hour rolled away the burden of +his sadness.</p> + +<p>Later in the evening she said timidly, "Did you hear any news in the +village this afternoon, Wilhelm?"</p> + +<p>"No; no news," he said. "I had heard no news."</p> + +<p>As he said this a strange look flitted swiftly across his face, and was +gone before any eye but a loving woman's had noted it. It did not escape +Carlen's, and she fell into a reverie of wondering what possible double +meaning could have underlain his words.</p> + +<p>"Did you know Mr. Dietman in Germany?" she asked. This was the name of +the farmer to whose house he had been sent on an errand. They were +new-comers into the town, since spring.</p> + +<p>"No!" replied Wilhelm, with another strange, sharp glance at Carlen. "I +saw him not before."</p> + +<p>"Have they children?" she continued. "Are they old?"</p> + +<p>"No; young," he answered. "They haf one child, little baby."</p> + +<p>Carlen could not contrive any other questions to ask. "It must have been +a letter," she thought; and her face grew sadder.</p> + +<p>It was a late bedtime when the family parted for the night. The +astonishing change in Wilhelm's manner was now even more apparent than +it had yet been. Instead of slipping off, as was his usual habit, +without exchanging a good-night with any one, he insisted on shaking +hands with each, still talking and laughing with gay and affectionate +words, and repeating, over and again, "Good-night, good-night." Farmer +Weitbreck was carried out of himself with pleasure at all this, and +holding Wilhelm's hand fast in his, shaking it heartily, and clapping +him on the shoulder, he exclaimed in fatherly familiarity: "Dis is goot, +mein son! dis is goot. Now are you von of us." And he glanced meaningly +at John, who smiled back in secret intelligence. As he did so there went +like a flash through his mind the question, "Can Carlen have spoken with +him to-day? Can that be it?" But a look at Carlen's pale, perplexed face +quickly dissipated this idea. "She looks frightened," thought John. "I +do not much wonder. I will get a word with her." But Carlen had gone +before he missed her. Running swiftly upstairs, she locked the door of +her room, and threw herself on her knees at her open window. Presently +she saw Wilhelm going down to the brook. She watched his every motion. +First, he walked slowly up and down the entire length of the field, +following the brook's course closely, stopping often and bending over, +picking flowers. A curious little white flower called "Ladies'-Tress" +grew there in great abundance, and he often brought bunches of it to +her.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is not for me this time," thought Carlen, and the tears came +into her eyes. After a time Wilhelm ceased gathering the flowers, and +seated himself on his favorite rock,--the same one where John and Carlen +had sat the night before. "Will he stay there all night?" thought the +unhappy girl, as she watched him. "He is so full of joy he does not want +to sleep. What will become of me! what will become of me!"</p> + +<p>At last Wilhelm arose and came toward the house, bringing the bunch of +flowers in his hand. At the pasture bars he paused, and looked back over +the scene. It was a beautiful picture, the moon making it light as day; +even from Carlen's window could be seen the sparkle of the brook.</p> + +<p>As he turned to go to the barn his head sank on his breast, his steps +lagged. He wore again the expression of gloomy thought. A new fear arose +in Carlen's breast. Was he mad? Had the wild hilarity of his speech and +demeanor in the evening been merely a new phase of disorder in an +unsettled brain? Even in this was a strange, sad comfort to Carlen. She +would rather have him mad, with alternations of insane joy and gloom, +than know that he belonged to another. Long after he had disappeared in +the doorway at the foot of the stairs which led to his sleeping-place in +the barn-loft, she remained kneeling at the window, watching to see if +he came out again. Then she crept into bed, and lay tossing, wakeful, +and anxious till near dawn. She had but just fallen asleep when she was +aroused by cries. It was John's voice. He was calling loudly at the +window of their mother's bedroom beneath her own.</p> + +<p>"Father! father! Get up, quick! Come out to the barn!"</p> + +<p>Then followed confused words she could not understand. Leaning from her +window she called: "What is it, John? What has happened?" But he was +already too far on his way back to the barn to hear her.</p> + +<p>A terrible presentiment shot into her mind of some ill to Wilhelm. +Vainly she wrestled with it. Why need she think everything that happened +must be connected with him? It was not yet light; she could not have +slept many minutes. With trembling hands she dressed, and running +swiftly down the stairs was at the door just as her father appeared +there.</p> + +<p>"What is it? What is it, father?" she cried. "What has happened?"</p> + +<p>"Go back!" he said in an unsteady voice. "It is nothing. Go back to bed. +It is not for vimmins!"</p> + +<p>Then Carlen was sure it was some ill to Wilhelm, and with a loud cry she +darted to the barn, and flew up the stairway leading to his room.</p> + +<p>John, hearing her steps, confronted her at the head of the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Good God, Carlen!" he cried, "go back! You must not come here. Where is +father?"</p> + +<p>"I will come in!" she answered wildly, trying to force her way past +him. "I will come in. You shall not keep me out. What has happened to +him? Let me by!" And she wrestled in her brother's strong arms with +strength almost equal to his.</p> + +<p>"Carlen! You shall not come in! You shall not see!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Shall not see!" she shrieked. "Is he dead?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my sister, he is dead," answered John, solemnly. In the next +instant he held Carlen's unconscious form in his arms; and when Farmer +Weitbreck, half dazed, reached the foot of the stairs, the first sight +which met his eyes was his daughter, held in her brother's arms, +apparently lifeless, her head hanging over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Haf she seen him?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>"No!" said John. "I only told her he was dead, to keep her from going +in, and she fainted dead away."</p> + +<p>"Ach!" groaned the old man, "dis is hard on her."</p> + +<p>"Yes," sighed the brother; "it is a cruel shame."</p> + +<p>Swiftly they carried her to the house, and laid her on her mother's +bed, then returned to their dreadful task in Wilhelm's chamber.</p> + +<p>Hung by a stout leathern strap from the roof-tree beam, there swung the +dead body of Wilhelm Rütter, cold, stiff. He had been dead for hours; he +must have done the deed soon after bidding them good-night.</p> + +<p>"He vas mad, Johan; it must be he vas mad ven he laugh like dat last +night. Dat vas de beginning, Johan," said the old man, shaking from head +to foot with horror, as he helped his son lift down the body.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" answered John; "that must be it. I expect he has been mad all +along. I do not believe last night was the beginning. It was not like +any sane man to be so gloomy as he was, and never speak to a living +soul. But I never once thought of his being crazy. Look, father!" he +continued, his voice breaking into a sob, "he has left these flowers +here for Carlen! That does not look as if he was crazy! What can it all +mean?"</p> + +<p>On the top of a small chest lay the bunch of white Ladies'-Tress, with a +paper beneath it on which was written, "For Carlen Weitbreck,--these, +and the carvings in the box, all in memory of Wilhelm."</p> + +<p>"He meant to do it, den," said the old man.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said John.</p> + +<p>"Maybe Carlen vould not haf him, you tink?"</p> + +<p>"No," said John, hastily; "that is not possible."</p> + +<p>"I tought she luf him, an' he vould stay an' be her mann," sighed the +disappointed father. "Now all dat is no more."</p> + +<p>"It will kill her," cried John.</p> + +<p>"No!" said the father. "Vimmins does not die so as dat. She feel pad +maybe von year, maybe two. Dat is all. He vas great for vork. Dat Alf +vas not goot as he."</p> + +<p>The body was laid once more on the narrow pallet where it had slept for +its last few weeks on earth, and the two men stood by its side, +discussing what should next be done, how the necessary steps could be +taken with least possible publicity, when suddenly they heard the sound +of horses' feet and wheels, and looking out they saw Hans Dietman and +his wife driving rapidly into the yard.</p> + +<p>"Mein Gott! Vat bring dem here dis time in day," exclaimed Farmer +Weitbreck. "If dey ask for Wilhelm dey must all know!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied John; "that makes no difference. Everybody will have to +know." And he ran swiftly down to meet the strangely arrived neighbors.</p> + +<p>His first glance at their faces showed him that they had come on no +common errand. They were pale and full of excitement, and Hans's first +word was: "Vere is dot man you sent to mine place yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Wilhelm?" stammered Farmer Weitbreck.</p> + +<p>"Wilhelm!" repeated Hans, scornfully. "His name is not 'Wilhelm.' His +name is Carl,--Carl Lepmann; and he is murderer. He killed von +man--shepherd, in our town--last spring; and dey never get trail of +him. So soon he came in our kitchen yesterday my vife she knew him; she +wait till I get home. Ve came ven it vas yet dark to let you know vot +man vas in your house."</p> + +<p>Farmer Weitbreck and his son exchanged glances; each was too shocked to +speak. Mr. and Mrs. Dietman looked from one to the other in +bewilderment. "Maype you tink ve speak not truth," Hans continued. +"Just let him come here, to our face, and you will see."</p> + +<p>"No!" said John, in a low, awe-stricken voice, "we do not think you are +not speaking truth." He paused; glanced again at his father. "We'd +better take them up!" he said.</p> + +<p>The old man nodded silently. Even his hard and phlegmatic nature was +shaken to the depths.</p> + +<p>John led the way up the stairs, saying briefly, "Come." The Dietmans +followed in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"There he is," said John, pointing to the tall figure, rigid, under the +close-drawn white folds; "we found him here only an hour ago, hung from +the beam."</p> + +<p>A horror-stricken silence fell on the group.</p> + +<p>Hans spoke first. "He know dat we know; so he kill himself to save dat +de hangman have trouble."</p> + +<p>John resented the flippant tone. He understood now the whole mystery of +Wilhelm's life in this house.</p> + +<p>"He has never known a happy minute since he was here," he said. "He +never smiled; nor spoke, if he could help it. Only last night, after he +came back from your place, he laughed and sang, and was merry, and +looked like another man; and he bade us all good-night over and over, +and shook hands with every one. He had made up his mind, you see, that +the end had come, and it was nothing but a relief to him. He was glad to +die. He had not courage before. But now he knew he would be arrested he +had courage to kill himself. Poor fellow, I pity him!" And John smoothed +out the white folds over the clasped hands on the quiet-stricken breast, +resting at last. "He has been worse punished than if he had been hung in +the beginning," he said, and turned from the bed, facing the Dietmans as +if he constituted himself the dead man's protector.</p> + +<p>"I think no one but ourselves need know," he continued, thinking in his +heart of Carlen. "It is enough that he is dead. There is no good to be +gained for any one, that I see, by telling what he had done."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mrs. Dietman, tearfully; but her husband exclaimed, in a +vindictive tone:</p> + +<p>"I see not why it is to be covered in secret. He is murderer. It is to +be sent vord to Mayence he vas found."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they ought to know there," said John, slowly; "but there is no +need for it to be known here. He has injured no one here."</p> + +<p>"No," exclaimed Farmer Weitbreck. "He haf harm nobody here; he vas goot. +I haf ask him to stay and haf home in my house."</p> + +<p>It was a strange story. Early in the spring, it seemed, about six weeks +before Hans Dietman and his wife Gretchen were married, a shepherd on +the farm adjoining Gretchen's father's had been murdered by a +fellow-laborer on the same farm. They had had high words about a dog, +and had come to blows, but were parted by some of the other hands, and +had separated and gone their ways to their work with their respective +flocks.</p> + +<p>This was in the morning. At night neither they nor their flocks +returned; and, search being made, the dead body of the younger shepherd +was found lying at the foot of a precipice, mutilated and wounded, far +more than it would have been by any accidental fall. The other +shepherd, Carl Lepmann, had disappeared, and was never again seen by any +one who knew him, until this previous day, when he had entered the +Dietmans' door bearing his message from the Weitbreck farm. At the first +sight of his face, Gretchen Dietman had recognized him, thrown up her +arms involuntarily, and cried out in German: "My God! the man that +killed the shepherd!" Carl had halted on the threshold at hearing these +words, and his countenance had changed; but it was only for a second. He +regained his composure instantly, entered as if he had heard nothing, +delivered his message, and afterward remained for some time on the farm +chatting with the laborers, and seeming in excellent spirits.</p> + +<p>"And so vas he ven he come home," said Farmer Weitbreck; "he make dat ve +all laugh and laugh, like notings ever vas before, never before he open +his mouth to speak; he vas like at funeral all times, night and day. But +now he seem full of joy. It is de most strange ting as I haf seen in my +life."</p> + +<p>"I do not think so, father," said John. "I do not wonder he was glad to +be rid of his burden."</p> + +<p>It proved of no use to try to induce Hans Dietman to keep poor Carl's +secret. He saw no reason why a murderer should be sheltered from +disgrace. To have his name held up for the deserved execration seemed to +Hans the only punishment left for one who had thus evaded the hangman; +and he proceeded to inflict this punishment to the extent of his +ability.</p> + +<p>Finding that the tale could not be kept secret, John nerved himself to +tell it to Carlen. She heard it in silence from beginning to end, asked +a few searching questions, and then to John's unutterable astonishment +said: "Wilhelm never killed that man. You have none of you stopped to +see if there was proof."</p> + +<p>"But why did he fly, Liebchen?" asked John.</p> + +<p>"Because he knew he would be accused of the murder," she replied. "They +might have been fighting at the edge of the precipice and the shepherd +fell over, or the shepherd might have been killed by some one else, and +Wilhelm have found the body. He never killed him, John, never."</p> + +<p>There was something in Carlen's confident belief which communicated +itself to John's mind, and, coupled with the fact that there was +certainly only circumstantial evidence against Wilhelm, slowly brought +him to sharing her belief and tender sorrow. But they were alone in this +belief and alone in their sorrow. The verdict of the community was +unhesitatingly, unqualifiedly, against Wilhelm.</p> + +<p>"Would a man hang himself if he knew he were innocent?" said everybody.</p> + +<p>"All the more if he knew he could never prove himself innocent," said +John and Carlen. But no one else thought so. And how could the truth +ever be known in this world?</p> + +<p>Wilhelm was buried in a corner of the meadow field he had so loved. +Before two years had passed, wild blackberry vines had covered the grave +with a thick mat of tangled leaves, green in summer, blood-red in the +autumn. And before three more had passed there was no one in the place +who knew the secret of the grave. Farmer Weitbreck and his wife were +both dead, and the estate had passed into the hands of strangers who had +heard the story of Wilhelm, and knew that his body was buried somewhere +on the farm; but in which field they neither asked nor cared, and there +was no mourner to tell the story. John Weitbreck had realized his dream +of going West, a free man at last, and by no means a poor one; he looked +out over scores of broad fields of his own, one of the most fertile of +the Oregon valleys.</p> + +<p>Alf was with him, and Carlen; and Carlen was Alf's wife,--placid, +contented wife, and fond and happy mother,--so small ripples did there +remain from the tempestuous waves beneath which Carl Lepmann's life had +gone down. Some deftly carved boxes and figures of chamois and their +hunters stood on Carlen's best-room mantel, much admired by her +neighbors, and longed for by her toddling girl,--these, and a bunch of +dried and crumbling blossoms of the Ladies' Tress, were all that had +survived the storm. The dried flowers were in the largest of the boxes. +They lay there side by side with a bit of carved abalone shell Alf had +got from a Nez Perce Indian, and some curious seaweeds he had picked up +at the mouth of the Columbia River. Carlen's one gilt brooch was kept in +the same box, and when she took it out of a Sunday, the sight of the +withered flowers always reminded her of Wilhelm. She could not have told +why she kept them; it certainly was not because they woke in her breast +any thoughts which Alf might not have read without being disquieted. She +sometimes sighed, as she saw them, "Poor Wilhelm!" That was all.</p> + +<p>But there came one day a letter to John that awoke even in Carlen's +motherly and contented heart strange echoes from that past which she had +thought forever left behind. It was a letter from Hans Dietman, who +still lived on the Pennsylvania farm, and who had been recently joined +there by a younger brother from Germany.</p> + +<p>This brother had brought news which, too late, vindicated the memory of +Wilhelm. Carlen had been right. He was no murderer.</p> + +<p>It was with struggling emotions that Carlen heard the tale; pride, joy, +passionate regret, old affection, revived. John was half afraid to go +on, as he saw her face flushing, her eyes filling with tears, kindling +and shining with a light he had not seen in them since her youth.</p> + +<p>"Go on! go on!" she cried. "Why do you stop? Did I not tell you so? And +you never half believed me! Now you see I was right! I told you Wilhelm +never harmed a human being!"</p> + +<p>It was indeed a heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, to +the poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, even +its place forgotten.</p> + +<p>It seemed that a man sentenced in Mayence to be executed for murder had +confessed, the day before his execution, that it was he who had killed +the shepherd of whose death Carl Lepmann had so long been held guilty. +They had quarrelled about a girl, a faithless creature, forsworn to both +of them, and worth no man's love or desire; but jealous anger got the +better of their sense, and they grappled in fight, each determined to +kill the other.</p> + +<p>The shepherd had the worst of it; and just as he fell, mortally hurt, +Carl Lepmann had come up,--had come up in time to see the murderer leap +on his horse to ride away.</p> + +<p>In a voice, which the man said had haunted him ever since, Carl had +cried out: "My God! You ride away and leave him dead! and it will be I +who have killed him, for this morning we fought so they had to tear us +apart!"</p> + +<p>Smitten with remorse, the man had with Carl's help lifted the body and +thrown it over the precipice, at the foot of which it was afterward +found. He then endeavored to persuade the lad that it would never be +discovered, and he might safely return to his employer's farm. But +Carl's terror was too great, and he had finally been so wrought upon by +his entreaties that he had taken him two days' journey, by lonely ways, +the two riding sometimes in turn, sometimes together,--two days' and two +nights' journey,--till they reached the sea, where Carl had taken ship +for America.</p> + +<p>"He was a good lad, a tender-hearted lad," said the murderer. "He might +have accused me in many a village, and stood as good chance to be +believed as I, if he had told where the shepherd's body was thrown; but +he could be frightened as easily as a woman, and all he thought of was +to fly where he would never be heard of more. And it was the thought of +him, from that day till now, has given me more misery than the thought +of the dead man!"</p> + +<p>Carlen was crying bitterly; the letter was just ended, when Alf came +into the room asking bewilderedly what it was all about.</p> + +<p>The name Wilhelm meant nothing to him. It was the summer before Wilhelm +came that he had begun this Oregon farm, which he, from the first, had +fondly dedicated to Carlen in his thoughts; and when he went back to +Pennsylvania after her, he found her the same as when he went away, only +comelier and sweeter. It would not be easy to give Alf an uncomfortable +thought about his Carlen. But he did not like to see her cry.</p> + +<p>Neither, when he had heard the whole story, did he see why her tears +need have flowed so freely. It was sad, no doubt, and a bitter shame +too, for one man to suffer and go to his grave that way for the sin of +another. But it was long past and gone; no use in crying over it now.</p> + +<p>"What a tender-hearted, foolish wife it is!" he said in gruff fondness, +laying his hand on Carlen's shoulder, "crying over a man dead and buried +these seven years, and none of our kith or kin, either. Poor fellow! It +was a shame!"</p> + +<p>But Carlen said nothing.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch03"> +<h2>Little Bel's Supplement.</h2> + + + +<p>"Indeed, then, my mother, I'll not take the school at Wissan Bridge +without they promise me a supplement. It's the worst school i' a' Prince +Edward Island."</p> + +<p>"I doubt but ye're young to tackle wi' them boys, Bel," replied the +mother, gazing into her daughter's face with an intent expression in +which it would have been hard to say which predominated,--anxiety or +fond pride. "I'd sooner see ye take any other school between this an' +Charlottetown, an' no supplement."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid, my mother, but I'll manage 'em well enough; but I'll +not undertake it for the same money as a decent school is taught. +They'll promise me five pounds' supplement at the end o' the year, or +I'll not set foot i' the place."</p> + +<p>"Maybe they'll not be for givin' ye the school at all when they see +what's yer youth," replied the mother, in a half-antagonistic tone. +There was between this mother and daughter a continual undercurrent of +possible antagonism, overlain and usually smothered out of sight by +passionate attachment on both sides.</p> + +<p>Little Bel tossed her head. "Age is not everything that goes to the +makkin o' a teacher," she retorted. "There's Grizzy McLeod; she's +teachin' at the Cove these eight years, an' I'd shame her myself any day +she likes wi' spellin' an' the lines; an' if there's ever a boy in a +school o' mine that'll gie me a floutin' answer such's I've heard her +take by the dozen, I'll warrant ye he'll get a birchin'; an' the +trustees think there's no teacher like Grizzy. I'm not afraid."</p> + +<p>"Grizzy never had any great schoolin' herself," replied her mother, +piously. "There's no girl in all the farms that's had what ye've had, +Bel."</p> + +<p>"It isn't the schoolin', mother," retorted little Bel. "The schoolin' 's +got nothin' to do with it. I'd teach a school better than Grizzy McLeod +if I'd never had a day's schoolin'."</p> + +<p>"An' now if that's not the talk of a silly," retorted the quickly +angered parent. "Will ye be tellin' me perhaps, then, that them that +can't read theirselves is to be set to teach letters?"</p> + +<p>Little Bel was too loyal at heart to her illiterate mother to wound her +further by reiterating her point. Throwing her arms around her neck, and +kissing her warmly, she exclaimed: "Eh, my mother, it's not a silly that +ye could ever have for a child, wi' that clear head, and the wise things +always said to us from the time we're in our cradles. Ye've never a +child that's so clever as ye are yerself. I didn't mean just what I +said, ye must know, surely; only that the schoolin' part is the smallest +part o' the keepin' a school."</p> + +<p>"An' I'll never give in to such nonsense as that, either," said the +mother, only half mollified. "Ye can ask yer father, if ye like, if it +stands not to reason that the more a teacher knows, the more he can +teach. He'll take the conceit out o' ye better than I can." And good +Isabella McDonald turned angrily away, and drummed on the window-pane +with her knitting-needles to relieve her nervous discomfort at this +slight passage at arms with her best-beloved daughter.</p> + +<p>Little Bel's face flushed, and with compressed lips she turned silently +to the little oaken-framed looking-glass that hung so high on the wall +she could but just see her chin in it. As she slowly tied her pink +bonnet strings she grew happier. In truth, she would have been a maiden +hard to console if the face that looked back at her from the quaint oak +leaf and acorn wreath had not comforted her inmost soul, and made her +again at peace with herself. And as the mother looked on she too was +comforted; and in five minutes more, when Little Bel was ready to say +good-by, they flung their arms around each other, and embraced and +kissed, and the daughter said, "Good-by t' ye now, mother. Wish me well, +an' ye'll see that I get it,--supplement an' all," she added slyly. And +the mother said, "Good luck t' ye, child; an' it's luck to them that +gets ye." That was the way quarrels always ended between Isabella +McDonald and her oldest daughter.</p> + +<p>The oldest daughter, and yet only just turned of twenty; and there were +eight children younger than she, and one older. This is the way among +the Scotch farming-folk in Prince Edward Island. Children come tumbling +into the world like rabbits in a pen, and have to scramble for a living +almost as soon and as hard as the rabbits. It is a narrow life they +lead, and full of hardships and deprivations, but it has its +compensations. Sturdy virtues in sturdy bodies come of it,--the sort of +virtue made by the straitest Calvinism, and the sort of body made out of +oatmeal and milk. One might do much worse than inherit both.</p> + +<p>It seemed but a few years ago that John McDonald had wooed and won +Isabella McIntosh,--wooed her with difficulty in the bosom of her family +of six brothers and five sisters, and won her triumphantly in spite of +the open and contemptuous opposition of one of the five sisters. For +John himself was one of seven in his father's home, and whoever married +John must go there to live, to be only a daughter in a mother-in-law's +house, and take a daughter's share of the brunt of everything. "And +nothing to be got except a living, and it was a poor living the McDonald +farm gave beside the McIntosh," the McIntosh sisters said. And, +moreover: "The saint did not live that could get on with John McDonald's +mother. That was what had made him the silent fellow he was, always +being told by his mother to hold his tongue and have done speaking; and +a fine pepper-pot there'd be when Isabella's hasty tongue and temper +were flung into that batch!"</p> + +<p>There was no gainsaying all this. Nevertheless, Isabella married John, +went home with him into his father's house, put her shoulder against her +spoke in the family wheel, and did her best. And when, ten years later, +as reward of her affectionate trust and patience, she found herself sole +mistress of the McDonald farm, she did not feel herself ill paid. The +old father and mother were dead, two sisters had died and two had +married, and the two sons had gone to the States to seek better fortunes +than were to be made on Prince Edward Island. John, as eldest son, had, +according to the custom of the island, inherited the farm; and Mrs. +Isabella, confronting her three still unmarried sisters, was able at +last triumphantly to refute their still resentfully remembered +objections to her choice of a husband.</p> + +<p>"An' did ye suppose I did not all the time know that it was to this it +was sure to come, soon or late?" she said, with justifiable complacency. +"It's a good thing to have a house o' one's own an' an estate. An' the +linen that's in the house! I've no need to turn a hand to the flax-wheel +for ten years if I've no mind. An' ye can all bide your times, an' see +what John'll make o' the farm, now he's got where he can have things his +own way. His father was always set against anything that was new, an' +the place is run down shameful; but John'll bring it up, an' I'm not an +old woman yet."</p> + +<p>This last was the unkindest phrase Mrs. John McDonald permitted herself +to use. There was a rebound in it which told on the Mclntosh sisters; +for they, many years older than she, were already living on tolerance +in their father's house, where their oldest brother and his wife ruled +things with an iron hand. All hopes of a husband and a home of their own +had quite died out of their spinster bosoms, and they would not have +been human had they not secretly and grievously envied the comely, +blooming Isabella her husband, children, and home.</p> + +<p>But, with all this, it was no play-day life that Mrs. Isabella had led. +At the very best, and with the best of farms, Prince Edward Island +farming is no high-road to fortune; only a living, and that of the +plainest, is to be made; and when children come at the rate of ten in +twenty-two years, it is but a small showing that the farmer's bank +account makes at the end of that time. There is no margin for fineries, +luxuries, small ambitions of any kind. Isabella had her temptations in +these directions, but John was firm as a rock in withstanding them. If +he had not been, there would never have been this story to tell of his +Little Bel's school-teaching, for there would never have been money +enough in the bank to have given her two years' schooling in +Charlottetown, the best the little city afforded,--"and she boardin' +all the time like a lady," said the severe McIntosh aunts, who +disapproved of all such wide-flying ambitions, which made women +discontented with and unfitted for farming life.</p> + +<p>"And why should Isabella be setting her daughters up for teachers?" they +said. "It's no great schoolin' she had herself, and if her girls do as +well as she's done, they'll be lucky,"--a speech which made John +McDonald laugh out when it was reported to him. He could afford to laugh +now.</p> + +<p>"I mind there was a day when they thought different o' me from that," he +said. "I'm obliged to them for nothin'; but I'd like the little one to +have a better chance than the marryin' o' a man like me, an' if +anything'll get it for her, it'll be schoolin'."</p> + +<p>The "boardin' like a lady," which had so offended the Misses Mclntosh's +sense of propriety, was not, after all, so great an extravagance as they +had supposed; for it was in his own brother's house her thrifty father +had put her, and had stipulated that part of the price of her board was +to be paid in produce of one sort and another from the farm, at market +rates; "an' so, ye see, the lass 'll be eatin' it there 'stead of here," +he said to his wife when he told her of the arrangement, "an' it's a +sma' difference it'll make to us i' the end o' the two years."</p> + +<p>"An' a big difference to her a' her life," replied Isabella, warmly.</p> + +<p>"Ay, wife," said John, "if it fa's out as ye hope; but it's main +uncertain countin' on the book-knowledge. There's some it draws up an' +some it draws down; it's a millstone. But the lass is bright; she's as +like you as two peas in a pod. If ye'd had the chance she's had--"</p> + +<p>Rising color in Isabella's face warned John to stop. It is a strange +thing to see how often there hovers a flitting shadow of jealousy +between a mother and the daughter to whom the father unconsciously +manifests a chivalrous tenderness akin to that which in his youth he had +given only to the sweetheart he sought for wife. Unacknowledged, +perhaps, even unmanifested save in occasional swift and unreasonable +petulances, it is still there, making many a heartache, which is none +the less bitter that it is inexplicable to itself, and dares not so much +as confess its own existence.</p> + +<p>"It's a better thing for a woman to make her way i' the world on the +book-learnin' than to be always at the wheel an' the churn an' the +floors to be whitened," replied Isabella, sharply. "An' one year like +another, till the year comes ye're buried. I look for Bel to marry a +minister, or maybe even better."</p> + +<p>"Ye'd a chance at a minister yersel', then, my girl," replied the wise +John, "an' ye did not take it." At which memory the wife laughed, and +the two loyal hearts were merry together for a moment, and young again.</p> + +<p>Little Bel had, indeed, even before the Charlottetown schooling, had a +far better chance than her mother; for in her mother's day there was no +free school in the island, and in families of ten and twelve it was only +a turn and turn about that the children had at school. Since the free +schools had been established many a grown man and woman had sighed +curiously at the better luck of the youngsters under the new regime. No +excuse now for the poorest man's children not knowing how to read and +write and more; and if they chose to keep on, nothing to hinder their +dipping into studies of which their parents never heard so much as the +names.</p> + +<p>And this was not the only better chance which Little Bel had had. John +McDonald's farm joined the lands of the manse; his house was a short +mile from the manse itself; and by a bit of good fortune for Little Bel +it happened that just as she was growing into girlhood there came a new +minister to the manse,--a young man from Halifax, with a young bride, +the daughter of an officer in the Halifax garrison,--gentlefolks, both +of them, but single-hearted and full of fervor in their work for the +souls of the plain farming-people given into their charge. And both Mr. +Allan and Mrs. Allan had caught sight of Little Bel's face on their +first Sunday in church, and Mrs. Allan had traced to her a flute-like +voice she had detected in the Sunday-school singing; and before long, to +Isabella's great but unspoken pride, the child had been "bidden to the +manse for the minister's wife to hear her sing;" and from that day there +was a new vista in Little Bel's life.</p> + +<p>Her voice was sweet as a lark's and as pure, and her passionate love +for music a gift in itself. "It would be a sin not to cultivate it," +said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "even if she never sees another piano +than mine, nor has any other time in her life except these few years to +enjoy it; she will always have had these, and nothing can separate her +from her voice."</p> + +<p>And so it came to pass that when, at sixteen, Little Bel went to +Charlottetown for her final two years of study at the High School, she +played almost as well as Mrs. Allan herself, and sang far better. And in +all Isabella McDonald's day-dreams of the child's future, vague or +minute, there was one feature never left out. The "good husband" coming +always was to be a man who could "give her a piano."</p> + +<p>In Charlottetown Bel found no such friend as Mrs. Allan; but she had a +young school-mate who had a piano, and--poor short-sighted creature that +she was, Bel thought--hated the sight of it, detested to practise, and +shed many a tear over her lessons. This girl's parents were thankful to +see their daughter impressed by Bel's enthusiasm for music; and so well +did the clever girl play her cards that before she had been six months +in the place, she was installed as music-teacher to her own +schoolfellow, earning thereby not only money enough to buy the few +clothes she needed, but, what to her was better than money, the +privilege of the use of the piano an hour a day.</p> + +<p>So when she went home, at the end of the two years, she had lost +nothing,--in fact, had made substantial progress; and her old friend and +teacher, Mrs. Allan, was as proud as she was astonished when she first +heard her play and sing. Still more astonished was she at the forceful +character the girl had developed. She went away a gentle, loving, +clinging child; her nature, like her voice, belonging to the order of +birds,--bright, flitting, merry, confiding. She returned a woman, still +loving, still gentle in her manner, but with a new poise in her bearing, +a resoluteness, a fire, of which her first girlhood had given no +suggestion. It was strange to see how similar yet unlike were the +comments made on her in the manse and in the farmhouse by the two +couples most interested in her welfare.</p> + +<p>"It is wonderful, Robert," said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "how that +girl has changed, and yet not changed. It is the music that has lifted +her up so. What a glorious thing is a real passion for any art in a +human soul! But she can never live here among these people. I must take +her to Halifax."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mr. Allan; "her work will be here. She belongs to her people +in heart, all the same. She will not be discontented."</p> + +<p>"Husband, I'm doubtin' if we've done the right thing by the child, after +a'," said the mother, tearfully, to the father, at the end of the first +evening after Bel's return. "She's got the ways o' the city on her, an' +she carries herself as if she'd be teachin' the minister his own self. I +doubt but she'll feel herself strange i' the house."</p> + +<p>"Never you fash yourself," replied John. "The girl's got her head, +that's a'; but her heart's i' the right place. Ye'll see she'll put her +strength to whatever there's to be done. She'll be a master hand at +teachin', I'll wager!"</p> + +<p>"You always did think she was perfection," replied the mother, in a +crisp but not ill-natured tone, "an' I'm not gainsayin' that she's not +as near it as is often seen; but I'm main uneasy to see her carryin' +herself so positive."</p> + +<p>If John thought in his heart that Bel had come through direct heredity +on the maternal side by this "carryin' herself positive," he knew better +than to say so, and his only reply was a good-natured laugh, with: +"You'll see! I'm not afraid. She's a good child, an' always was."</p> + +<p>Bel passed her examination triumphantly, and got the Wissan Bridge +school; but she got only a contingent promise of the five-pound +supplement. It went sorely against her will to waive this point. Very +keenly Mr. Allan, who was on the Examining Board, watched her face as +she modestly yet firmly pressed it.</p> + +<p>The trustees did not deny that the Wissan Bridge school was a difficult +and unruly one; that to manage it well was worth more money than the +ordinary school salaries. The question was whether this very young lady +could manage it at all; and if she failed, as the last incumbent +had,--failed egregiously, too; the school had broken up in riotous +confusion before the end of the year,--the canny Scotchmen of the School +Board did not wish to be pledged to pay that extra five pounds. The +utmost Bel could extract from them was a promise that if at the end of +the year her teaching had proved satisfactory, the five pounds should be +paid. More they would not say; and after a short, sharp struggle with +herself Bel accepted the terms; but she could not restrain a farewell +shot at the trustees as she turned to go. "I'm as sure o' my five pounds +as if ye'd promised it downright, sirs. I shall keep ye a good school at +Wissan Bridge."</p> + +<p>"We'll make it guineas, then, Miss Bel," cried Mr. Allan, +enthusiastically, looking at his colleagues, who nodded their heads, and +said, laughing, "Yes, guineas it is."</p> + +<p>"And guineas it will be," retorted Little Bel, as with cheeks like +peonies she left the room.</p> + +<p>"Egad, but she's a fine spirit o' her ain, an' as bonnie a face as I've +seen since I remember," cried old Mr. Dalgetty, the senior member of +the Board, and the one hardest to please. "I'd not mind bein' a pupil at +Wissan Bridge school the comin' term myself." And he gave an old man's +privileged chuckle as he looked at his colleagues. "But she's over-young +for the work,--over-young."</p> + +<p>"She'll do it," said Mr. Allan, confidently. "Ye need have no fear. My +wife's had the training of the girl since she was little. She's got the +best o' stuff in her. She'll do it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Allan's prediction was fulfilled. Bel did it. But she did it at the +cost of harder work than even she had anticipated. If it had not been +for her music she would never have pulled through with the boys of +Wissan Bridge. By her music she tamed them. The young Marsyas himself +never piped to a wilder set of creatures than the uncouth lads and young +men that sat in wide-eyed, wide-mouthed astonishment listening to the +first song their pretty young schoolmistress sang for them. To have +singing exercises part of the regular school routine was a new thing at +Wissan Bridge. It took like wild-fire; and when Little Bel, shrewd and +diplomatic as a statesman, invited the two oldest and worst boys in the +school to come Wednesday and Saturday afternoons to her boarding-place +to practise singing with her to the accompaniment of the piano, so as to +be able to help her lead the rest, her sovereignty was established. They +were not conquered; they were converted,--a far surer and more lasting +process. Neither of them would, from that day out, have been guilty of +an act, word, or look to annoy her, any more than if they had been rival +lovers suing for her hand. As Bel's good luck would have it,--and Bel +was born to good luck, there is no denying it,--one of these boys had a +good tenor voice, the other a fine barytone; they had both in their +rough way been singers all their lives, and were lovers of music.</p> + +<p>"That was more than half the battle, my mother," confessed Bel, when, at +the end of the first term she was at home for a few days, and was +recounting her experiences. "Except for the singin' I'd never have got +Archie McLeod under, nor Sandy Stairs either. I doubt they'd have been +too many for me, but now they're like two more teachers to the fore. I'd +leave the school-room to them for a day, an' not a lad'd dare stir in +his seat without their leave. I call them my constables; an' I'm +teaching them a small bit of chemistry out o' school hours, too, an' +that's a hold on them. They'll see me out safe; an' I'm thinkin' I'll +owe them a bit part o' the five guineas when I get it," she added +reflectively.</p> + +<p>"The minister says ye're sure of it," replied her mother. "He says ye've +the best school a'ready in all his circuit. I don't know how ever ye +come to't so quick, child." And Isabella McDonald smiled wistfully, +spite of all her pride in her clever bairn.</p> + +<p>"Ye see, then, what he'll say after the examination at New Year's," +gleefully replied Bel, "if he thinks the school is so good now. It'll be +twice as good then; an' such singin' as was never heard before in any +school-house on the island, I'll warrant me. I'm to have the piano over +for the day to the school-house. Archie and Sandy'll move it in a big +wagon, to save me payin' for the cartin'; an' I'm to pay a half-pound +for the use of it if it's not hurt,--a dear bargain, but she'd not let +it go a shilling less. And, to be sure, there is the risk to be +counted. An' she knew I 'd have it if it had been twice that. But I got +it out of her that for that price she was to let me have all the school +over twice a week, for two months before, to practise. So it's not too +dear. Ye'll see what ye'll hear then."</p> + +<p>It had been part of Little Bel's good luck that she had succeeded in +obtaining board in the only family in the village which had the +distinction of owning a piano; and by paying a small sum extra, she had +obtained the use of this piano for an hour each day,--the best +investment of Little Bel's life, as the sequel showed.</p> + +<p>It was a bitter winter on Prince Edward Island. By New Year's time the +roads were many of them wellnigh impassable with snow. Fierce winds +swept to and fro, obliterating tracks by noon which had been clear in +the morning; and nobody went abroad if he could help it. New Year's Day +opened fiercest of all, with scurries of snow, lowering sky, and a wind +that threatened to be a gale before night. But, for all that, the +tying-posts behind the Wissan Bridge school-house were crowded full of +steaming horses under buffalo-robes, which must stamp and paw and +shiver, and endure the day as best they might, while the New Year's +examination went on. Everybody had come. The fame of the singing of the +Wissan Bridge school had spread far and near, and it had been whispered +about that there was to be a "piece" sung which was finer than anything +ever sung in the Charlottetown churches.</p> + +<p>The school-house was decorated with evergreens,--pine and spruce. The +New Year's Day having fallen on a Monday, Little Bel had had a clear +working-day on the Saturday previous; and her faithful henchmen, Archie +and Sandy, had been busy every evening for a week drawing the boughs on +their sleds and piling them up in the yard. The teacher's desk had been +removed, and in its place stood the shining red mahogany piano,--a new +and wonderful sight to many eyes there.</p> + +<p>All was ready, the room crowded full, and the Board of Trustees not yet +arrived. There sat their three big arm-chairs on the raised platform, +empty,--a depressing and perplexing sight to Little Bel, who, in her +short blue merino gown, with a knot of pink ribbon at her throat, and a +roll of white paper (her schedule of exercises) in her hand, stood on +the left hand of the piano, her eyes fixed expectantly on the doors. The +minutes lengthened out into quarter of an hour, half an hour. Anxiously +Bel consulted with her father what should be done.</p> + +<p>"The roads are something fearfu', child," he replied; "we must make big +allowance for that. They're sure to be comin', at least some one o' +them. It was never known that they failed on the New Year's examination, +an' it would seem a sore disrespect to begin without them here."</p> + +<p>Before he had finished speaking there was heard a merry jingling of +bells outside, dozens and dozens it seemed, and hilarious voices and +laughter, and the snorting of overdriven horses, and the stamping of +feet, and more voices and more laughter. Everybody looked in his +neighbor's face. What sounds were these? Who ever heard a sober School +Board arrive in such fashion as this? But it was the School +Board,--nothing less: a good deal more, however. Little Bel's heart +sank within her as she saw the foremost figure entering the room. What +evil destiny had brought Sandy Bruce in the character of school visitor +that day?--Sandy Bruce, retired school-teacher himself, superintendent +of the hospital in Charlottetown, road-master, ship-owner, +exciseman,--Sandy Bruce, whose sharp and unexpected questions had been +known to floor the best of scholars and upset the plans of the best of +teachers. Yes, here he was,--Sandy Bruce himself; and it was his fierce +little Norwegian ponies, with their silver bells and fur collars, the +admiration of all Charlottetown, that had made such a clatter and +stamping outside, and were still keeping it up; for every time they +stirred the bells tinkled like a peal of chimes. And, woe upon woe, +behind him came, not Bel's friend and pastor, Mr. Allan, but the crusty +old Dalgetty, whose doing it had been a year before, as Bel very well +knew, that the five-pound supplement had been only conditionally +promised.</p> + +<p>Conflicting emotions turned Bel's face scarlet as she advanced to meet +them; the most casual observer could not have failed to see that dismay +predominated, and Sandy Bruce was no casual observer; nothing escaped +his keen glance and keener intuition, and it was almost with a wicked +twinkle in his little hazel eyes that he said, still shaking off the +snow, stamping and puffing: "Eh, but ye were not lookin' for me, +teacher! The minister was sent for to go to old Elspie Breadalbane, +who's dyin' the morn; and I happened by as he was startin', an' he made +me promise to come i' his place; an' I picked up my friend Dalgetty here +a few miles back, wi' his horse flounderin' i' the drifts. Except for me +ye'd ha' had no board at all here to-day; so I hope ye'll give me no bad +welcome."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he was studying her face, where the color came and went like +waves; not a thought in the girl's heart he did not read. "Poor little +lassie!" he was thinking to himself. "She's shaking in her shoes with +fear o' me. I'll not put her out. She's a dainty blossom of a girl. +What's kept her from being trodden down by these Wissan Bridge +racketers, I'd like to know."</p> + +<p>But when he seated himself on the platform, and took his first look at +the rows of pupils in the centre of the room, he was near starting with +amazement. The Wissan Bridge "racketers," as he had mentally called +them, were not to be seen. Very well he knew many of them by sight; for +his shipping business called him often to Wissan Bridge, and this was +not the first time he had been inside the school-house, which had been +so long the dread and terror of school boards and teachers alike. A +puzzled frown gathered between Sandy Bruce's eyebrows as he gazed.</p> + +<p>"What has happened to the youngsters, then? Have they all been convarted +i' this twelvemonth?" he was thinking. And the flitting perplexed +thought did not escape the observation of John McDonald, who was as +quick a reader of faces as Sandy himself, and had been by no means free +from anxiety for his little Bel when he saw the redoubtable visage of +the exciseman appear in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"He's takin' it in quick the way the bairn's got them a' in hand," +thought John. "If only she can hold hersel' cool now!"</p> + +<p>No danger. Bel was not the one to lose a battle by appearing to quail in +the outset, however clearly she might see herself outnumbered. And +sympathetic and eager glances from her constables, Archie and Sandy, +told her that they were all ready for the fray. These glances Sandy +Bruce chanced to intercept, and they heightened his bewilderment. To +Archie McLeod he was by no means a stranger, having had occasion more +than once to deal with him, boy as he was, for complications with +riotous misdoings. He had happened to know, also, that it was Archie +McLeod who had been head and front of the last year's revolt in the +school,--the one boy that no teacher hitherto had been able to control. +And here stood Archie McLeod, rising in his place, leader of the form, +glancing down on the boys around him with the eye of a general, watching +the teacher's eye, meanwhile, as a dog watches for his master's signal.</p> + +<p>And the orderly yet alert and joyously eager expression of the whole +school,--it had so much the look of a miracle to Sandy Bruce's eye, +that, not having been for years accustomed to the restraint and dignity +of school visitors, of technical official, he was on the point of giving +a loud whistle of astonishment Luckily recollecting himself in time, he +smothered the whistle and the "Whew! what's all this?" which had been on +his tongue's end, in a vigorous and unnecessary blowing of his nose. And +before that was over, and his eyes well wiped, there stood the whole +school on its feet before him, and the room ringing with such a chorus +as was never heard in a Prince Edward Island school-room before. This +completed his bewilderment, and swallowed it up in delight. If Sandy +Bruce had an overmastering passion in his rugged nature, it was for +music. To the sound of the bag-pipes he had often said he would march to +death and "not know it for dyin'." The drum and the fife could draw him +as quickly now as when he was a boy, and the sweet singing of a woman's +voice was all the token he wanted of the certainty of heaven and the +existence of angels.</p> + +<p>When Little Bel's clear, flute-like soprano notes rang out, carrying +along the fifty young voices she led, Sandy jumped up on his feet, +waving his hand, in a sudden heat of excitement, right and left; and +looking swiftly all about him on the platform, he said: "It's not +sittin' we'es take such welcome as this, my neebors!" Each man and woman +there, catching the quick contagion, rose; and it was a tumultuous crowd +of glowing faces that pressed forward around the piano as the singing +went on,--fathers, mothers, rustics, all; and the children, pleased and +astonished, sang better than ever, and when the chorus was ended it was +some minutes before all was quiet.</p> + +<p>Many things had been settled in that few minutes. John McDonald's heart +was at rest. "The music'll carry a' before it, no matter if they do make +a failure here 'n' there," he thought. "The bairn is a' right." The +mother's heart was at rest also.</p> + +<p>"She's done wonders wi' 'em,--wonders! I doubt not but it'll go through +as it's begun. Her face's a picture to look on. Bless her!" Isabella was +saying behind her placid smile.</p> + +<p>"Eh, but she's won her guineas out o' us," thought old Dalgetty, +ungrudgingly, "and won 'em well."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why everybody is so afraid of Sandy Bruce," thought Little +Bel. "He looks as kind and as pleased as my own father. I don't believe +he'll ask any o' his botherin' questions."</p> + +<p>What Sandy Bruce thought it would be hard to tell; nearer the truth, +probably, to say that his head was in too much of a whirl to think +anything. Certain it is that he did not ask any botherin' questions, but +sat, leaning forward on his stout oaken staff, held firmly between his +knees, and did not move for the next hour, his eyes resting alternately +on the school and on the young teacher, who, now that her first fright +was over, was conducting her entertainment with the composure and +dignity of an experienced instructor.</p> + +<p>The exercises were simple,--declamations, reading of selected +compositions, examinations of the principal classes. At short intervals +came songs to break the monotony. The first one after the opening chorus +was "Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon." At the first bars of this Sandy +Bruce could not keep silence, but broke into a lone accompaniment in a +deep bass voice, untrained but sweet.</p> + +<p>"Ah," thought Little Bel, "what'll he say to the last one, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>When the time came she found out. If she had chosen the arrangement of +her music with full knowledge of Sandy Bruce's preferences, and with the +express determination to rouse him to a climax of enthusiasm, she could +not have done better.</p> + +<p>When the end of the simple programme of recitations and exhibition had +been reached, she came forward to the edge of the platform--her cheeks +were deep pink now, and her eyes shone with excitement--and said, +turning to the trustees and spectators: "We have finished, now, all we +have to show for our year's work, and we will close our entertainment by +singing 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled!'"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay! that wi' we!" shouted Sandy Bruce, again leaping to his feet; +and as the first of the grand chords of that grand old tune rang out +full and loud under Little Bel's firm touch, he strode forward to the +piano, and with a kindly nod to her struck in.</p> + +<p>With the full force of his deep, bass-like, violoncello notes, gathering +up all the others and fusing them into a pealing strain, it was +electin'. Everybody sang. Old voices, that had not sung for a quarter of +a century or more, joined in. It was a furor: Dalgetty swung his tartan +cap, Sandy his hat; handkerchiefs were waved, staves rang on the floor. +The children, half frightened in spite of their pleasure, were quieter +than their elders.</p> + +<p>"Eh, but it was good fun to see the old folks gone crazy for once!" said +Archie McLeod, in recounting the scene. "Now, if they'd get that way +oftener they'd not be so hard down on us youngsters."</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of the song the first thing Little Bel heard was +Dalgetty's piping voice behind her,--</p> + +<p>"And guineas it is, Miss McDonald. Ye've won it fair an' square. Guineas +it is!"</p> + +<p>"Eh, what? Guineas! What is 't ye're sayin'?" asked Sandy Bruce; his +eyes, steady glowing like coals, gazing at Little Bel.</p> + +<p>"The supplement, sir," answered Little Bel, lifting her eyes roguishly +to his. "Mr. Dalgetty thought I was too young for the school, an' he'd +promise me no supplement till he saw if I'd be equal to 't."</p> + +<p>This was the sly Bel's little revenge on Dalgetty, who began confusedly +to explain that it was not he any more than the other trustees, and he +only wished that they had all been here to see, as he had seen, how +finely the school had been managed; but nobody heard what he said, for +above all the humming and buzzing and laughing there came up from the +centre of the school-room a reiterated call of "Sirs!" "Trustees!" "Mr. +Trustee!" "Board!"</p> + +<p>It was Archie McLeod, standing up on the backs of two seats, waving a +white paper, and trying frantically to make himself heard. The face of a +man galloping for life and death, coming up at the last second with a +reprieve for one about to be shot, could hardly be fuller of intense +anxiety than was Archie's as he waved his paper and shouted.</p> + +<p>Little Bel gazed bewilderingly at him. This was not down on her +programme of the exercises. What could it be?</p> + +<p>As soon as partial silence enabled him to speak, Archie proceeded to +read a petition, setting forth, to the respected Board of Trustees, that +the undersigned, boys and girls of the Wissan Bridge School, did hereby +unanimously request that they might have no other teacher than Miss +McDonald, "as long as she lives."</p> + +<p>This last clause had been the cause of bitter disputing between Archie +and Sandy,--Sandy insisting upon having it in; Archie insisting that it +was absurd, because they would not go to school as long as Miss McDonald +lived. "But there's the little ones and the babies that'll be growin' +up," retorted Sandy, "an' there'll never be another like her: I say, 'as +long as she lives'"; and "as long as she lives" it was. And when Archie, +with an unnecessary emphasis, delivered this closing clause of the +petition, it was received with a roar of laughter from the platform, +which made him flush angrily, and say, with a vicious punch in Sandy's +ribs: "There, I told ye, it spoiled it a'. They're fit to die over it; +an' sma' blame to 'em, ye silly!"</p> + +<p>But he was reassured when he heard Sandy Bruce's voice overtopping the +tumult with: "A vary sensible request, my lad; an' I, for one, am o' yer +way o' thinkin'."</p> + +<p>In which speech was a deeper significance than anybody at the time +dreamed. In that hurly-burly and hilarious confusion no one had time to +weigh words or note meanings; but there were some who recalled it a few +months later when they were bidden to a wedding at the house of John +McDonald,--a wedding at which Sandy Bruce was groom, and Little Bel the +brightest, most winsome of brides.</p> + +<p>It was an odd way that Sandy went to work to win her: his ways had been +odd all his life,--so odd that it had long ago been accepted in the +minds of the Charlottetown people that he would never find a woman to +wed him; only now and then an unusually perspicacious person divined +that the reason of his bachelorhood was not at all that women did not +wish to wed him, spite of his odd ways, but that he himself found no +woman exactly to his taste.</p> + +<p>True it was that Sandy Bruce, aged forty, had never yet desired any +woman for his wife till he looked into the face of Little Bel in the +Wissan Bridge school-house. And equally true was it that before the last +strains of "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled" had died away on that +memorable afternoon of her exhibition of her school, he had determined +that his wife she should be.</p> + +<p>This was the way he took to win her. No one can deny that it was odd.</p> + +<p>There was some talk between him and his temporary colleague on the +School Board, old Dalgetty, as they drove home together behind the brisk +Norwegian ponies; and the result of this conversation was that the next +morning early--in fact, before Little Bel was dressed, so late had she +been indulged, for once, in sleeping, after her hard labors in the +exhibition the day before--the Norwegian ponies were jingling their +bells at John McDonald's door; and John himself might have been seen, +with a seriously puzzled face, listening to words earnestly spoken by +Sandy, as he shook off the snow and blanketed the ponies.</p> + +<p>As the talk progressed, John glanced up involuntarily at Little Bel's +window. Could it be that he sighed? At any rate, there was no regret in +his heart as he shook Sandy's hand warmly, and said: "Ye've my free +consent to try; but I doubt she's not easy won. She's her head now, an' +her ain way; but she's a good lass, an' a sweet one."</p> + +<p>"An' I need no man to tell me that," said the dauntless Sandy, as he +gave back the hearty hand-grip of his friend; "an' she'll never repent +it, the longest day o' her life, if she'll ha' me for her man." And he +strode into the house, bearing in his hand the five golden guineas which +his friend Dalgetty had, at his request, commissioned him to pay.</p> + +<p>"Into her own hand, mind ye, mon," chuckled Dalgetty, mischievously. +"Ye'll not be leavin' it wi' the mither." To which sly satire Sandy's +only reply was a soft laugh and nod of his head.</p> + +<p>As soon as Little Bel crossed the threshold of the room where Sandy +Bruce stood waiting for her, she knew the errand on which he had come. +It was written in his face. Neither could it be truthfully said to be a +surprise to Little Bel; for she had not been woman, had she failed to +recognize on the previous day that the rugged Scotchman's whole nature +had gone out toward her in a sudden and overmastering attraction.</p> + +<p>Sandy looked at her keenly. "Eh, ye know't a'ready," he said,--"the +thing I came to say t' ye." And he paused, still eying her more like a +judge than a lover.</p> + +<p>Little Bel turned scarlet. This was not her ideal of a wooer. "Know +what, Mr. Bruce?" she said resentfully. "How should I know what ye came +to say?"</p> + +<p>"Tush! tush, lass! do na prevaricate," Sandy began, his eyes gloating on +her lovely confusion; "do na preteend--" But the sweet blue eyes were +too much for him. Breaking down utterly, he tossed the guineas to one +side on the table, and stretching out both hands toward Bel, he +exclaimed,--"Ye're the sweetest thing the eyes o' a mon ever rested on, +lass, an' I'm goin' to win ye if ye'll let me." And as Bel opened her +mouth to speak, he laid one hand, quietly as a mother might, across her +lips, and continued: "Na! na! I'll not let ye speak yet. I'm not a silly +to look for ye to be ready to say me yes at this quick askin'; but I'll +not let ye say me nay neither. Ye'll not refuse me the only thing I'm +askin' the day, an' that's that ye'll let me try to make ye love me. +Ye'll not say nay to that, lass. I'll gie my life to it." And now he +waited for an answer.</p> + +<p>None came. Tears were in Bel's eyes as she looked up in his face. Twice +she opened her lips to speak, and twice her heart and the words failed +her. The tears became drops and rolled down the cheeks. Sandy was +dismayed.</p> + +<p>"Ye're not afraid o' me, ye sweet thing, are ye?" he gasped out. "I'd +not vex ye for the world. If ye bid me to go, I'd go."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not afraid o' ye, Mr. Bruce," sobbed Bel. "I don't know what it +is makes me so silly. I'm not afraid o' ye, though. But I was for a few +minutes yesterday," she added archly, with a little glint of a roguish +smile, which broke through the tears like an April sun through rain, and +turned Sandy's head in the twinkling of an eye.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," he said; "I minded it weel, an' I said to myself then, in that +first sight I had o' yer face, that I'd not harm a hair o' yer head. Oh, +my little lass, would ye gie me a kiss,--just one, to show ye're not +afraid, and to gie me leave to try to win ye out o' likin' into lovin'?" +he continued, drawing closer and bending toward her.</p> + +<p>And then a wonderful thing happened. Little Bel, who, although she was +twenty years old, and had by no means been without her admirers, had +never yet kissed any man but her father and brothers, put up her rosy +lips, as confidingly as a little child, to be kissed by this strange +wooer, who wooed only for leave to woo.</p> + +<p>"An' if he'd only known it, he might ha' asked a' he wanted then as well +as later," said Little Bel, honestly avowing the whole to her mother. +"As soon as he put his hands on me the very heart in me said he was my +man for a' my life. An' there's no shame in it that I can see. If a man +may love that way in the lighting of an eye, why may not a girl do the +same? There's not one kind o' heart i' the breast of a man an' another +kind i' the breast of a woman, as ever I heard." In which Little Bel, in +her innocence, was wiser than people wiser than she.</p> + +<p>And after this there is no need of telling more,--only a picture or two +which are perhaps worth sketching in few words. One is the expression +which was seen on Sandy Bruce's face one day, not many weeks after his +first interview with Little Bel, when, in reply to his question, "An' +now, my own lass, what'll ye have for your weddin' gift from me? Tell me +the thing ye want most i' a' the earth, an' if it's in my means ye shall +have it the day ye gie me the thing I want maist i' the whole earth."</p> + +<p>"I've got it a'ready, Sandy," said Little Bel, taking his face in her +hands, and making a feint of kissing him; then withdrawing coquettishly. +Wise, innocent Bel! Sandy understood.</p> + +<p>"Ay, my lass; but next to me. What's the next thing ye'd have?"</p> + +<p>Bel hesitated. Even to her wooer's generosity it might seem a daring +request,--the thing she craved.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, lass," said Sandy, sternly. "I've mair money than ye think. +There's no lady in a' Charlottetown can go finer than ye if ye've a +mind."</p> + +<p>"For shame, Sandy!" cried Bel. "An' you to think it was fine apparel I'd +be askin'! It's a--a"--the word refused to leave her tongue--"a--piano, +Sandy;" and she gazed anxiously at him. "I'll never ask ye for another +thing till the day o' my death, Sandy, if ye'll gie me that."</p> + +<p>Sandy shouted in delight. For a brief space a fear had seized him--of +which he now felt shame indeed--that his sweet lassie might be about to +ask for jewels or rich attire; and it would have sorely hurt Sandy's +pride in her had this been so.</p> + +<p>"A piano!" he shouted. "An' did ye not think I'd that a'ready in my +mind? O' coorse, a piano, an' every other instrument under the skies +that ye'll wish, my lass, ye shall have. The more music ye make, the +gladder the house'll be. Is there nothin' else ye want, lass,--nothin'?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing in all this world, Sandy, but you and a piano," replied Little +Bel.</p> + +<p>The other picture was on a New Year's Day, just a twelvemonth from the +day of Little Bel's exhibition in the Wissan Bridge school-house. It is +a bright day; the sleighing is superb all over the island, and the +Charlottetown streets are full of gay sleighs and jingling bells,--none +so gay, however, as Sandy Bruce's, and no bells so merry as the silver +ones on his fierce little Norwegian ponies, that curvet and prance, and +are all their driver can hold. Rolled up in furs to her chin, how rosy +and handsome looks Little Bel by her husband's side, and how full of +proud content is his face as he sees the people all turning to look at +her beauty! And who is this driving the Norwegian ponies? Who but +Archie,--Archie McLeod, who has followed his young teacher to her new +home, and is to grow up, under Sandy Bruce's teachings, into a sharp and +successful man of the shipping business.</p> + +<p>And as they turn a corner they come near running into another fur-piled, +swift-gliding sleigh, with a grizzled old head looking out of a tartan +hood, and eyes like hawks',--Dalgetty himself; and as they pass the head +nods and the eyes laugh, and a sharp voice cries, "Guineas it is!"</p> + +<p>"Better than guineas!" answered back Mrs. Sandy Bruce, quick as a flash; +and in the same second cries Archie, from the front seat, with a saucy +laugh, "And as long as she lives, Mr. Dalgetty!"</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch04"> +<h2>The Captain of the "Heather Bell".</h2> + + + +<p>You might have known he was a Scotchman by the name of his little +steamer; and if you had not known it by that, you would have known it as +soon as you looked at him. Scotch, pure, unmitigated, unmistakable +Scotch, was Donald Mackintosh, from the crown of his auburn head down to +the soles of his big awkward feet. Six feet two inches in his stockings +he stood, and so straight that he looked taller even than that; +blue-gray eyes full of a canny twinkle; freckles,--yes, freckles that +were really past the bounds of belief, for up into his hair they ran, +and to the rims of his eyes,--no pale, dull, equivocal freckles, such as +might be mistaken for dingy spots of anything else, but brilliant, +golden-brown freckles, almost auburn like his hair. Once seen, never to +be forgotten were Donald Mackintosh's freckles. All this does not sound +like the description of a handsome man; but we are not through yet with +what is to be said about Donald Mackintosh's looks. We have said nothing +of his straight massive nose, his tawny curling beard, which shaded up +to yellow around a broad and laughing mouth, where were perpetually +flashing teeth of an even ivory whiteness a woman might have coveted. +No, not handsome, but better than handsome, was Donald Mackintosh; he +was superb. Everybody said so: nobody could have been found to dispute +it,--nobody but Donald himself; he thought, honestly thought, he was +hideous. All that he could see on the rare occasions when he looked in a +glass was an expanse of fiery red freckles, topped off with what he +would have called a shock of red hair. Uglier than anything he had ever +seen in his life, he said to himself many a time, and grew shyer and +shyer and more afraid of women each time he said it; and all this while +there was not a girl in Charlottetown that did not know him in her +thoughts, if indeed she did not openly speak of him, as that "splendid +Donald Mackintosh," or "the handsome 'Heather Bell' captain."</p> + +<p>But nothing could have made Donald believe this, which was in one way a +pity, though in another way not. If he had known how women admired him, +he would have inevitably been more or less spoiled by it, wasted his +time, and not have been so good a sailor. On the other hand, it was a +pity to see him,--forty years old, and alone in the world,--not a chick +nor a child of his own, nor any home except such miserable makeshifts as +a sailor finds in inns or boarding-houses.</p> + +<p>It was a wonder that the warm-hearted fellow had kept a cheery nature +and face all these years living thus. But the "Heather Bell" stood to +him in place of wife, children, home. There is no passion in life so +like the passion of a man for a woman as the passion of a sailor for his +craft; and this passion Donald had to the full. It was odd how he came +to be a born sailor. His father and his father's fathers, as far back as +they knew, had been farmers--three generations of them--on the Prince +Edward Island farm where Donald was born; and still more generations of +them in old Scotland. Pure Scotch on both sides of the house for +hundreds of years were the Mackintoshes, and the Gaelic tongue was +to-day freer spoken in their houses than English.</p> + +<p>The Mackintosh farm on Prince Edward Island was in the parish of Orwell +Head, and Donald's earliest transgressions and earliest pleasures were +runaway excursions to the wharves of that sleepy shore. To him Spruce +Wharf was a centre of glorious maritime adventure. The small sloops that +plied up and down the coast of the island, running in at the inlets, and +stopping to gather up the farmers' produce and take it to Charlottetown +markets, seemed to him as grand as Indiamen; and when, in his twelfth +year, he found himself launched in life as a boy-of-all-work on one of +these sloops, whose captain was a friend of his father's, he felt that +his fortune was made. And so it was. He was in the line of promotion by +virtue of his own enthusiasm. No plank too small for the born sailor to +swim by. Before Donald was twenty-five he himself commanded one of these +little coasting-vessels. From this he took a great stride forward, and +became first officer on the iron-clad steamer plying between +Charlottetown and the mainland. The winter service on this boat was +terrible,--ploughing and cutting through nearly solid ice for long days +and nights of storm. Donald did not like it. He felt himself lost out in +the wild channel. His love was for the water near shore,--for the bays, +inlets, and river-mouths he had known since he was a child.</p> + +<p>He began to think he was not so much of a sailor as he had supposed,--so +great a shrinking grew up in him winter after winter from the perils and +hardships of the mail-steamer's route. But he persevered and bided his +time, and in ten years had the luck to become owner and master of a trim +little coasting-steamer which had been known for years as the "Sally +Wright," making two trips a week from Charlottetown to Orwell +Head,--known as the "Sally Wright" no longer, however; for the first +thing Donald did was to repaint her, from stem to stern, white, with +green and pink stripes, on her prow a cluster of pink heather blossoms, +and "Heather Bell" in big letters on the side.</p> + +<p>When he was asked where he got this fancy name, he said, lightly, he +did not know; it was a good Scotch name. This was not true. Donald knew +very well. On the window-sill in his mother's kitchen had stood always a +pot of pink heather. Come summer, come winter, the place was never +without a young heather growing; and the dainty pink bells were still to +Donald the man, as they had been to Donald the child, the loveliest +flowers in the world. But he would not for the profits of many a trip +have told his comrade captains why he had named his boat the "Heather +Bell." He had a sentiment about the name which he himself hardly +understood. It seemed out of all proportion to the occasion; but a day +was coming when it would seem more like a prophecy than a mere +sentiment. He had builded better than he knew when he chose that name +for the thing nearest his heart.</p> + +<p>Charlottetown is not a gay place; its standards and methods of amusement +are simple and primitive. Among the summer pleasures of the young people +picnics still rank high, and picnic excursions by steamboat or sloop +highest of all. Through June and July hardly a daily newspaper can be +found which does not contain the advertisement of one or more of these +excursions. After Donald made his little boat so fresh and gay with the +pink and green colors, and gave her the winning new name, she came to be +in great demand for these occasions.</p> + +<p>How much the captain's good looks had to do with the "Heather Bell's" +popularity as a pleasure-boat it would not do to ask; but there was +reason enough for her being liked aside from that. Sweet and fresh in +and out, with white deck, the chairs and settees all painted green, and +a gay streamer flying,--white, with three green bars,--and "Donald +Mackintosh, Captain," in green letters, and below these a spray of pink +heather, she looked more like a craft for festive sailing than for +cruising about from one farm-landing to another, picking up odds and +ends of farm produce,--eggs and butter, and oats and wool,--with now and +then a passenger. Donald liked this slow cruising and the market-work +best; but the picnic parties were profitable, and he took them whenever +he could. He kept apart, however, from the merry-makers as much as +possible, and was always glad at night when he had landed his noisy +cargo safe back at the Charlottetown piers.</p> + +<p>This disposition on his part to hold himself aloof was greatly +irritating to the Charlottetown girls, and to no one of them so much as +to pretty Katie McCloud, who, because she was his second cousin and had +known him all her life, felt, and not without reason, that he ought to +pay her something in the shape or semblance of attention when she was on +board his boat, even if she were a member of a large and gay party, most +of whom were strangers to him. There was another reason, too; but Katie +had kept it so long locked in the bottom of her heart that she hardly +realized its force and cogency, and, if she had, would have laughed, and +put it as far from her thoughts as she could.</p> + +<p>The truth was, Katie had been in love with Donald ever since she was ten +years old and he was twenty,--a long time, seeing that she was now +thirty and he forty; and never once, either in their youth or their +middle age, had there been a word of love-making between them. All the +same, deep in her heart the good little Katie had kept the image of +Donald in sacred tenderness by itself. No other man's love-making, +however earnest,--and Katie had been by no means without lovers,--had so +much as touched this sentiment. She judged them all by this secret +standard, and found them all wanting. She did not pine, neither did she +take a step of forwardness, or even coquettish advance, to Donald. She +was too full of Scotch reticence for that. The only step she did take, +in hope of bringing him nearer to her, was the going to Charlottetown to +learn the milliner's trade.</p> + +<p>Poor Katie! if she had but known she threw away her last chance when she +did it. She reasoned that Donald was in Charlottetown far more than he +was anywhere else; that if she stayed at home on the farm she could see +him only by glimpses, when the "Heather Bell" ran in at their +landing,--in and out and off again in an hour. What was that? And maybe +a Sunday once or twice a year, and at a Christmas gathering. No wonder +Katie thought that in the town where his business lay and he slept +three nights a week she would have a far better chance; that he would be +glad to come and see her in her tidy little shop. But when Donald heard +what she had done, he said gruffly: "Just like the rest; all for ribbons +and laces and silly gear. I thought Katie'd more sense. Why didn't she +stay at home on the farm?" And he said as much to her when he first saw +her in her new quarters. She tried to explain to him that she wanted to +support herself, and she could not do it on the farm.</p> + +<p>"No need,--no need," said her relentless cousin; "there was plenty for +all on the farm." And all the while he stood glowering at the counter +spread with gay ribbons and artificial flowers, and Katie was ready to +cry. This was in the first year of her life in Charlottetown. She was +only twenty-two then. In the eight years since then matters had quieted +down with Katie. It seemed certain that Donald would never marry. +Everybody said so. And if a man had lived till forty without it, what +else could be expected? If Katie had seen him seeking other women, her +quiet and unrewarded devotion would no doubt have flamed up in jealous +pain. But she knew that he gave to her as much as he gave to +any,--occasional and kindly courtesy, no less, no more.</p> + +<p>So the years slipped by, and in her patient industry Katie forgot how +old she was growing, until suddenly, on her thirtieth birthday, +something--the sight of a deepened line on her face, perhaps, or a pang +of memory of the old childish past, such as birthdays always +bring--something smote her with a sudden consciousness that life itself +was slipping away, and she was alone. No husband, no child, no home, +except as she earned each month, by fashioning bonnets and caps for the +Charlottetown women, money enough to pay the rent of the two small rooms +in which she slept, cooked, and plied her trade. Some tears rolled down +Katie's face as she sat before her looking-glass thinking these +unwelcome thoughts.</p> + +<p>"I'll go to the Orwell Head picnic to-morrow," she said to herself. +"It's so near the old place perhaps Donald'll walk over home with me. +It's long since he's seen the farm, I'll be bound."</p> + +<p>Now, Katie did not say to herself in so many words, "It will be like +old times when we were young, and it may be something will stir in +Donald's heart for me at the sight of the fields." Not only did she not +say this; she did not know that she thought it; but it was there, all +the same, a lurking, newly revived, vague, despairing sort of hope. And +because it was there she spent half the day retrimming a bonnet and +washing and ironing a gown to wear to the picnic; and after long and +anxious pondering of the matter, she deliberately took out of her best +box of artificial flowers a bunch of white heather, and added it to the +bonnet trimming. It did not look overmuch like heather, and it did not +suit the bonnet, of which Katie was dimly aware; but she wanted to say +to Donald, "See, I put a sprig of heather in my bonnet in honor of your +boat to-day." Simple little Katie!</p> + +<p>It was a large and noisy picnic, of the very sort Donald most disliked, +and he kept himself out of sight until the last moment, just before they +swung round at Spruce Wharf. Then, as he stood on the upper deck giving +orders about the flinging out of the ropes, Katie looked up at him from +below, and called, in a half-whisper: "Oh, Donald, I was thinking I'd +walk over home instead of staying here to the dance. Wouldn't ye be +goin' with me, Donald? They'd be glad to see ye."</p> + +<p>"Ay, Katie," answered Donald; "that will I, and be glad to be out of +this." And as soon as the boat was safely moored, he gave his orders to +his mate for the day, and leaping down joined the glad Katie; and before +the picnickers had even missed them they were well out of sight, walking +away briskly over the brown fields.</p> + +<p>Katie was full of happiness. As she glanced up into Donald's face she +found it handsomer and kinder than she had seen it, she thought, for +many years.</p> + +<p>"It was for this I came, Donald," she said merrily. "When I heard the +dance was to be in the Spruce Grove I made up my mind to come and +surprise the folks. It's nigh six months since I've been home."</p> + +<p>"Pity ye ever left it, my girl," said Donald, gravely. "The home's the +place for women." But he said it in a pleasant tone, and his eyes rested +affectionately on Katie's face.</p> + +<p>"Eh, but ye're bonny to-day, Katie; do ye know it?" he continued, his +glance lingering on her fresh color and her smiling face. In his heart +he was saying: "An' what is it makes her so young-looking to-day? It was +an old face she had on the last time I saw her."</p> + +<p>Happiness, Donald, happiness! Even those few minutes of it had worked +the change.</p> + +<p>Encouraged by this praise, Katie said, pointing to the flowers in her +bonnet, "It's the heather ye're meanin', maybe, Donald, an' not me?"</p> + +<p>"An' it's not," he replied earnestly, almost angrily, with a scornful +glance at the flowers. "Ye'll not be callin' that heather. Did ye never +see true heather, Katie? It's no more like the stalks ye've on yer head +than a barrow's like my boat yonder."</p> + +<p>Which was not true: the flowers were of the very best ever imported into +Charlottetown, and were a better representation of heather than most +artificial flowers are of the blossoms whose names they bear. Donald was +not a judge; and if he had been, it was a cruel thing to say. Katie's +eyes drooped: she had made a serious sacrifice in putting so dear a +bunch of flowers on her bonnet,--a bunch that she had, in her own mind, +been sure Lady Gownas, of Gownas House, would buy for her summer bonnet. +She had made this sacrifice purely to please Donald, and this was what +had come of it. Poor Katie! However, nothing could trouble her long +to-day, with Donald by her side in the sunny, bright fields; and she +would have him to herself till four in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>As they drew near the farm-house a strange sound fell on their ears; it +was as if a million of beehives were in full blast of buzzing in the +air. At the same second both Donald and Katie paused, listening. "What +can that be, now?" exclaimed Donald. Before the words had left his lips, +Katie cried, "It's a bee!--Elspie's spinning-bee."</p> + +<p>The spinning-bees are great fêtes among the industrious maidens of +Prince Edward Island. After the spring shearings are over, the wool +washed and carded and made into rolls, there begin to circulate +invitations to spinning-bees at the different farm-houses. Each girl +carries her spinning-wheel on her shoulder. By eight o'clock in the +morning all are gathered and at work: some of them have walked ten miles +or more, and barefoot too, their shoes slung over the shoulder with the +wheel. Once arrived, they waste no time. The rolls of wool are piled +high in the corners of the rooms, and it is the ambition of each one to +spin all she can before dark. At ten o'clock cakes and lemonade are +served; at twelve, the dinner,--thick soup, roast meat, vegetables, +coffee and tea, and a pudding. All are seated at a long table, and the +hostesses serve; at six o'clock comes supper, and then the day's work is +done; after that a little chat or a ramble over the farm, and at eight +o'clock all are off for home. No young men, no games, no dances; yet the +girls look forward to the bees as their greatest spring pleasures, and +no one grudges the time or the strength they take.</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, a big bee that Elspie McCloud was having this June +morning. Twenty young girls, all in long white aprons, were spinning +away as if on a wager when Donald and Katie appeared at the door. The +door opened directly into the large room where they were. Katie went +first, Donald hanging back behind. "I think I'll not go in," he was +shamefacedly saying, and halting on the step, when above all the +wheel-whirring and yarn-singing came a glad cry,--</p> + +<p>"Why, there's Katie--Katie McCloud! and Donald Mackintosh! For pity's +sake!" (the Prince Edward Islander's strongest ejaculation.) "Come in! +come in!" And in a second more a vision, it seemed to the dazed +Donald,--but it was not a vision at all, only a buxom young girl in a +blue homespun gown,--had seized him with one hand and Katie with the +other, and drawn them both into the room, into the general whir and +<i>mêlée</i> of wheels, merry faces, and still merrier voices.</p> + +<p>It was Elspie, Katie's youngest sister,--Katie's special charge and care +when she was a baby, and now her special pet. The greatest desire of +Katie's heart was to have Elspie with her in Charlottetown, but the +father and mother would not consent.</p> + +<p>Donald stood like a man in a dream. He did not know it; but from the +moment his eyes first fell on Elspie's face they had followed it as iron +follows the magnet. Were there ever such sweet gray eyes in the world? +and such a pink and white skin? and hair yellow as gold? And what, oh, +what did she wear tucked in at the belt of her white apron but a sprig +of heather! Pink heather,--true, genuine, actual pink heather, such as +Donald had not seen for many a year. No wonder the eyes of the captain +of the "Heather Bell" followed that spray of pink heather wherever it +went flitting about from place to place, never long in one,--for it was +now time for dinner, and Donald and the old people were soon seated at a +small table by themselves, not to embarrass the young girls, and Elspie +and Katie together served the dinner; and though Elspie never once came +to the small table, yet did Donald see every motion she made and hear +every note of her lark's voice. He did not mistake what had happened to +him. Middle-aged, inexperienced, sober-souled man as he was, he knew +that at last he had got a wound,--a life wound, if it were not +healed,--and the consciousness of it struck him more and more dumb, till +his presence was like a damper on the festivities; so much so, that when +at three in the afternoon he and Katie took their departure, the door +had no more than closed on them before Elspie exclaimed pettishly: "An' +indeed I wish Katie'd left Cousin Donald behind. I don't know what it is +she thinks so much of him for. She's always sayin' there's none like +him; an' it's lucky it's true. The great glowerin' steeple o' a man, +with no word in his mouth!" And the young maidens all agreed with her. +It was a strange thing for a man to come and go like that, with nothing +to say for himself, they said, and he so handsome too.</p> + +<p>"Handsome!" cried Elspie; "is it handsome,--the face all a spatter with +the color of the hair? He's nice eyes of his own, but his skin's +deesgustin'." Which speech, if Donald had overheard it, would have +caused that there should never have been this story to tell. But luckily +Donald did not. All that he bore away from the McCloud farm-house that +June morning was a picture of a face and flitting figure, and the sound +in his ears of a voice,--a picture and a sound which he was destined to +see and hear all his life.</p> + +<p>He scarcely spoke on his way back to the boat, and Katie perplexed +herself vainly trying to account for his silence. It must be, she +thought, that he had been vexed by the sight of so many girls and the +sound of their idle chatter. He would have liked it better if nobody but +the family had been at home. What a shame for a man to live alone as he +did, and get into such unsocial ways! He grew more and more averse to +society each year. Now, if he were only married, and had a bright home, +where people came and went, with a bit of a tea now and then, how good +it would be for him,--take the stiffness out of his ways, and make him +more as he used to be fifteen, or even ten years ago! And so the good +Katie went on in her placid mind, trotting along silently by his side, +waiting for him to speak.</p> + +<p>"Where did she get the heather?"</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Katie. The irrelevant question sounded like the speech +of one talking in his sleep. "Oh," she continued, "ye mean Elspie!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Donald. "She'd a bit of heather in her belt,--the true +heather, not sticks like yon," pointing a contemptuous finger toward +Katie's bonnet. "Where did she get it?"</p> + +<p>"Mother's always the heather growing in the house," answered Katie. "She +says she's homesick unless she sees it. It was grandmother brought it +over in the first, and it's never been let die out."</p> + +<p>"My mother the same," said Donald. "It's the first blossom I remember, +an' I'm thinking it will be the last," he continued, gazing at Katie +absently; but his face did not look as if it were absently he gazed. +There was a glow on his cheeks, and an intense expression in his eyes +which Katie had never seen there. They warmed her heart.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "one can never forget what one has loved in the youth."</p> + +<p>"True, Katie, true. There's nothing like one's own and earliest," +replied Donald, full of his new and thrilling emotion; and as he said it +he reached out his hand and took hold of Katie's, as if they were boy +and girl together. "Many's the time I've raced wi' ye this way, Katie," +he said affectionately.</p> + +<p>"Ay, when I was a wee thing; an' ye always let go my hand at last, and +pretended I could outrin ye," laughed Katie, blissful tears filling her +eyes.</p> + +<p>What a happy day was this! Had it not been an inspiration to bring +Donald back to the old farm-house? Katie was sure it had. She was filled +with sweet reveries; and so silent on the way home that her merry +friends joked her unmercifully about her long walk inland with the +Captain.</p> + +<p>It was late in the night, or rather it was early the next morning, when +the "Heather Bell" reached her wharf.</p> + +<p>"I'll go up with ye, Katie," said Donald. "It's not decent for ye to go +alone."</p> + +<p>And when he bade her good-night he looked half-wistfully in her face, +and said: "But it's a lonely house for ye to come to, Katie, an' not a +soul but yourself in it." And he held her hand in his affectionately, as +a cousin might.</p> + +<p>Katie's heart beat like a hammer in her bosom at these words, but she +answered gravely: "Yes, it was sorely lonely at first, an' I wearied +myself out to get them to give me Elspie to learn the business wi' me; +but I'm more used to it now."</p> + +<p>"That is what I was thinkin'," said Donald, "that if the two o' ye were +here together, ye'd not be so lonely. Would she not like to come?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, that would she," replied the unconscious Katie; "she pines to be +with me. I'm more her mother than the mother herself; but they'll never +consent."</p> + +<p>"She's bonny," said Donald. I'd not seen her since she was little."</p> + +<p>"She's as good as she is bonny," said Katie, warmly; and that was the +last word between Katie and Donald that night.</p> + +<p>"As good as she is bonny." It rang in Donald's ears like a refrain of +heavenly music as he strode away. "As good as she is bonny;" and how +good must that be? She could not be as good as she was bonny, for she +was the bonniest lass that ever drew breath. Gray eyes and golden hair +and pink cheeks and pink heather all mingled in Donald's dreams that +night in fantastic and impossible combinations; and more than once he +waked in terror, with the sweat standing on his forehead from some +nightmare fancy of danger to the "Heather Bell" and to Elspie, both +being inextricably entangled together in his vision.</p> + +<p>The visions did not fade with the day. They pursued Donald, and haunted +his down-sitting and his uprising. He tried to shake them off, drive +them away; for when he came to think the thing over soberly, he called +himself an old fool to be thus going daft about a child like Elspie.</p> + +<p>"Barely twenty at the most, and me forty. She'd not look at an old +fellow like me, and maybe't would be like a sin if she did," said Donald +to himself over and over again. But it did no good. "As good as she is +bonny, bonny, bonny," rang in his ears, and the blue eyes and golden +hair and merry smile floated before his eyes. There was no help for it. +Since the world began there have been but two roads out of this sort of +mystic maze in which Donald now found himself lost,--but two roads, one +bright with joy, one dark with sorrow. And which road should it be +Donald's fate to travel must be for the child Elspie to say. After a few +days of bootless striving with himself, during which time he had spent +more hours with Katie than he had for a year before,--it was such a +comfort to him to see in her face the subtle likeness to Elspie, and to +hear her talk about plans of bringing her to Charlottetown for a visit +if nothing more,--after a few days of this, Captain Donald, one Saturday +afternoon, sailing past Orwell Head, suddenly ran into the inlet where +he had taken the picnic party, and, mooring the "Heather Bell" at Spruce +Wharf, announced to his astonished mate that he should lie by there till +Monday.</p> + +<p>It was a bold step of Captain Donald's. But he was not a man for +half-and-half ways in anything; and he had said grimly to himself that +this matter must be ended one way or the other,--either he would win the +child or lose her. He would know which. Girls had loved men twenty years +older than themselves, and girls might again.</p> + +<p>The Sunday passed off better than his utmost hopes. Everybody except +Elspie was cordially glad to see him. Visitors were not so common at the +Orwell Head farm-houses that they could fail of welcome. The McCloud +boys were thankful to hear all that Donald had to tell, and with the old +father and mother he had always been a prime favorite. It had been a +sore disappointment to them, as year after year went by, to see that +there seemed no likelihood of his becoming Katie's husband. As the day +wore on, even Elspie relaxed a little from her indifferent attention to +him, and began to perceive that, spite of the odious freckles, he was, +as the girls had said, a handsome man.</p> + +<p>Partly because of this, and partly from innate coquetry, she said, when +he was taking leave, "Ye'll not be comin' again for another year, +maybe?"</p> + +<p>"Ye'll see, then!" laughed Donald, with a sudden wise impulse to refrain +from giving the reply which sprang to his lips,--"To-morrow, if ye'd ask +me!"</p> + +<p>And from the same wise, strangely wise impulse he curbed his desire to +go again the next Sunday and the next. Not until three weeks had passed +did he go; and then Elspie was clearly and unmistakably glad to see him. +This was all Donald wanted. "I'll win her, the bonny thing!" he said to +himself. "An' I'll not be long, either."</p> + +<p>And he was right. A girl would have been hard indeed that would not +have been touched by the beaming, tender face which Donald wore, now +that hope lighted it up. His masterful bearing, too, was a pleasure to +the spirited Elspie, who had no liking for milksops, and had sent off +more than one lover because he came crawling too humbly to her feet. +Elspie had none of the gentle, quiet blood which ran in Katie's veins. +She had even been called Firebrand in her younger, childish days, so hot +was her temper, so hasty her tongue. But the firm rule of the Scottish +household and the pressure of the stern Scotch Calvinism preached in +their kirk had brought her well under her own control.</p> + +<p>"Eh, but the bonny lass has hersel' well in hand," thought the admiring +Donald more than once, as he saw her in some family discussion or +controversy keep silence, with flushing cheeks, when sharp words rose to +her tongue.</p> + +<p>All this time Katie was plodding away at her millinery, inexpressibly +cheered by Donald's new friendliness. He came often to see her, and told +her with the greatest frankness of his visits at the farm. He would take +her some day, he said; the trouble was, he could never be sure +beforehand when it would answer for him to stop there. Katie sunned +herself in this new familiar intercourse, and the thought of Donald +running up to the old farm of a Sunday as if he were one of the brothers +going home. In the contentment of these thoughts she grew younger and +prettier,--began to look as she did at twenty. And Donald, gazing +scrutinizingly in her face one day, seeking, as he was always doing, for +stray glimpses of resemblance to Elspie, saw this change, and +impulsively told her of it.</p> + +<p>"But ye're growin' young, Katie--d'ye know it?--young and bonny, my +girl."</p> + +<p>And Katie listened to the words with such sweet joy she feared her face +would tell too much, and put up her hands to hide it, crying: "Ah, ye're +tryin' to make me silly, you Donald, with such flatterin'. We're gettin' +old, Donald, you an' me," she added, with a guilty little undercurrent +of thought in her mind. "D'ye mind that I was thirty last month?"</p> + +<p>"Ay," replied Donald, gloomily, his face darkening,--"ay; I mind, by the +same token, I'm forty. It's no need ye have to be callin' yersel' old. +But I'm old, an' no mistake." The thought, as Katie had put it, had been +gall and wormwood to him. If Katie thought him old, what must he seem to +Elspie!</p> + +<p>It was early in June that Elspie had had the spinning-bee to which Katie +had brought the unwelcome Donald. The summer sped past, but a faster +summer than any reckoned on the calendar of months and days was speeding +in Elspie's heart. Such great love as Donald's reaches and warms its +object as inevitably as the heat of a fire warms those near it. Early in +June the spinning-bee, and before the last flax was pulled, early in +September, Elspie knew that she was restless till Donald came, glad when +he was by her side, and strangely sorry when he went away. Still, she +was not ready to admit to herself that it was anything more than her +natural liking for any pleasant friend who broke in on the lonely +monotony of the farm life.</p> + +<p>The final drying of the flax, which is an important crop on most of the +Prince Edward Island farms, is put off until autumn. After its first +drying in the fields where it grew, it is stored in bundles under cover +till all the other summer work is done, and autumn brings leisure. Then +the flax camp, as it is called, is built,--a big house of spruce boughs; +walls, flat roof, all of the green spruce boughs, thick enough to keep +out rain. This is usually in the heart of a spruce grove. Thither the +bundles of flax are carried and stacked in piles. In the centre of the +inclosure a slow fire is lighted, and above this on a frame of slats the +stalks of flax are laid for their last drying. It is a difficult and +dangerous process to keep the fire hot enough and not too hot, to shift +and turn and lift the flax at the right moment. Sometimes only a sudden +flinging of moist earth upon the fire saves it from blazing up into the +flax, and sometimes one careless second's oversight loses the +whole,--flax, spruce-bough house, all, in a light blaze, and gone in a +breath.</p> + +<p>The McClouds' flax camp had been built in the edge of the spruce grove +where the picnickers had held their dance and merry-making on that June +day, memorable to Donald and Elspie and Katie. It was well filled with +flax, in the drying of which nobody was more interested than Elspie. She +had big schemes for spinning and weaving in the coming winter. A whole +piece of linen she had promised to Katie, and a piece for herself, and, +as Elspie thought it over, maybe a good many more pieces than one she +might require for herself before spring. Who knew?</p> + +<p>It was October now, and many a Sunday evening had Elspie walked with +Donald alone down to Spruce Wharf, and lingered there watching the last +curl of steam from the "Heather Bell" as she rounded the point, bearing +Donald away. Elspie could not doubt why Donald came. Soon she would +wonder why he came and went so many times silent; that is, silent in +words, eloquent of eye and hand,--even the touch of his hand was like a +promise.</p> + +<p>No one was defter and more successful in this handling of the flax over +the fire than Elspie. It had sometimes happened that she, with the help +of one brother, had dried the whole crop. It was not thought safe for +one person to work at it alone for fear of accident with the fire. But +it fell out on this October afternoon, a Saturday, that Elspie, feeling +sure of Donald's being on his way to spend the Sunday with her, had +walked down to the wharf to meet him. Seeing no signs of the boat, she +went back to the flax camp, lighted the fire, and began to spread the +flax on the slats. There was not much more left to be dried,--"not more +than three hours' work in all," she said to herself. "Eh, but I'd like +to have done with it before the Sabbath!" And she fell to work with a +will, so briskly to work that she did not realize how time was +flying,--did not, strangest of all, hear the letting off of steam when +the "Heather Bell" moored at the wharf; and she was still busily turning +and lifting and separating the stalks of flax, bending low over the +frame, heated, hurrying, her whole heart in her work, when Donald came +striding up the field from the wharf,--striding at his greatest pace, +for he was disturbed at not finding Elspie at the landing to meet him. +He turned his head toward the spruce grove, thinking vaguely of the June +picnic, and what had come of his walking away from the dance that +morning, when suddenly a great column of smoke and fire rolled up from +the grove, and in the same second came piercing shrieks in Elspie's +voice. The grove was only a few rods away, but it seemed to Donald an +eternity before he reached the spot, to see not only the spruce boughs +and flax on fire, but Elspie tossing up her arms like one crazed, her +gown all ablaze. The brave, foolish girl, at the first blazing of the +stalks on the slats, had darted into the corner of the house and +snatched an armful of the piled flax there to save it; but as she passed +the flaming centre the whole sheaf she carried had caught fire also, and +in a twinkling of an eye had blazed up around her head, and when she +dropped it, had blazed up again fiercer than ever around her feet.</p> + +<p>With a groan Donald seized her. The flames leaped on him, too, as if to +wrestle with him; his brown beard crackled, his hair, but he fought +through it all. Throwing Elspie on the ground, he rolled her over and +over, crying aloud, "Oh, my darlin', if I break your sweet bones, it is +better than the fire!" And indeed it seemed as if it must break her +bones, so fiercely he rolled her over and over, tearing off his woollen +coat to smother the fire; beating it with his tartan cap, stamping it +with his knees and feet "Oh, my darlin'! make yourself easy. I'll save +ye! I'll save ye if I die for it," he cried.</p> + +<p>And through the smoke and the fire and the terror Elspie answered back: +"I'll not leave ye, my Donald. We're gettin' it under." And with her own +scorched hands she pulled the coat-flaps down over the smouldering bits +of flax, and tore off her burning garments.</p> + +<p>Not a coward thread in her whole body had little Elspie, and in less +time than the story could ever be told, all was over, and safely; and +there they sat on the ground, the two, locked in each other's +arms,--Donald's beard gone, and much of his hair; Elspie's pretty golden +hair also blackened, burned. It was the first thing Donald saw after he +made sure danger was past. Laying his hand on her head, he said, with a +half-sob,--he was hysterical now there was nothing more to be done: "Oh, +your bonny hair, my darlin'! It's all scorched away."</p> + +<p>"It'll grow!" said Elspie, looking up in his eyes archly. Her head was +on his shoulder, and she nestled closer; then she burst into tears and +laughter together, crying: "Oh, Donald, it was for you I was callin'. +Did ye hear me? I said to myself when the fire took hold, 'O God, send +Donald to save me!'"</p> + +<p>"An' he sent me, my darlin'," answered Donald. "Ye are my own darlin'; +say it, Elspie, say it!" he continued. "Oh, ye bonny bairn, but I've +loved ye like death since the first day I set eyes on your bonny face! +Say ye're my darlin'!"</p> + +<p>But he knew it without her saying a word; and the whispered "Yes, +Donald, I'm your darlin' if you want me," did not make him any surer.</p> + +<p>There was a great outcrying and trembling of hearts at the farm-house +when Donald and Elspie appeared in this sorry plight of torn and burned +clothes, blackened faces, scorched and singed hair. But thankfulness +soon swept away all other emotions,--thankfulness and a great joy, too; +for Donald's second word was, turning to the old father: "An' it is my +own that I've saved; she's gien hersel' to me for all time, an' we'll +ask for your blessin' on us without any waitin'!" Tears filled the +mother's eyes. She thought of another daughter. A dire instinct smote +her of woe to Katie.</p> + +<p>"Ay, Donald," she said, "it's a good day to us to see ye enter the +house as a son; but I never thought o'--" She stopped.</p> + +<p>Donald's quick consciousness imagined part of what she had on her mind. +"No," he said, half sad in the midst of his joy, "o' course ye didn't; +an' I wonder at mysel'. It's like winter weddin' wi' spring, ye'll be +sayin'. But I'll keep young for her sake. Ye'll see she's no old man for +a husband. There's nothing in a' the world I'll not do for the bairn. +It's no light love I bear her."</p> + +<p>"Ye'll be tellin' Katie on the morrow?" said the unconscious Elspie.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," replied the equally unconscious Donald; "an' she'll be main +glad o' 't. It's a hundred times in the summer that she's been sayin' +how she longed to have you in the town wi' her. An' now ye're comin', +comin' soon, oh, my bonny. I'll make a good home for ye both. Katie's +the same's my own, too, for always."</p> + +<p>The mother gazed earnestly at Donald. Could it be that he was so unaware +of Katie's heart? "Donald," she said suddenly, "I'll go down wi' ye if +ye'll take me. I've been wantin' to go. There's a many things I've to +do in the town."</p> + +<p>It had suddenly occurred to her that she might thus save Katie the shock +of hearing the news first from Donald's lips.</p> + +<p>It was well she did. When, with stammering lips and she hardly knew in +what words, she finally broke it to Katie that Donald had asked Elspie +to be his wife, and that Elspie loved him, and they would soon be +married, Katie stared into her face for a moment with wide, vacant eyes, +as if paralyzed by some vision of terror. Then, turning white, she +gasped out, "Mother!" No word more. None was necessary.</p> + +<p>"Ay, my bairn, I know," said the mother, with a trembling voice; "an' I +came mysel' that no other should tell ye."</p> + +<p>A long silence followed, broken only by an occasional shuddering sigh +from Katie; not a tear in her eyes, and her cheeks as scarlet as they +had been white a few moments before. The look on her face was +terrifying.</p> + +<p>"Will it kill ye, bairn?" sobbed the mother at last. "Don't look so. It +must be borne, my bairn; it must be borne."</p> + +<p>It was a shrill voice, unlike Katie's, which replied: "Ay, I'll bear +it; it must be borne. There's none knows it but you, mother," she added, +with a shade of relief in the tone.</p> + +<p>"An' never will if ye're brave, bairn," answered the mother.</p> + +<p>"It was the day of the picnic," cried Katie; "was't not? I remember he +said she was bonny."</p> + +<p>"Ay, 'twas then," replied the mother, so sorely torn between her love +for the two daughters, between whom had fallen this terrible sword. "Ay, +it was then. He says she has not been out of his mind by the night or by +the day since it."</p> + +<p>Katie shivered. "And it was I brought him," she said, with a tearless +sob bitterer than any loud weeping. "Ye'll be goin' back the night?" she +added drearily.</p> + +<p>"I'll bide if ye want me," said the mother.</p> + +<p>"I'm better alone, mother," said Katie, her voice for the first time +faltering. "I'll bear it. Never fear me, mother; but I'm best alone for +a bit. Ye'll give my warm love to Elspie, an' send her down here to me +to stay till she's married. I'll help her best if she's here. There'll +be much to be done. I'll do 't, mother; never fear me."</p> + +<p>"Are ye countin' too much on yer strength, bairn?" asked the now weeping +mother. "I'd rather see ye give way like."</p> + +<p>"No, no," cried Katie, impatiently. "Each one has his own way, mother; +let me have mine. I'll work for Donald and Elspie all I can. Ye know she +was always like my own bairn more than a sister. The quicker she comes +the better for me, mother. It'll be all over then. Eh, but she'll be a +bonny bride!" And at these words Katie's tears at last flowed.</p> + +<p>"There, there, bairn! Have out the tears; they're healin' to grief," +exclaimed her mother, folding her arms tight around her and drawing her +head down on her shoulder as she had done in her babyhood.</p> + +<p>Katie was right. When she had Elspie by her side, and was busily at work +in helping on all the preparations for the wedding, the worst was over. +There was a strange blending of pang and pleasure in the work. Katie +wondered at herself; but it grew clearer and clearer to her each day +that since Donald could not be hers she was glad he was Elspie's. "If +he'd married a stranger it would ha' broke my heart far worse, far +worse," she said many a time to herself as she sat patiently stitching, +stitching, on Elspie's bridal clothes. "He's my own in a way, after a', +so long's he's my brother. There's nobody can rob me o' that." And the +sweet light of unselfish devotion beamed more and more in her +countenance, till even the mother that bore her was deceived, and said +in her heart that Katie could not have been so very much in love with +Donald after all.</p> + +<p>There was one incident which for a few moments sorely tested Katie's +self-control. The spray of white heather blossom which she had worn to +the June picnic she had on the next day put back in her box of flowers +for sale, hoping that she might yet find a customer for it. The delicate +bells were not injured either in shape or color. It was a shame to lose +it for one day's wear, thought the thrifty Katie; and most surely she +herself would never wear it again. She could not even see it without a +flush of mortification as she recalled Donald's contempt for it. The +privileged Elspie, rummaging among all Katie's stores, old and new, +spied this white heather cluster one day, and snatching it up exclaimed: +"The very thing for my weddin' bonnet, Katie! I'll have it in. The bride +o' the master o' the 'Heather Bell' should be wed with the heather bloom +on her."</p> + +<p>Katie's face flushed. "It's been worn, Elspie," she said; "I had it in a +bonnet o' my own. Don't ye remember I wore it to the picnic? an' then it +didna suit, an' I put it back in the box. It's not fit for ye. I've a +bunch o' lilies o' the valley, better."</p> + +<p>"No; I'll have this," pursued Elspie. "It's as white's the driven snow, +an' not hurt at all. I'm sure Donald'll like it better than all the +other flowers i' the town."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, then, he won't," said Katie, sharply; on which Elspie turned +upon her with a flashing eye, and said,--</p> + +<p>"An' which 'll be knowin' best, do ye think? What is it ye mean?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Katie, meekly; "only he said, that day I'd the bonnet +on, it was no more than sticks, an' not like the true heather at all."</p> + +<p>"All he knows, then! Ye'll see he'll not say it looks like sticks when +it's on the bonnet I'm goin' to church in," retorted Elspie, dancing to +the looking-glass, and holding the white heather bells high up against +her golden curls. "It's the only flower in all yer boxes I want, Katie, +and ye'll not grudge it to me, will ye, dear?" And the sparkling Elspie +threw herself on the floor by Katie, and flung her arms across her +knees, looking up into her face with a wilful, loving smile.</p> + +<p>"No wonder Donald loves her so,--the bonny thing!" thought Katie. "God +knows I'd grudge ye nothing on earth, Elspie," she said, in a voice so +earnest that Elspie looked wonderingly at her.</p> + +<p>"Is it a very dear flower, sister?" she said penitently. "Does it cost +too much money for Elspie?"</p> + +<p>"No, bairn, it's not too dear," said Katie, herself again. "The lilies +were dearer. But ye'll have the heather an' welcome, if ye will; an' I +doubt not it'll look all right in Donald's eyes when he sees it this +time."</p> + +<p>It was indeed a good home that Donald made for his wife and her sister. +He was better to do in worldly goods than they had supposed. His long +years of seclusion from society had been years of thrift and prosperity. +No more milliner-work for Katie. Donald would not hear of it. So she was +driven to busy herself with the house, keeping from Elspie's willing and +eager hands all the harder tasks, and laying up stores of fine-spun +linen and wool for future use in the family. It was a marvel how content +Katie found herself as the winter flew by. The wedding had taken place +at Christmas, and the two sisters and Donald had gone together from the +church to Donald's new house, where, in a day or two, everything had +settled into peaceful grooves of simple, industrious habit, as if they +had been there all their lives.</p> + +<p>Donald's happiness was of the deep and silent kind. Elspie did not +realize the extent of it. A freer-spoken, more demonstrative lover would +have found heartier response and more appreciation from her. But she was +a loyal, loving, contented little wife, and there could not have been +found in all Charlottetown a happier household, to the eye, than was +Donald's for the first three months after his marriage.</p> + +<p>Then a cloud settled on it. For some inexplicable reason the blooming +Elspie, who had never had a day's illness in her life, drooped in the +first approach of the burden of motherhood. A strange presentiment also +seized her. After the first brief gladness at the thought of holding a +child of her own in her arms, she became overwhelmed with a melancholy +certainty of her own death.</p> + +<p>"I'll never live to see it, Katie," she said again and again. "It'll be +your bairn, an' not mine. Ye'll never give it up, Katie?--promise me. +Ye'll take care of it all your life?--promise." And Katie, terrified by +her earnestness, promised everything she asked, all the while striving +to reassure her that her fears were needless.</p> + +<p>No medicines did Elspie good; mind and body alike reacted on each other; +she failed hour by hour till the last; and when her time of trial came, +the sad presentiment fulfilled itself, and she died in giving birth to +her babe.</p> + +<p>When Katie brought the child to the stunned and stricken Donald, +saying, "Will ye not look at him, Donald? it is as fine a man-child's +was ever seen," he pushed her away, saying in a hoarse whisper,--</p> + +<p>"Never let me see its face. She said it was to be your bairn and not +hers. Take it and go. I'll never look on it."</p> + +<p>Donald was out of his reason when he spoke these words, and for long +after. They bore with him tenderly and patiently, and did as they could +for the best; Katie, the wan and grief-stricken Katie, being the chief +adviser and planner of all.</p> + +<p>Elspie's body was carried home and buried near the spruce grove, in a +little copse of young spruces which Donald pointed out. This was the +only wish he expressed about anything. Katie took the baby with her to +the old homestead. She dared not try to rear it without her mothers +help.</p> + +<p>It was many months before Donald came to the farm. This seemed strange +to all except Katie. To her it seemed the most natural thing, and she +grew impatient with all who thought otherwise.</p> + +<p>"I'd feel that way mysel'," she repeated again and again. "He'll come +when he can, but it'll be long first. Ye none of ye know what a love it +was he'd in his heart for Elspie."</p> + +<p>When at last Donald came, the child, the little Donald, was just able to +creep,--a chubby, blue-eyed, golden-haired little creature, already +bearing the stamp and likeness of his mother's beauty.</p> + +<p>At the first sight of his face Donald staggered, buried his head in his +hands, and turned away. Then, looking again, he stretched out his arms, +took the baby in them, and kissed him convulsively over and over. Katie +stood by, looking on, silently weeping. "He's like her," she said.</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Donald.</p> + +<p>The healing had begun. "A little child shall lead them," is of all the +Bible prophecies the one oftenest fulfilled. It soon grew to be Donald's +chiefest pleasure to be with his boy, and he found more and more irksome +the bonds of business which permitted him so few intervals of leisure to +visit the farm. At last one day he said to Katie,--</p> + +<p>"Katie, couldn't ye make your mind up to come up to Charlottetown? I'd +get ye a good house, an' ye could have who ye'd like to live wi' ye. I'm +like one hungry all the time I'm out o' reach o' the little lad."</p> + +<p>Katie's eyes fell. She did not know what to reply.</p> + +<p>"I do not know, Donald," she faltered. "It's hard for you having him +away, but this is my home now, Donald. I've a dread o' leavin' it. And +there is nobody I know who could come to live with me."</p> + +<p>A strange thought shot through Donald's brain. "Katie," he said, then +paused. Something in the tone startled Katie. She lifted her eyes; read +in his the thought which had made the tone so significant to her ear.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously she cried out at the sight, "Oh, Donald!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, Katie," he said slowly, with a grave tenderness, "why might not I +come and live wi' ye? Are ye not the mother o' my child? Did she not +give him to ye with her own lips? An' how could ye have him without me? +I think she must ha' meant it so. Let me come, Katie."</p> + +<p>It was an unimpassioned wooing; but any other would have repelled +Katie's sense of loyalty and truth.</p> + +<p>"Have ye love for me, Donald?" she said searchingly.</p> + +<p>"All the love left in me is for the little lad and for you, Katie," +answered Donald. "I'll not deceive you, Katie. It's but a broken man I +am; but I've always loved ye, Katie. I'll be a good man t' ye, lass. +Come and be the little lad's mother, and let me live wi' my own once +more. Will ye come?" As he said these words, he stretched out his arms +toward Katie; and she, trembling, afraid to be glad, shadowed by the sad +past, yet trusting in the future, crept into them, and was folded close +to the heart she had so faithfully loved all her life.</p> + +<p>"I promised Elspie," she whispered, "that I'd never, never give him to +another."</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Donald, as he kissed her. "He's your bairn, my Katie. Ye'll +be content wi' me, Katie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Donald, if I make you content," she replied; and a look of +heavenly peace spread over her face.</p> + +<p>The next morning Katie went alone to Elspie's grave. It seemed to her +that only there could she venture to look her new future in the face. As +she knelt by the low mound, her tears falling fast, she murmured,--</p> + +<p>"Eh, my bonny Elspie, ye'd the best o' his love. But it's me that'll be +doin' for him till I die, an' that's better than a' the love."</p> + +</div> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch05"> +<h2>Dandy Steve.</h2> + + +<p>Everything in this world is relative, and nothing more so than the +significance of the same word in different localities. If Dandy Steve +had walked Broadway in the same clothes which he habitually wore in the +Adirondack wilderness, not only would nobody have called him a dandy, +but every one would have smiled sarcastically at the suggestion of that +epithet's being applied to him. Nevertheless, "Dandy Steve" was the name +by which he was familiarly known all through the Saranac region; and +judging by the wilderness standard, the adjective was not undeserved. No +such flannel shirts, no such jaunty felt hats, no such neckties, had +ever been worn by Adirondack guides as Dandy Steve habitually wore. And +as for his buck-skin trousers, they would not have disgraced a Sioux +chief,--always of the softest and yellowest skins, always daintily made, +the seams set full of leather fringes, and sometimes marked by lines of +delicate embroidery in white quills. There were those who said that +Dandy Steve had an Indian wife somewhere on the Upper Saranac, but +nobody knew; and it would have been a bold man who asked an intrusive +question of Dandy Steve, or ventured on any impertinent jesting about +his private affairs. Certain it was that none but Indian hands +embroidered the fine buckskins he wore; but, then, there were such +buckskins for sale,--perhaps he bought them. A man who would spend the +money he did for neckties and fine flannel shirts would not stop at any +extravagance in the price of trousers. The buckskins, however, were not +the only evidence in this case. There was a well-authenticated tale of a +brilliant red shawl--a woman's shawl--and a pair of silver bangles once +seen in Dandy Steve's cabin. A man had gone in upon him suddenly one +evening without the formality of knocking. Such foolish +conventionalities were not in vogue on the Saranac; this was before +Steve took to guiding. It was in the first year after he appeared in +that region, while he was living like a hermit alone, or supposed to be +alone, in a tiny log cabin on an island not much bigger than his cabin.</p> + +<p>This man--old Ben, the oldest guide there--having been hindered at some +of the portages, and finding himself too late to reach his destination +that night, seeing the glimmer of light from Steve's cabin, had rowed to +the island, landed, and, with the thoughtless freedom of the country, +walked in at the half-open door.</p> + +<p>He was fond of telling the story of his reception; and as he told it, it +had a suspicious sound, and no mistake. Steve was sitting in a big +arm-chair before his table; over the arm of the chair was flung the red +shawl. On the table lay an open book and the silver bangles in it, as if +some one had just thrown them off. At sound of entering footsteps Steve +sprang up, with an angry oath, and hastily closing the book threw it and +the bangles into the chair from which he had risen, then crowded the +shawl down upon them into as small a compass as possible.</p> + +<p>"His eyes blazed like lightnin', or sharper," said old Ben, "an' I +declare t' ye I was skeered. Fur a minut I thought he was a loonatic, +sure's death. But in a minut more he was all right, an' there couldn't +nobody treat a feller handsomer than he did me that night an' the next +mornin'; but I took notice that the fust thing he done was to heave a +big blanket kind o' careless like into the chair, an' cover the things +clean up; an' then in a little while he says, a-sweepin' the whole +bundle up in his arms, 'I'll just clear up this little mess, an' give ye +a comfortable chair to sit in;' an' he carried it all--blanket, book, +bracelets, shawl, an' all--into the next room, an' throwed 'em on the +floor in a pile in one corner. There wa'n't but them two rooms to the +cabin, so that wa'n't any place for her to be hid, if so be 's there was +any woman 'round; an' he said he was livin' alone, an' had been ever +since he come. An' it was nigh a year then since he come, so I never +know'd what to make on 't, an' I don't suppose there's anybody doos know +any more 'n I do; but if them wa'n't women's gear he had out there that +night I hain't never seen any women's gear, that's all! Whose'omeever +they was, I hain't no idea, nor how they got there; but they was women's +gear. Dandy's Steve is he couldn't ha' had any use for sech a shawl's +that, let alone sayin' what he'd wanted o' bracelets on his arms!"</p> + +<p>"That's so," was the universal ejaculation of Ben's audience when he +reached this point in his narrative, and there seemed to be little more +to be said on either side. This was all there was of the story. It must +stand in each man's mind for what it was worth, according to his +individual bias of interpretation. But it had become an old story long +before the time at which our later narrative of Dandy Steve's history +began; so old, in fact, that it had not been mentioned for years, until +the events now about to be chronicled revived it in the minds of Steve's +associates and fellow-guides.</p> + +<p>Before the end of Steve's first year in his wilderness retreat he had +become as conversant with every nook and corner of its labyrinthian +recesses as the oldest guides in the region. Not a portage, not a short +cut unfamiliar to him; not a narrow winding brook wide enough for a +canoe to float in that he did not know. He had spent all his days and +many of his nights in these solitary wanderings. Visitors to the region +grew wonted to the sight of the comely figure in the slight birch canoe, +shooting suddenly athwart their track, or found lying idly in some dark +and shaded stream-bed. On the approach of strangers he would instantly +away, lifting his hat courteously if there were ladies in the boats he +passed, otherwise taking no more note of the presence of human beings +than of that of the deer, or the wild fowl on the water. He was not a +handsome man, but there was a something in his face at which all looked +twice,--men as well as women. It was an unfathomable look,--partly of +pain, partly of antagonism. His eyes habitually sought the sky, yet they +did not seem to perceive what they gazed upon; it was as if they would +pierce beyond it.</p> + +<p>"What a strange face!" was a common ejaculation on the part of those +thus catching glimpses of his upturned countenance. More than once +efforts were made by hunters who encountered him to form his +acquaintance; but they were always courteously repelled. Finally he +came to be spoken of as the "hermit;" and it was with astonishment, +almost incredulity, that, in the spring of his third year in the +Adirondacks, he was found at "Paul Smith's" offering his services as +guide to a party of gentlemen who, their guide having fallen suddenly +ill, were in sore straits for some one to take them down again through +the lakes.</p> + +<p>Whether it was that he had grown suddenly weary of his isolation and +solitude, or whether need had driven him to this means of earning money, +no one knew, and he did not say. But once having entered on the life of +a guide, he threw himself into it as heartily as if it had been his +life-long avocation, and speedily became one of the best guides in the +region. It was observed, however, that whenever he could do so he +avoided taking parties in which there were ladies. Sometimes for a whole +season it would happen that he had not once been seen in charge of such +a party. Sometimes, when it was difficult, in fact impossible, for him +to assign any reason for refusing to go with parties containing members +of the obnoxious sex, he would at the last moment privately entreat some +other guide to take his place, and, voluntarily relinquishing all the +profits of the engagement, disappear and be lost for several days. +During these absences it was often said, "Steve's gone to see his wife," +or, "Off with that Indian wife o' his up North;" and these vague, idle, +gossiping conjectures slowly crystallized into a positive rumor which no +one could either trace or gainsay.</p> + +<p>And so the years went on,--one, two, three, four,--and Dandy Steve had +become one of the most popular and best-known guides in the Adirondack +country. His seeming effeminacy of attire had been long proved to mark +no effeminacy of nature, no lack of strength. There was not a better +shot, a stronger rower, on the list of summer guides; nor a better cook +and provider. Every party which went out under his care returned with +warm praise for Steve, with a friendly feeling also, which would in many +instances have warmed into familiar acquaintance if Steve would have +permitted it. But with all his cheerfulness and obliging good-will he +never lost a certain quantity of reserve. Even the men whose servant he +was for the time being were insensibly constrained to respect this, and +to keep the distance he, not they, determined. There remained always +something they could not, as the phrase was, "make out" about him. His +aversion to women was well known; so much so that it had come to be a +tacitly understood thing that parties of which women were members need +not waste their time trying to induce Dandy Steve to take them in +charge.</p> + +<p>But fate had not lost sight of Steve yet. He had had his period of +solitary independence, of apparent absolute control of his own +destinies. His seven years were up. If he had supposed that he was +serving them, like Jacob of old, for that best-beloved mistress, +Freedom, he was mistaken. The seven years were up. How little he dreamed +what the eighth would bring him!</p> + +<p>It was midsummer, and one of Steve's best patrons, Richard Cravath, of +Philadelphia, had not yet appeared. For three summers Mr. Cravath and +two or three of his friends had spent a month in the Adirondacks +hunting, fishing, camping under Steve's guidance. They were all rich +men, and generous, and, what was to Steve of far more worth than the +liberal pay, considerate of his feelings, tolerant of his reticence; not +a man of them but respected their queer, silent guide's individuality as +much as if he had been a man of their own sphere of life. Steve had +learned, by some unpleasant experience, that this delicate consideration +did not always obtain between employers and employed. It takes an +organization finer than the ordinary to perceive, and live up to the +perception, that the fact that you have hired a man for a certain sum of +money per month to cook your food or drive your horses gives you no +right to ask him in regard to his private, personal affairs prying +questions which you would not dare to put to common acquaintances in +society.</p> + +<p>As week after week went by and no news came from Mr. Cravath, Steve +found himself really saddened at the thought of not seeing him. He had +not realized how large a part of his summer's pleasure, as well as +profit, came from the month's sport with this Philadelphia party. +Wistfully he scrutinized the lists of arrivals at the different houses +day after day, for the familiar names; but they were not to be found. At +last, after he had given over looking for them, he was electrified, one +evening in September, by having his name called from the piazza of one +of the hotels,--"Steve, is that you? You're just the man I want; I was +afraid we were too late to get you!"</p> + +<p>It was Mr. Cravath, and with him the two friends whom Steve had liked +best of all who had been in Mr. Cravath's parties. It was the joy of the +sudden surprise which prevented Steve's giving his customary close +attention to Mr. Cravath's somewhat vague description of the party he +had brought this time.</p> + +<p>"You must arrange for eight, Steve," he said. "There may not be quite so +many. One or two of the fellows I hoped for have not arrived, and it is +too late to wait long for any one. If they are not here by day after +to-morrow we will start.--And oh, Steve," he continued, with an affected +careless ease, but all the while eying Steve's face anxiously, "I +forgot to mention that I have brought my wife along this time. She +positively refused to let me off. She said she was tired of hearing so +much about the Adirondacks! She was coming this time to see for herself. +You needn't have the least fear about having her along! She's as good a +traveller as I am, every bit; I've had her in training at it for thirty +years, and I tell her, old as we are, we are better campers than most of +the young people."</p> + +<p>"That's so, Mr. Cravath," replied Steve, his countenance clouded and his +voice less joyous, "I'll answer for it with you; but do you think, sir, +any lady could go where we went last year?"</p> + +<p>In his heart Steve was saying to himself: "The idea of bringing an old +woman out here! I wouldn't do it for anybody in the world but Mr. +Cravath."</p> + +<p>"My wife can go anywhere and do anything that I can, Steve," said Mr. +Cravath. "You need not begin to look blue, Steve; and if you back out, +or serve us any of your woman-hating tricks, such as I've heard of, I'll +never speak to you again,--never."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't serve you any trick, Mr. Cravath, you know that," replied +Steve, proudly; "and I haven't the least idea of backing out. But I am +afraid Mrs. Cravath will be disappointed," he added, as he went down the +steps, and luckily did not turn his head to see Mr. Cravath's face +covered with the laughter he had been restraining during the last few +moments.</p> + +<p>"Caught him, by Jove!" he said, turning to his companion, a tall +dark-faced man,--"caught him, by Jove, Randall! He never once thought to +ask of what sex the other members of the party might be. He took it for +granted my wife was to be the only woman."</p> + +<p>"Do you think that was quite fair, Cravath?" replied Mr. Randall. "He +would never have taken us in the world if he had known there were three +women in the party."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw!" laughed Mr. Cravath. "Good enough for him for having such a +crotchet in his head. We'll take it out of him this trip."</p> + +<p>"Or set it stronger than ever," said Mr. Randall. "My mind misgives me. +We shall wish we had not done it. He may turn sulky and unmanageable on +our hands when he finds himself trapped."</p> + +<p>"I'll risk it," said Mr. Cravath, confidently. "If I can't bring him +around, Helen Wingate will. I never saw the man, woman, child, or dumb +beast yet that could resist her."</p> + +<p>Mr. Randall sighed. "Poor child!" he said. "Isn't her gayety something +wonderful? One would not think to look at her that she had ever had an +hour's sorrow; but my wife tells me that she cannot speak of that +husband of hers yet without the most passionate weeping!"</p> + +<p>"I know it! It's a shame," replied Mr. Cravath, "to see a glorious woman +like that throwing her life away on a memory. I did have a hope at one +time that she would marry again; but I've given it up. If she would have +married any one, it would have been George Walton last winter. No one +has ever come so near her as he did; but she sent him off at last, like +all the rest."</p> + +<p>The "two fellows" on whom Mr. Cravath was counting to make up his party +of eight did not appear; and on the second morning after the above +conversations Steve received orders to have his boats in readiness at +ten o'clock to start with the Cravath party, only six in number.</p> + +<p>Old Ben was on the wharf as Steve was making his final arrangements.</p> + +<p>"Wall, Steve," he said, shifting his quid of tobacco in a leisurely +manner from one side of his mouth to the other, "you've got a soft thing +again. You're a damned lucky fellow, Steve; dunno whether you know it or +not."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know it," replied Steve, curtly; "and what's more, I don't +believe in luck."</p> + +<p>"Don't yer?" said Ben, reflectively. "Wall, I do; an' Lord knows 't +ain't because I've seen so much of it. Say, Steve," he added, "how'd ye +come to take on such a lot o' women folks, this trip?"</p> + +<p>"Lot o' women folks! what d' ye mean?" shouted Steve. "There's no +womenkind going except one,--Mr. Cravath's wife; and I wish to thunder +he'd left her behind."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that all?" said Ben, half innocently, half mischievously,--he +was not quite sure of his ground; "be the rest on 'em goin' to stay +here? There's three women in the party. Mr. Randall he's got his wife, +and there's a widder along, too; mighty fine-lookin' she is; aren't +nothin' old about her, I can tell yer!"</p> + +<p>A flash shot from Steve's eyes. A half-smothered ejaculation came from +his lips as he turned fiercely towards Ben.</p> + +<p>"There they be, now, all a-comin' down the steps," continued Ben, +chuckling. "I reckon ye got took in for onst; but it's too late now."</p> + +<p>"Yes," thought Steve, angrily, as he looked at the smiling party coming +towards the landing,--three men and three women.</p> + +<p>"It's too late now. If it had been a half-hour sooner 'twould have been +early enough. But it's the last time I'm caught in any such way. What a +blamed fool I was not to ask who they were! Never thought of the Cravath +set lumbering themselves up with women!" And a very unpromising +sternness settled down on Steve's expressive features as he stooped down +to readjust some of the smaller packages in the boat.</p> + +<p>Meantime the members of the approaching party were not wholly at ease +in their minds. Mr. Cravath had confessed his suppression of the truth, +and Mr. Randall's evident misgiving as to the success of the experiment +had proved contagious. "If he's as queer as you say," murmured Mrs. +Cravath, "he can make it awfully disagreeable for us. I am almost afraid +to go."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" cried Helen Wingate, merrily. "I'll take that out of him +before night. Who ever heard of a man's really disliking women! It is +only some particular woman he's disliked. He won't dislike us! He +sha'n't dislike me! I'm going to take him by storm! Let me run ahead and +jump in first." And she danced on in advance of the rest.</p> + +<p>"Wait, Mrs. Wingate!" cried Mr. Cravath, hurrying after her. "Let me +come with you."</p> + +<p>But he was too late; she ran on, and as she reached the shore, sprang +lightly on the plank, calling out: "Oh, there are all our things in +already! Guide, guide, please give me your hand, quick! I want to be the +first one in the boat."</p> + +<p>Steve rose slowly,--turned. At the first glimpse of his face Helen +Wingate uttered a shriek which rang in the air, and fell backwards on +the sand insensible.</p> + +<p>"Good God! she lost her footing!" exclaimed Mr. Cravath.</p> + +<p>"She is killed!" cried the others, as they hurried breathlessly to the +spot. But when they reached it, there knelt Dandy Steve on the ground by +her side, his face whiter than hers, his eyes streaming with tears, his +arms around her, calling, "Helen! Helen!"</p> + +<p>At the sound of footsteps and voices he looked up, and, instantly +seeking Mr. Cravath's face, gasped: "She is my wife, Mr. Cravath!"</p> + +<p>The dumbness of unutterable astonishment fell on the whole party at +these words; but in another second, rallying from the shock; they knelt +around the seemingly lifeless woman, trying to arouse her. Presently she +opened her eyes, and, seeing Mrs. Randall's face bending above her, said +faintly: "It's Stephen! I always knew I should find him somewhere." Then +she sank away again into unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>The party for the lakes must be postponed; that was evident. Neither +would it go out under the guidance of Dandy Steve, nor would Mrs. +Wingate go with it; those two things were equally evident.</p> + +<p>Which facts, revolving slowly in Old Ben's brain, led him to seat +himself on the shore and abide the course of events. When, about noon, +Mr. Cravath appeared, coming to look after their hastily abandoned +effects, Old Ben touched his hat civilly, and said: "Good-day, sir; I +thought maybe I'd get this job o' guidin' now. Leastways, I'd stay by +yer truck here till somebody come to look it up."</p> + +<p>Old Ben was the guide of all others Mr. Cravath would have chosen, next +to Dandy Steve.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, Ben," he said, "this is luck! Can you go off with us at once? +Steve has got other business on hand. That lady is his wife, from whom +he has been separated many years."</p> + +<p>"So I heerd him say, sir, when he was a-pickin' her up," answered Ben, +composedly, as if such things were a daily occurrence in the +Adirondacks.</p> + +<p>"Can you go with us at once?" continued Mr. Cravath.</p> + +<p>"In an hour, sir," said Ben.</p> + +<p>And in an hour they were off, a bewildered but on the whole a relieved +and happier party than they had been in the morning. Helen Wingate's +long sorrow in the mysterious disappearance of her husband had ennobled +and purified her character, and greatly endeared her to her friends; but +that which had seemed to them to be explainable only by the fact of his +death or his unworthiness she knew was explainable by her own folly and +pride.</p> + +<p>The end of the story is best told in Old Ben's words. He was never tired +of telling it.</p> + +<p>"I never heered exactly the hull partikelers," he said, "for they'd gone +long before we got back, and the folks she was with wa'n't the kind that +talks much; but I could see they set a store by her. They'd always liked +Steve, too, up here's a guide. They niver know'd him while he was +a-livin' with her, else they'd ha' know'd him here; but he hadn't lived +with her but a mighty little while's near's I could make out. Yer see, +she was powerful rich, an' he hadn't but little; 'n' for all she was so +much in love with him, she couldn't help a-throwin' it up to him, sort +o', an' he couldn't stan' it. So he jest lit out; an' he'd never ha' +gone back to her,--never under the shining sun. He'd got jest that grit +in him. She'd been a-huntin' everywhere, they said,--all over Europe, +'n' Azhay, 'n' Africa, till she'd given up huntin'; an' he was right +close tu hum all the time. He was a first-rate feller, 'n' we was all +glad when his luck come ter him 't last. I wished I could ha' seen him +to 've asked him if he didn't b'leeve in luck now! Me 'n' him was +talkin' about luck that very mornin' while she was a-steppin' down the +landin' towards him's fast 's ever she could go! My eyes! how that woman +did come a runnin', an' a-callin', 'Guide! guide!' I sha'n't never +forgit it. I asked some o' the fellers how she looked when they went +off, an' they said her eyes was shinin' like stars; but there wasn't any +more of her face to be seen, for she was rolled up in a big red shawl, +It gits hoppin' cold here in September. I've always thought't was that +same red shawl he had in his cabin; but I dunno's 'twas."</p> + +<p>"Wall, I bet they had a fust-rate time on that weddin' journey o' +theirn," said one of Ben's rougher cronies one day at the end of the +narrative; "'t ain't every feller gets the chance o' two honeymoons with +the same woman."</p> + +<p>Old Ben looked at him attentively. "Youngster," said he, "'t ain't +strange, I suppose, young's you be, th't ye should look at it that way; +but ye're off, crony. Ye don't seem ter recolleck 'bout all them years +they'd lost out of their lives. I tell ye, it's kind o' harrowin' ter +me. Old's I am, and hain't never felt no call ter be married nuther, +it's kind o' harrowin' ter me yit ter think o' that woman's yell she +giv' when she seed Steve's face. If thar warn't jest a hull lifetime o' +misery in't, 'sides the joy o' findin' him, I ain't no jedge. I haven't +never felt no call ter marry, 's I sed; but if I had I wouldn't ha' been +caught cuttin' up no sech didos's that,--a-throwin' away years o' time +they might ha' hed together 'z well's not! Ther' ain't any too much o' +this life, anyhow; 't kinder looks ter you youngsters's ef 't 'd last +forever. I know how 'tis. I hain't forgot nothin', old's I am. But I +tell you, when ye're old's I am, 'n' look back on 't, ye'll be s'prised +ter see how short 'tis, an' ye'll reelize more what a fool a man is, or +a woman too,--an' I do s'pose they're the foolishest o' ther two,--ter +waste a minnit out on 't on querrils, or any other kind o' foolin'."</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch06"> +<h2>The Prince's Little Sweetheart.</h2> + +<p> + +She was very young. No man had ever made love to her before. She +belonged to the people,--the common people. Her parents were poor, and +could not buy any wedding trousseau for her. But that did not make any +difference. A carriage was sent from the Court for her, and she was +carried away "just as she was," in her stuff gown,--the gown the Prince +first saw her in. He liked her best in that, he said; and, moreover, +what odds did it make about clothes? Were there not rooms upon rooms in +the palace, full of the most superb clothes for Princes' Sweethearts?</p> + +<p>It was into one of these rooms that she was taken first. On all sides of +it were high glass cases reaching up to the ceiling, and filled with +gowns and mantles and laces and jewels; everything a woman could wear +was there, and all of the very finest. What satins, what velvets, what +feathers and flowers! Even down to shoes and stockings,--every shade and +color of stockings of the daintiest silk. The Little Sweetheart gazed +breathless at them all. But she did not have time to wonder, for in a +moment more she was met by attendants, some young, some old, all dressed +gayly. She did not dream at first that they were servants, till they +began, all together, asking her what she would like to put on. Would she +have a lace gown, or a satin? Would she like feathers or flowers? And +one ran this way, and one that; and among them all, the Little +Sweetheart was so flustered she did not know if she were really alive +and on the earth, or had been transported to some fairy land. And before +she fairly realized what was being done, they had her clad in the most +beautiful gown that was ever seen,--white satin with gold butterflies on +it, and a white lace mantle embroidered in gold butterflies. All white +and gold she was, from top to toe, all but one foot; and there was +something very odd about that. She heard one of the women whispering to +the other, behind her back: "It is too bad there isn't any mate to this +slipper! Well, she will have to wear this pink one. It is too big; but +if we pin it up at the heel she can keep it on. The Prince really must +get some more slippers."</p> + +<p>And then they put on her left foot a pink satin slipper, which was so +much too big it had to be pinned up in plaits at each side, and the +pearl buckle on the top hid her foot quite out of sight. But the Little +Sweetheart did not care. In fact, she had no time to think, for the +Queen came sailing in and spoke to her, and crowds of ladies in dresses +so bright and beautiful that they dazzled her eyes; and the Prince was +there kissing her, and in a minute they were married, and went floating +off in a dance, which was so swift it did not feel so much like dancing +as it did like being carried through the air by a gentle wind.</p> + +<p>Through room after room,--there seemed no end to the rooms, and each one +more beautiful than the last,--from garden to garden,--some full of +trees, some with beautiful lakes in them, some full of solid beds of +flowers,--they went, sometimes dancing, sometimes walking, sometimes, it +seemed to the Little Sweetheart, floating. Every hour there was some new +beautiful thing to see, some new beautiful thing to do. And the Prince +never left her for more than a few minutes; and when he came back he +brought her gifts and kissed her. Gifts upon gifts he kept bringing, +till the Little Sweetheart's hands were so full she had to lay the +things down on tables or window-sills, wherever she could find place for +them,--which was not easy, for all the rooms were so full of beautiful +things that it was difficult to move about without knocking something +down.</p> + +<p>The hours flew by like minutes. The sun came up high in the heavens, but +nobody seemed tired; nobody stopped,--dance, dance, whirl, whirl, song +and laughter and ceaseless motion. That was all that was to be seen or +heard in this wonderful Court to which the Little Sweetheart had been +brought.</p> + +<p>Noon came, but nothing stopped. Nobody left off dancing, and the +musicians played faster than ever.</p> + +<p>And so it was all the long afternoon and through the twilight; and as +soon as it was really dark, all the rooms and the gardens and the lakes +blazed out with millions of lamps, till it was lighter far than day; and +the ladies' dresses, as they danced back and forth, shone and sparkled +like butterflies' wings.</p> + +<p>At last the lamps began, one by one, to go out, and by degrees a soft +sort of light, like moonlight, settled down on the whole place; and the +fine-dressed servants that had robed the Little Sweetheart in her white +satin gown took it off, and put her to bed in a gold bedstead, with +golden silk sheets.</p> + +<p>"Oh," thought the Little Sweetheart, "I shall never go to sleep in the +world, and I'm sure I don't want to! I shall just keep my eyes open all +night, and see what happens next."</p> + +<p>All the beautiful clothes she had taken off were laid on a sofa near the +bed,--the white satin dress at top, and the big pink satin slipper, with +its huge pearl buckle, on the floor in plain sight. "Where is the +other?" thought the Little Sweetheart. "I do believe I lost it off. +That's the way they come to have so many odd ones. But how queer! I lost +off the tight one! But the big one was pinned to my foot," she said, +speaking out loud before she thought; "that was what kept it on."</p> + +<p>"You are talking in your sleep, my love," said the Prince, who was close +by her side, kissing her.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I am not asleep at all! I haven't shut my eyes," said the +Little Sweetheart.</p> + +<p>And the next thing she knew it was broad daylight, the sun streaming +into her room, and the air resounding in all directions with music and +laughter, and flying steps of dancers, just as it had been yesterday.</p> + +<p>The Little Sweetheart sat up in bed and looked around her. She thought +it very strange that she was all alone! the Prince gone,--no one there +to attend to her. In a few moments more she noticed that all her clothes +were gone, too.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she thought, "I suppose one never wears the same clothes twice in +this Court, and they will bring me others! I hope there will be two +slippers alike, to-day."</p> + +<p>Presently she began to grow impatient; but, being a timid little +creature, and having never before seen the inside of a Court or been a +Prince's sweetheart, she did not venture to stir, or to make any +sound,--only sat still in her bed, waiting to see what would happen. At +last she could not bear the sounds of the dancing and laughing and +playing and singing any longer. So she jumped up, and, rolling one of +the golden silk sheets around her, looked out of the window. There they +all were, the crowds of gay people, just as they had been the day before +when she was among them, whirling, dancing, laughing, singing. The tears +came into the Little Sweetheart's eyes as she gazed. What could it mean +that she was deserted in this way,--not even her clothes left for her? +She was as much a prisoner in her room as if the door had been locked.</p> + +<p>As hour after hour passed, a new misery began to oppress her. She was +hungry,--seriously, distressingly hungry. She had been too happy to eat +the day before! Though she had sipped and tasted many delicious +beverages and viands, which the Prince had pressed upon her, she had not +taken any substantial food, and now she began to feel faint for the +want of it. As noon drew near,--the time at which she was accustomed in +her father's house to eat dinner,--the pangs of her hunger grew +unbearable.</p> + +<p>"I can't bear it another minute," she said to herself. "I must, and I +will, have something to eat! I will slip down by some back way to the +kitchen. There must be a kitchen, I suppose."</p> + +<p>So saying, she opened one of the doors, and timidly peered into the next +room. It chanced to be the room with the great glass cases, full of fine +gowns and laces, where she had been dressed by the obsequious attendants +on the previous day. No one was in the room. Glancing fearfully in all +directions, she rolled the golden silk sheet tightly around her, and +flew, rather than ran, across the floor, and took hold of the handle of +one of the glass doors. Alas! it was locked. She tried another,--another; +all were locked. In despair she turned to fly back to her bedroom, when +suddenly she spied on the floor, in a corner close by the case where hung +her beautiful white satin dress, a little heap of what looked like brown +rags. She darted toward it, snatched it from the floor, and in a second +more was safe back in her room; it was her own old stuff gown.</p> + +<p>"What luck!" said the Little Sweetheart; "nobody will ever know me in +this. I'll put it on, and creep down the back stairs, and beg a mouthful +of food from some of the servants, and they'll never know who I am; and +then I'll go back to bed, and stay there till the Prince comes to fetch +me. Of course, he will come before long; and if he comes and finds me +gone, I hope he will be frightened half to death, and think I have been +carried off by robbers!"</p> + +<p>Poor foolish Little Sweetheart! It did not take her many seconds to slip +into the ragged old stuff gown; then she crept out, keeping close to the +walls, so that she could hide behind the furniture if any one saw her.</p> + +<p>She listened cautiously at each door before she opened it, and turned +away from some where she heard sounds of merry talking and laughing. In +the third room that she entered she saw a sight that arrested her +instantly and made her cry out in astonishment,--a girl who looked so +much like her that she might have been her own sister, and, what was +stranger, wore a brown stuff gown exactly like her own, was busily at +work in this room with a big broom killing spiders! As the Little +Sweetheart appeared in the doorway, this girl looked up, and said: "Oh, +ho! there you are, are you? I thought you'd be out before long." And +then she laughed unpleasantly.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" said the Little Sweetheart, beginning to tremble all +over.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm a Prince's Sweetheart!" said the girl, laughing still more +unpleasantly; and, leaning on her broom, she stared at the Little +Sweetheart from top to toe.</p> + +<p>"But--" began the Little Sweetheart.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we're all Princes' Sweethearts!" interrupted several voices, coming +all at once from different corners of the big room; and, before the +Little Sweetheart could get out another word, she found herself +surrounded by half a dozen or more girls and women, all carrying brooms, +and all laughing unpleasantly as they looked at her.</p> + +<p>"What!" she gasped, as she gazed at their stuff gowns and their brooms. +"You were all of you Princes' Sweethearts? Is it only for one day, +then?"</p> + +<p>"Only for one day," they all replied.</p> + +<p>"And always after that do you have to kill spiders?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Yes; that or nothing," they said. "You see it is a great deal of work +to keep all the rooms in this Court clean."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it very dull work to kill spiders?" said the Little Sweetheart.</p> + +<p>"Yes, very," they said, all speaking at once. "But it's better than +sitting still, doing nothing."</p> + +<p>"Don't the Princes ever speak to you?" sobbed the Little Sweetheart.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sometimes," they answered.</p> + +<p>Just then the Little Sweetheart's own Prince came hurrying by, all in +armor from head to foot,--splendid shining armor, that clinked as he +walked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there he is!" cried the Little Sweetheart, springing forward; then +suddenly she recollected her stuff gown, and shrunk back into the group. +But the Prince had seen her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how d' do!" he said kindly. "I was wondering what had become of +you. Good-bye! I'm off for the grand review to-day. Don't tire yourself +out over the spiders. Good-bye!" And he was gone.</p> + +<p>"I hate him!" cried the Little Sweetheart, her eyes flashing, and her +cheeks scarlet.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, you don't!" exclaimed all the spider-sweepers. "That's the worst +of it. You may think you do; but you don't. You love him all the time +after you've once begun."</p> + +<p>"I'll go home!" said the Little Sweetheart.</p> + +<p>"You can't," said the others. "It is not permitted."</p> + +<p>"Is it always just like this in this Court?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; always the same. One day just like another,--all whirl and dance +from morning till night, and new people coming and going all the time, +and spiders most of all. You can't think how fast brooms wear out in +this Court!"</p> + +<p>"I'll die!" said the Little Sweetheart.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, you won't!" they said. "There are some of us, in some of the +rooms here, that are wrinkled and gray-haired. The most of the +Sweethearts live to be old."</p> + +<p>"Do they?" said the Little Sweetheart, and burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" cried I, "what a dream!" as I opened my eyes. There stood the +Little Sweetheart in my room, vanishing away, so vivid had been the +dream. "A most extraordinary dream!" said I. "I will write it out. Some +of the Princes may read it!"</p> +</div> +<br /> +<hr /> +<pre> + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN WHILES*** + +******* This file should be named 10756-h.txt or 10756-h.zip ******* + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/5/10756">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/5/10756</a> + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="https://gutenberg.org/license">https://gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">https://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06">http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/10756.txt b/old/10756.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b7874b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10756.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6364 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Between Whiles, by Helen Hunt Jackson + + +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: Between Whiles + +Author: Helen Hunt Jackson + +Release Date: January 20, 2004 [eBook #10756] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN WHILES*** + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +Between Whiles. + +by + +Helen Jackson (H. H.) + +Author of "Ramona," "A Century of Dishonor," "Verses," "Sonnets and +Lyrics," "Glimpses of Three Coasts," "Bits of Travel," "Bits of Travel +at Home," "Zeph," "Mercy Philbrick's Choice," "Hetty's Strange History," +"Bits of Talk about Home Matters," "Bits of Talk for Young Folks," +"Nelly's Silver Mine," "Cat Stories." + +1888. + + + + + + +Contents. + + +The Inn of the Golden Pear +The Mystery of Wilhelm Ruetter +Little Bel's Supplement +The Captain of the "Heather Bell" +Dandy Steve +The Prince's Little Sweetheart + + + + +Between Whiles. + + + + +The Inn of the Golden Pear. + +I. + + + Who buys? Who buys? 'Tis like a market-fair; + The hubbub rises deafening on the air: + The children spend their honest money there; + The knaves prowl out like foxes from a lair. + + Who buys? Who sells? Alas, and still alas! + The children sell their diamond stones for glass; + The knaves their worthless stones for diamonds pass. + He laughs who buys; he laughs who sells. Alas! + + +In the days when New England was only a group of thinly settled +wildernesses called "provinces," there was something almost like the old +feudal tenure of lands there, and a relation between the rich land-owner +and his tenants which had many features in common with those of the +relation between margraves and vassals in the days of Charlemagne. + +Far up in the North, near the Canada line, there lived at that time an +eccentric old man, whose name is still to be found here and there on the +tattered parchments, written "WILLAN BLAYCKE, Gentleman." + +Tradition occupies itself a good deal with Willan Blaycke, and does not +give his misdemeanors the go-by as it might have done if he had been +either a poorer or a less clever man. Why he had crossed the seas and +cast in his lot with the pious Puritans, nobody knew; it was certainly +not because of sympathy with their God-reverencing faith and God-fearing +lives, nor from any liking for hardships or simplicity of habits. He had +gold enough, the stories say, to have bought all the land from the St. +Johns to the Connecticut if he had pleased; and he had servants and +horses and attire such as no governor in all the provinces could boast. +He built himself a fine house out of stone, and the life he led in it +was a scandal and a byword everywhere. For all that, there was not a man +to be found who had not a good word to say for Willan Blaycke, and not a +woman who did not look pleased and smile if he so much as spoke to her. +He was generous, with a generosity so princely that there were many who +said that he had no doubt come of some royal house. He gave away a farm +to-day, and another to-morrow, and thought nothing of it; and when +tenants came to him pleading that they were unable to pay their rent, he +was never known to haggle or insist. + +Naturally, with such ways as these he made havoc of his estates, vast as +they were, and grew less and less rich year by year. However, there was +enough of his land to last several generations out; and if he had +married a decent woman for his wife, his posterity need never have +complained of him. But this was what Willan Blaycke did,--and it is as +much a mystery now as it doubtless was then, why he did it,--he married +Jeanne Dubois, the daughter of a low-bred and evil-disposed Frenchman +who kept a small inn on the Canadian frontier. Jeanne had a handsome but +wicked face. She stood always at the bar, and served every man who came; +and a great thing it was for the house, to be sure, that she had such +bold black eyes, red cheeks, and a tongue even bolder than her glances. +But there was not a farmer in all the north provinces who would have +taken her to wife, not one, for she bore none too good a name; and men's +speech about her, as soon as they had turned their backs and gone on +their journeys, was quite opposite to the gallant and flattering things +they said to her face in the bar. Some people said that Willan Blaycke +was drunk when he married Jeanne, that she took him unawares by means of +a base plot which her father and she had had in mind a long time. Others +said that he was sober enough when he did it, only that he was like one +out of his mind,--he sorrowed so for the loss of his only son, Willan, +whom he had in the beginning of that year sent back to England to be +taught in school. + +He had brought the child out with him,--a little chap, with marvellously +black eyes and yellow curls, who wore always the costliest of +embroidered coats, which it was plain some woman's hand had embroidered +for him; but whether the child's mother were dead or alive Willan +Blaycke never told, and nobody dared ask. + +That the boy needed a mother sadly enough was only too plain. Riding +from county to county on his little white pony by his father's side, +sitting up late at roystering feasts till he nodded in his chair, seeing +all that rough men saw, and hearing all that rough men said, the child +was in a fair way to be ruined outright; and so Willan Blaycke at last +came to see, and one day, in a fit of unwonted conscientiousness and +wisdom, he packed the poor sobbing little fellow off to England in +charge of a trusty escort, and sternly made up his mind that the lad +should not return till he was a man grown. It was only a few months +after this that Jeanne Dubois became Mistress Willan Blaycke; so it +seemed not improbable that the bereaved father's loneliness had had much +to do with that extraordinary step. + +Be that as it may, whether he were drunk or sober when he married her, +he treated her as a gentleman should treat his wife, and did his best to +make her a lady. She was always clad in a rich fashion; and a fine show +she made in her scarlet petticoat and white hat with a streaming scarlet +feather in it, riding high on her pillion behind Willan Blaycke on his +great black horse, or sitting up straight and stiff in the swinging +coach with gold on the panels, which he had bought for her in Boston at +a sale of the effects of one of the disgraced and removed governors of +the province of Massachusetts. If there had been any roads to speak of +in those days, Jeanne Dubois would have driven from one end to the other +of the land in her fine coach, so proud was she of its splendor; but +even pride could not heal the bruises she got in jolting about in it, +nor the terror she felt of being overturned. So she gradually left off +using it, and consoled herself by keeping it standing in all good +weather in full sight from the highway, that everybody might know she +had it. + +It was a sore trial to Jeanne that she had no children,--a sore trial +also to her wicked old father, who had plotted that the great Blaycke +estates should go down in the hands of his descendants. Not so Willan +Blaycke. It was undoubtedly a consolation to him in his last days to +think that his son Willan would succeed to everything, and the Dubois +blood remain still in its own muddy channel. It is evident that before +he died he had come to think coldly of his wife; for his mention of her +in his will was of the curtest, and his provision for her during her +lifetime, though amply sufficient for her real needs, not at all in +keeping with the style in which she had dwelt with him. + +The exiled Willan had returned to America a year before his father's +death. He was a quiet, well-educated, rather scholarly young man. It +would be foolish to deny that his filial sentiment had grown cool during +the long years of his absence, and that it received some violent shocks +on his return to his father's house. But he was full of ambition, and +soon saw the opening which lay before him for distinction and wealth as +the ultimate owner of the Blaycke estates. To this end he bent all his +energies. He had had in England a good legal education; he was a clear +thinker and a ready speaker, and speedily made himself so well known and +well thought of, that when his father died there were many who said it +was well the old man had been taken away in time to leave the young +Willan a property worthy of his talents and industry. + +Willan had lived in his father's house more as a guest than as a son. To +the woman who was his father's wife, and sat at the head of his father's +table, he bore himself with a distant courtesy, which was far more +irritating to her coarse nature than open antagonism would have been. +But Jeanne Dubois was clever woman enough to comprehend her own +inferiority to both father and son, and to avoid collisions with either. +She had won what she had played for, and on the whole she had not been +disappointed. As she had never loved her husband, she cared little that +he did not love her; and as for the upstart of a boy with his fine airs, +well, she would bide her time for that, Jeanne thought,--for it had +never crossed Jeanne's mind that when her husband died she would not be +still the mistress of the fine stone house and the gilt panelled coach, +and have more money than she knew what to do with. Many malicious +reveries she had indulged in as to how, when that time came, she would +"send the fellow packing," "he shouldn't stay in her house a day." So, +when it came to pass that the cards were turned, and it was Willan who +said to her, on the morning after his father's funeral, "What are your +plans, Madame?" Jeanne was for a few seconds literally dumb with anger +and astonishment. + +Then she poured out all the pent-up hatred of her vulgar soul. It was a +horrible scene. Willan conducted himself throughout the interview with +perfect calmness; the same impassable distance which had always been so +exasperating to Jeanne was doubly so now. He treated her as if she were +merely some dependant of the house, for whom he, as the executor of the +will, was about to provide according to instructions. + +"If I can't live in my own house," cried the angry woman, "I'll go back +to my father and tend bar again; and how'll you like that?" + +"It is purely immaterial to me, Madame," replied Willan, "where you +live. I merely wish to know your address, that I may forward to you the +quarterly payments of your annuity. I should think it probable," he +added with an irony which was not thrown away on Jeanne, "that you +would be happier among your own relations and in the occupations to +which you were accustomed in your youth." + +Jeanne was not deficient in spirit. As soon as she had ascertained +beyond a doubt that all that Willan had told her was true, and that +there was no possibility of her ever getting from the estate anything +except her annuity, she packed up all her possessions and left the +house. No fine instinct had restrained her from laying, hands on +everything to which she could be said to have a shadow of +claim,--indeed, on many things to which she had not,--and even Willan +himself, who had been prepared for her probable greed, was surprised +when on returning to the house late one evening he found the piazza +piled high from one end to the other with her boxes. Jeanne stood by +with a defiant air, superintending the cording of the last one. She +anticipated some remonstrance or inquiry from Willan, and was half +disappointed when he passed by, giving no sign of having observed the +boxes at all, and simply lifting his hat to her with his usual +formality. The next morning, instead of the public vehicle which Jeanne +had engaged to call for her, her own coach and the gray horses she had +best liked were driven to the door. This unexpected tribute from Willan +almost disarmed her for the moment. It was her coach almost more than +her house which she had grieved to lose. + +"Well, really, Mr. Willan," she exclaimed, "I never once thought of +taking that, though there's no doubt about its being my own, and your +father'd tell you so if he was here; and the horses too. He always said +the grays were mine from the day he bought them. But I'm much obliged to +you, I'm sure." + +"You have no occasion to thank me, Madame," replied Willan, standing on +the threshold of the house, pale with excitement at the prospect of +immediate freedom from the presence of the coarse creature. "The coach +is your own, and the horses; and if they had not been, I should not have +permitted them to remain here." + +"Oh ho!" sneered Jeanne, all her antagonism kindled afresh at this last +gratuitous fling. "You needn't think you can get rid of everything +that'll remind you of me, young man. You'll see me oftener than you +like, at the Golden Pear. You'll have to stop there, as your father did +before you." And Jeanne's black eyes snapped viciously as she drove off, +her piles of boxes following slowly in two wagon-loads behind. + +Willan was right in one thing. After the first mortification of +returning to her father's house, a widow, disgraced by being pensioned +off from her old home, had worn away, Jeanne was happier than she had +ever been in her life. Her annuity, which was small for Mistress Willan +Blaycke, was large for Jeanne, daughter of the landlord of the Golden +Pear; and into that position she sank back at once,--so contentedly, +too, that her father was continually reproaching her with a great lack +of spirit. It was a sad come-down from his old air-castles for her and +for himself,--he still the landlord of a shabby little inn, and Jeanne, +stout and middle-aged, sitting again behind the bar as she had done +fifteen years before. It was pretty hard. So long as he knew that Jeanne +was living in her fine house as Mistress Blaycke he had been content, +in spite of Willan Blaycke's having sternly forbidden him ever to show +his face there. But this last downfall was too much. Victor Dubois +ground his teeth and swore many oaths over it. But no swearing could +alter things; and after a while Victor himself began to take comfort in +having Jeanne back again. "And not a bit spoiled," as he would say to +his cronies, "by all the fine ways, to which she had never taken; thanks +to God, Jeanne was as good a girl yet as ever."--"And as handsome too," +the politic cronies would add. + +The Golden Pear was a much more attractive place since Jeanne had come +back. She was a good housekeeper, and she had learned much in Willan +Blaycke's house. Moreover, she was a generous creature, and did not in +the least mind spending a few dollars here and there to make things +tidier and more comfortable. + +A few weeks after Jeanne's return to the inn there appeared in the +family a new and by no means insignificant member. This was the young +Victorine Dubois, who was a daughter, they said, of Victor Dubois's son +Jean, the twin brother of Jeanne. He had gone to Montreal many years +ago, and had been moderately prosperous there as a wine-seller in a +small way. He had been dead now for two years, and his widow, being +about to marry again, was anxious to get the young Victorine off her +hands. So the story ran, and on the surface it looked probable enough. +But Montreal was not a great way off from the parish of St. Urbans, in +which stood Victor Dubois's inn; there were men coming and going often +who knew the city, and who looked puzzled when it was said in their +hearing that Victorine was the eldest child of Jean Dubois the +wine-seller. She had been kept at a convent all these years, old Victor +said, her father being determined that at least one of his children +should be well educated. + +Nobody could gainsay this, and Mademoiselle Victorine certainly had the +air of having been much better trained and taught than most girls in her +station. But somehow, nobody quite knew why, the tale of her being Jean +Dubois's daughter was not believed. Suspicions and at last rumors were +afloat that she was an illegitimate child of Jeanne's, born a few years +before her marriage to Willan Blaycke. + +Nothing easier, everybody knew, than for Mistress Willan Blaycke to +have supported half a dozen illegitimate children, if she had had them, +on the money her husband gave her so lavishly; and there was old Victor, +as ready and unscrupulous a go-between as ever an unscrupulous woman +needed. These rumors gained all the easier credence because Victorine +bore so striking a resemblance to her "Aunt Jeanne." On the other hand, +this ought not to have been taken as proof any more one way than the +other; for there were plenty of people who recollected very well that in +the days when little Jean and Jeanne toddled about together as children, +nobody but their mother could tell them apart, except by their clothes. +So the winds of gossiping breaths blew both ways at once in the matter, +and it was much discussed for a time. But like all scandals, as soon as +it became an old story nobody cared whether it were false or true; and +before Victorine had been a year at the Golden Pear, the question of her +relationship there was rarely raised. + +One thing was certain, that no mother could have been fonder or more +devoted to a child than Jeanne was to her niece; and everybody said +so,--some more civilly, some maliciously. Her pride in the girl's beauty +was touching to see. She seemed to have forgotten that she was ever a +beauty herself; and she had no need to do this, for Jeanne was not yet +forty, and many men found her piquant and pleasing still. But all her +vanity seemed now to be transferred to Victorine. It was Victorine who +was to have all the fine gowns and ornaments; Victorine who must go to +the dances and fetes in costumes which were the wonder and the envy of +all the girls in the region; Victorine who was to have everything made +easy and comfortable for her in the house; and above all,--and here the +mother betrayed herself, for mother she was; the truth may as well be +told early as late in our story,--most of all, it was Victorine who was +to be kept away from the bar, and to be spared all contact with the +rough roysterers who frequented the Golden Pear. + +Very ingenious were Jeanne's excuses for these restrictions on her +niece's liberty. Still more ingenious her explanations of the occasional +exceptions she made now and then in favor of some well-to-do young +farmer of the neighborhood, or some traveller in whom her alert maternal +eye detected a possible suitor for Victorine's hand. Victorine herself +was not so fastidious. She was young, handsome, overflowing with +vitality, and with no more conscience or delicacy than her mother had +had before her. If the whole truth had been known concerning the last +four years of her life in the convent, it would have considerably +astonished those good Catholics, if any such there be, who still believe +that convents are sacred retreats filled with the chaste and the devout. +Victorine Dubois at the age of eighteen, when her grandfather took her +home to his house, was as well versed a young woman in the ways and the +wiles of love-making as if she had been free to come and go all her +life. And that this knowledge had been gained surreptitiously, in stolen +moments and brief experiences at the expense of the whole of her +reverence for religion, the whole of her faith in men's purity, was not +poor Victorine's fault, only her misfortune; but the result was no less +disastrous to her morals. She went out of the convent as complete a +little hypocrite as ever told beads and repeated prayers. Only a +certain sort of infantile superstitiousness of nature remained in her, +and made her cling to the forms, in which, though she knew they did not +mean what they pretended, she suspected there might be some sort of +mechanical efficacy at last; like the partly undeceived disciple and +assistant of a master juggler, who is not quite sure that there may not +be a supernatural power behind some of the tricks. Beyond an overflowing +animal vitality, and a passion for having men make love to her, there +really was not much of Victorine. But it is wonderful how far these two +qualities can pass in a handsome woman for other and nobler ones. The +animal life so keen, intense, sensuous, can seem like cleverness, wit, +taste; the passion for receiving homage from men can make a woman +graceful, amiable, and alluring. Some of the greatest passions the world +has ever seen have been inspired in men by just such women as this. + +Victorine was not without accomplishments and some smattering of +knowledge. She had read a good deal of French, and chattered it like +the true granddaughter of a Normandy _proprietaire_. She sang, in a +half-rude, half-melodious way, snatches of songs which sounded better +than they really were, she sang them with so much heartiness and +abandon. She embroidered exquisitely, and had learned the trick of +making many of the pretty and useless things at which nuns work so +patiently to fill up their long hours. She had an insatiable love of +dress, and attired herself daily in successions of varied colors and +shapes merely to look at herself in the glass, and on the chance of +showing herself to any stray traveller who might come. + +The inn had been built in a piecemeal fashion by Victor Dubois himself, +and he had been unconsciously guided all the while by his memories of +the old farmhouse in Normandy in which he was born; so that the house +really looked more like Normandy than like America. It had on one corner +a square tower, which began by being a shed attached to the kitchen, +then was promoted to bearing up a chamber for grain, and at last was +topped off by a fine airy room, projecting on all sides over the other +two, and having great casement windows reaching close up to the broad, +hanging eaves. A winding staircase outside led to what had been the +grain-chamber: this was now Jeanne's room. The room above was +Victorine's, and she reached it only by a narrow, ladder-like stairway +from her mother's bedroom; so the young lady's movements were kept well +in sight, her mother thought. It was an odd thing that it never occurred +to Jeanne how near the sill of Victorine's south window was to the stout +railing of the last broad platform of the outside staircase. This +railing had been built up high, and was partly roofed over, making a +pretty place for pots of flowers in summer; and Victorine never looked +so well anywhere as she did leaning out of her window and watering the +flowers which stood there. Many a flirtation went on between this +casement window and the courtyard below, where all the travellers were +in the habit of standing and talking with the ostlers, and with old +Victor himself, who was not the landlord to leave his ostlers to do as +they liked with horses and grain,--many a flirtation, but none that +meant or did any harm; for with all her wildness and love of frolic, +Mademoiselle Victorine never lost her head. Deep down in her heart she +had an ambition which she never confessed even to her aunt Jeanne. She +had read enough romances to believe that it was by no means an +impossible thing that a landlord's daughter should marry a gentleman; +and to marry a gentleman, if she married at all, Victorine was fully +resolved. She never tired of questioning her aunt about the details of +her life in Willan Blaycke's house; and she sometimes gazed for hours at +the gilt-panelled coach, which on all fine days stood in the courtyard +of the Golden Pear, the wonder of all rustics. On the rare occasions +when her aunt went abroad in this fine vehicle, Victorine sat by her +side in an ecstasy of pride and delight. It seemed to her that to be the +owner of such a coach as that, to live in a fine house, and have a fine +gentleman for one's husband must be the very climax of bliss. She +wondered much at her aunt's contentment in her present estate. + +"How canst thou bear it, Aunt Jeanne?" she said sometimes. "How canst +thou bear to live as we live here,--to be in the bar-room with the men, +and to sit always in the smoke, after the fine rooms and the company +thou hadst for so long?" + +"Bah!" Jeanne would reply. "It's little thou knowest of that fine +company. I had like to die of weariness more often than I was gay in it; +and as for fine rooms, I care nothing for them." + +"But thy husband, Aunt Jeanne," Victorine once ventured to say,--"surely +thou wert not weary when he was with thee?" + +Jeanne's face darkened. "Keep a civiller tongue in thy head," she +replied, "than to be talking to widows of the husbands they have buried. +He was a good man, Willan Blaycke,--a good man; but I liked him not +overmuch, though we lived not in quarrelling. He went his ways, as men +go, and I let him be." + +Victorine's curiosity was by no means satisfied. She asked endless +questions of all whom she met who could tell her anything about her +aunt's husband. Very much she regretted that she had not been taken from +the convent before this strange, free-hearted, rollicking gentleman had +died. She would have managed affairs better, she thought, than Aunt +Jeanne had done. Romantic visions of herself as his favorite flitted +through her brain. + +"Why didst thou not send for me sooner to come to thee, Aunt Jeanne," +she said, "that I too might have seen the life in the great stone +house?" + +A sudden flush covered Jeanne's face. Was she never to hear the end of +troublesome questions about the past? + +"Wilt thou never have done with it?" she said, half angrily. "Has it +never been said in thy hearing how that my husband would not permit even +my father to come inside of his house, much less one no nearer than +thou?" And Jeanne eyed Victorine sharply, with a suspicion which was +wholly uncalled for. Nobody had ever been bold or cruel enough to +suggest to Victorine any doubts regarding her birth. The girl was +indignant. She had never known before that her grandfather had been thus +insulted. + +"What had grandfather done?" she cried. "Was he not thy husband's +father, too, being thine? How dared thy husband treat him so?" + +Jeanne was silent for a few moments. A latent sense of justice to her +dead husband restrained her from assenting to Victorine's words. + +"Nay," she said; "there are many things thou canst not understand. Thy +grandfather never complained. Willan Blaycke treated me most fairly +while he lived; and if it had not been for the boy, I would have had +thee in the stone house to-day, and had all my rights." + +"Why did the boy hate thee?" asked Victorine. "What is he like?" + +"As like to a magpie as one magpie is to another," said Jeanne, +bitterly; "with his fine French cloth of black, and his white ruffles, +and his long words in his mouth. Ah, but him I hate! It is to him we owe +it all." + +"Dwells he now in the great house alone?" said Victorine. + +"Ay, that he does,--alone with his books, of which he has about as many +as there are leaves on the trees; one could not so much as step or sit +for a book in one's way. I did hear that he has now with him another of +his own order, and that the two are riding all over the country, +marking out the lines anew of all the farms, and writing new bonds which +are so much harder on men than the old ones were. Bah! but he has the +soul of a miser in him, for all his handsome face!" + +"Is he then so very handsome, Aunt Jeanne?" said Victorine, eagerly. + +"Ay, ay, child. I'll give him his due for that, evilly as he has treated +me. He is a handsomer man than his father was; and when his father and I +were married there was not a woman in the provinces that did not say I +had carried off the handsomest man that ever strode a horse. I'd like to +have had thee see me, too, in that day, child. I was counted as handsome +as he, though thou'dst never think it now." + +"But I would think it!" cried Victorine, hotly and loyally. "What ails +thee, Aunt Jeanne? Did I not hear Father Hennepin himself saying to thee +only yesterday that thou wert comelier to-day than ever? and he saw thee +married, he told me." + +"Tut, tut, child!" replied Jeanne, looking pleased. "None know better +than the priests how to speak idle words to women. But what was he +telling thee? How came it that he spoke of the time when I was married?" +added Jeanne, again suspicious. + +"It was I that asked him," replied Victorine. "I wish always so much +that I had been with thee instead of in the convent, dear aunt. Does +this son of thy husband, this handsome young man who is so like unto a +magpie,--does he never in his journeyings come this way?" + +"Ay, often," replied Jeanne. "I know that he must, because a large part +of his estate lies beyond the border and joins on to this parish. It was +that which brought his father here, in the beginning, and there is no +other inn save this for miles up and down the border where he can tarry; +but it is likely that he will sooner lie out in the fields than sleep +under this roof, because I am here. I had looked to say my mind to him +as often as he came; and that it would be a sore thing to him to see his +father's wife in the bar, I know beyond a doubt. I have often said to +myself what a comfortable spleen I should experience when I might +courtesy to him and say, 'What would you be pleased to take, sir?' But +I think he is minded to rob me of that pleasure, for it is certain he +must have ridden this way before now." + +"I have a mind to burn a candle to the Virgin," said Victorine, slowly, +"that he may come here. I would like for once to set my eyes on his +face." + +An unwonted earnestness in Victorine's tone and a still more unwonted +seriousness in her face arrested Jeanne's attention. + +"What is it to thee to see him or not to see him, eh? What is it thou +hast in thy silly head. If thou thinkest thou couldst win him over to +take us back to live in his house again,--which is my own house, to be +sure, if I had my rights,--thy wits are wool-gathering, I can tell thee +that," cried Jeanne. "He has the pride of ten thousand devils in him. +There was that in his face when I drove away from the door,--and he +standing with his head uncovered too,--which I tell thee if I had been a +man I could have killed him for. He take us back! He! he!" And Jeanne +laughed a bitter laugh at the bare idea of the thing. + +"I had not thought of any such thing, Aunt Jeanne," replied Victorine, +still speaking slowly, and still with a dreamy expression on her face, +as she leaned out of the window and began idly plucking the blossoms +from a bough of the big pear-tree, which was now all white with flowers +and buzzing with bees. "Dost thou not think the bees steal a little +sweet that ought to go into the fruit?" continued the artful girl, who +did not choose that her aunt should question her any further as to the +reason of her desire to see Willan Blaycke. "I remember that once Father +Anselmo at the convent said to me he thought so. There was a vine of the +wild grape which ran all over the wall between the cloister and the +convent; and when it was in bloom the air sickened one, and thou couldst +hardly go near the wall for the swarming bees that were drinking the +honey from the flowers. And Father Anselmo said one evening that they +were thieves; they stole sweet which ought to go into the grapes." + +This was a clever diversion. It turned Jeanne's thoughts at once away +from Willan Blaycke, but it did not save Mademoiselle Victorine from a +catechising quite as sharp as she was in danger of on the other subject. + +"And what wert thou doing talking with a priest in the garden at night?" +cried Jeanne, fiercely. "Is that the way maidens are trained in a +convent! Shame on thee, Victorine! what hast thou revealed?" + +"The Virgin forbid," answered Victorine, piously, racking her brains +meanwhile for a ready escape from this dilemma, and trying in her fright +to recall precisely what she had just said. "I said not that he told it +to me in the garden; it was in the confessional that he said it. I had +confessed to him the grievous sin of a horrible rage I had been in when +one of the bees had stung me on the lip as I was gathering the cool vine +leaves to lay on the good Sister Clarice's forehead, who was ill with a +fever." + +"Eh, eh!" said Jeanne, relieved; "was that it? I thought it could not be +thou wert in the garden in the evening hours, and with a priest." + +"Oh no," said Victorine, demurely. "It was not permitted to converse +with the priests except in the chapel." And choking back an amused +little laugh she bounded to the ladder-like stairway and climbed up into +her own room. + +"Saints! what an ankle the girl has, to be sure!" thought Jeanne, as she +watched Victorine's shapely legs slowly vanishing up the stair. "What +has filled her head so full of that upstart Willan, I wonder!" + +A thought struck Jeanne; the only wonder was it had never struck her +before. In her sudden excitement she sprung from her chair, and began to +walk rapidly up and down the floor. She pressed her hand to her +forehead; she tore open the handkerchief which was crossed on her bosom; +her eyes flashed; her cheeks grew red; she breathed quicker. + +"The girl's handsome enough to turn any man's head, and twice as clever +as I ever was," she thought. + +She sat down in her chair again. The idea which had occurred to her was +over-whelming. She spoke aloud and was unconscious of it. + +"Ah, but that would be a triumph!" she said. "Who knows? who knows?" + +"Victorine!" she called; "Victorine!" + +"Yes, aunt," replied Victorine. + +"There's plenty of honey left in the flowers to keep pears sweet after +the bees are dead," said Jeanne, mischievously, and went downstairs +chuckling over her new secret thought. "I'll never let the child know +I've thought of such a thing," she mused, as she took her accustomed +seat in the bar. "I'll bide my time. Strange things have happened, and +may happen again." + +"What a queer speech of Aunt Jeanne's!" thought Victorine at her +casement window. "What a fool I was to have said anything about Father +Anselmo! Poor fellow! I wonder why he doesn't run away from the +monastery!" + + + +II. + + + The south wind's secret, when it blows, + Oh, what man knows? + How did it turn the rose's bud + Into a rose? + What went before, no garden shows; + Only the rose! + + What hour the bitter north wind blows, + The south wind knows. + Why did it turn the rose's bud + Into a rose? + Alas, to-day the garden shows + A dying rose! + + +Jeanne had not to wait long. It was only a few days after this +conversation with Victorine,--the big pear-tree was still snowy-white +with bloom, and the tireless bees still buzzed thick among its +boughs,--when Jeanne, standing in the doorway at sunset, saw two riders +approaching the inn. At her first glance she recognized Willan Blaycke. +Jeanne's mind moved quickly. In the twinkling of an eye she had sprung +back into the bar-room, and said to her father,-- + +"Father, father, be quick! Here comes Willan Blaycke riding; and +another, an old man, with him. Thou must tend the bar; for hand so much +as a glass of gin to that man will I never. I shut myself up till he is +gone." + +"Nay, nay, Jeanne," replied Victor; "I'll turn him from my door. He's to +get no lodging under this roof, he nor his,--I promise you that." And +Victor was bustling angrily to the door. + +This did not suit Mistress Jeanne at all. In great dismay inwardly, but +outwardly with slow and smooth-spoken accents, as if reflecting +discreetly, she replied, "He might do me great mischief if he were +angered, father. All the moneys go through his hand. I think it is safer +to speak him fair. He hath the devil's own temper if he be opposed in +the smallest thing. It has cost him sore enough, I'll be bound, to find +himself here at sundown, and beholden to thee for shelter; it is none of +his will to come, I know that well enough. Speak him fair, father, speak +him fair; it is a silly fowl that pecks at the hand which holds corn. I +will hide myself till he is away, though, for I misgive me that I should +be like to fly out at him." + +"But, Jeanne--" persisted Victor. But Jeanne was gone. + +"Speak him fair, father; take no note that aught is amiss," she called +back from the upper stair, from which she was vanishing into her +chamber. "I will send Victorine to wait at the supper. He hath never +seen her, and need not to know that she is of our kin at all," + +"Humph!" muttered Victor. "Small doubt to whom the girl is kin, if a man +have eyes in his head." And he would have argued the point longer with +Jeanne, but he had no time left, for the riders had already turned into +the courtyard, and were giving their horses in charge to the +white-headed ostler Benoit. Benoit had served in the Golden Pear for a +quarter of a century. He had served Victor Dubois's father in Normandy, +had come with his young master to America, and was nominally his servant +still. But if things had gone by their right names at the Golden Pear, +old Benoit would not have been called servant for many a year back. Not +a secret in that household which Benoit had not shared; not a plot he +had not helped on. At Jeanne's marriage he was the only witness except +Father Hennepin; and there were some who recollected still with what +extraordinary chuckles of laughter Benoit had walked away from the +chapel after that ceremony had been completed. To the young Victorine +Benoit had been devoted ever since her coming to the inn. Whenever she +appeared in sight the old man came to gaze on her, and stood lingering +and admiring as long as she remained. + +"Thou art far handsomer than thy mother ever was," he had said to her +one morning soon after her arrival. + +"Oh, didst thou know my mother, then, when she was young?" cried +Victorine. "She is not handsome now, though she is newly wed; when she +came to see me in the convent, I thought her very ugly. When didst thou +know her, Benoit?" + +Benoit was very red in the face, and began to toss straw vigorously as +he looked away from Victorine and answered: "It was but once that I had +sight of her, when Master Jean brought her here after they were married. +Thou dost not favor her in the least. Thou art like Master Jean." + +"And the saints know that that last is the holy truth, whatever the +rest may be," thought Benoit, as he bustled about the courtyard. + +"But thy tongue is the tongue of an imbecile," said Victor, following +him into the stable. + +"Ay, that it is, sir," replied Benoit, humbly. "I had like to have +bitten it off before I had finished speaking; but no harm came." + +"Not this time," replied Victor; "but the next thou might not be so well +let off. The girl has a sharper wit than she shows ordinarily. She hath +learned too well the ways of convents. I trust her not wholly, Benoit. +Keep thy eyes open, Benoit. We'll not have her go the ways of her mother +if it can be helped." And the worldly and immoral old grandfather turned +on his heel with a wicked laugh. + +Benoit had never seen young Willan Blaycke, but he knew him at his first +glance. + +"The son!" he muttered under his breath, as he saw him alight. "Is he to +be lodged here? I doubt." And Benoit looked about for Victor, who was +nowhere to be seen. Slowly and with a surly face he came forward to +take the horses. + +"What're you about, old man? Wear you shoes of lead? Take our horses, +and see you to it they are well rubbed down before they have aught to +eat or drink. We have ridden more than ten leagues since the noon," +cried the elder of the two travellers. + +"And ought to have ridden more," said the younger in an undertone. It +was, as Jeanne had said, a sore thing to Willan Blaycke to be forced to +seek a night's shelter in the Golden Pear. + +"Tut, tut!" said the other, "what odds! It is a whimsey, a weakness of +yours, boy. What's the woman to you?" + +Victor Dubois, who had come up now, heard these words, and his swarthy +cheek was a shade darker. Benoit, who had lingered till he should +receive a second order from the master of the inn as to the strangers' +horses, exchanged a quick glance with Victor, while he said in a +respectful tone, "Two horses, sir, for the night." The glance said, "I +know who the man is; shall we keep him?" + +"Ay, Benoit," Victor answered; "see that Jean gives them a good rubbing +at once. They have been hard ridden, poor beasts!" While Victor was +speaking these words his eyes said to Benoit, "Bah! It is even so; but +we dare not do otherwise than treat him fair." + +"Will you be pleased to walk in, gentlemen; and what shall I have the +honor of serving for your supper?" he continued. "We have some young +pigeons, if your worships would like them, fat as partridges, and still +a bottle or two left of our last autumn's cider." + +"By all means, landlord, by all means, let us have them, roasted on a +spit, man,--do you hear?--roasted on a spit, and let your cook lard them +well with fat bacon; there is no bird so fat but a larding doth help it +for my eating," said the elder man, rubbing his hands and laughing more +and more cheerily as his companion looked each moment more and more +glum. + +"No, I'll not go in," said Willan, as Victor threw open the door into +the bar-room. "It suits me better to sit here under the trees until +supper is ready." And he threw himself down at the foot of the great +pear-tree. He feared to see Jeanne sitting in the bar, as she had +threatened. The ground was showered thick with the soft white petals of +the blossoms, which were now past their prime. Willan picked up a +handful of them and tossed them idly in the air. As he did so, a shower +of others came down on his face, thick, fast; they half blinded him for +a moment. He sprung to his feet and looked up. It was like looking into +a snowy cloud. He saw nothing. "Some bird flying through," he thought, +and lay down again. + + "Ah! luck for the bees, + The flowers are in flower; + Luck for the bees in spring. + Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour; + No summer is fair as the spring. + Ah! luck for the bees; + The honey in flowers + Is highest when they are on wing!" + +came in a gay Provencal melody from the pear-tree above Willan's head, +and another shower of white petals fell on his face. + +"Good God!" said Willan Blaycke, under his breath, "what witchcraft is +going on here? what girl's voice is that?" And he sprang again to his +feet. + +The voice died slowly away; the singer was moving farther off,-- + + "Ah! woe for the bees, + The flowers are dead; + No summer is fair as the spring. + Ah me, but the honey is thick in the comb; + 'Tis a long time now since spring. + Ah, woe for the bees + That honey is sweet, + Is sweeter than anything!" + +"Sweeter than anything,--sweeter than anything!" the voice, grown faint +now, repeated this refrain over and over, as the syllables of sound died +away. + +It was Victorine going very slowly down the staircase from her room into +Jeanne's. And it was Victorine who had accidentally brushed the +pear-tree boughs as she watered her plants on the roof of the outside +stairway. She did not see Willan lying on the ground underneath, and she +did not think that Willan might be hearing her song; and yet was her +head full of Willan Blaycke as she went down the staircase, and not a +little did she quake at the thought of seeing him below. + +Jeanne had come breathless to her room, crying, "Victorine! Victorine! +That son of my husband's of whom we were talking, young Willan Blaycke, +is at the door,--he, and an old man with him; and they must perforce +stay here all night. Now, it would be a shame I could in no wise bear to +stand and serve him at supper. Wilt thou not do it in my stead? there +are but the two." And the wily Jeanne pretended to be greatly +distressed, as she sank into a chair and went on: "In truth, I do not +believe I can look on his face at all. I will keep my room till he have +gone his way,--the villain, the upstart, that I may thank for all my +trouble! Oh, it brings it all back again, to see his face!" And Jeanne +actually brought a tear or two into her wily eyes. + +The no less wily Victorine tossed her head and replied: "Indeed, then, +and the waiting on him is no more to my liking than to thine own, Aunt +Jeanne! I did greatly desire to see his face, to see what manner of man +he could be that would turn his father's widow out of her house; but I +think Benoit may hand the gentleman his wine, not I." And Victorine +sauntered saucily to the window and looked out. + +"A plague on all their tempers!" thought Jeanne, impatiently. Her plans +seemed to be thwarted when she least expected it. For a few moments she +was silent, revolving in her mind the wisdom of taking Victorine into +her counsels, and confiding to her the motive she had for wishing her to +be seen by Willan Blaycke. But she dreaded lest this might defeat her +object by making the girl self-conscious. Jeanne was perplexed; and in +her perplexity her face took on an expression as if she were grieved. +Victorine, who was much dismayed by her aunt's seeming acquiescence in +her refusal to serve the supper, exclaimed now,-- + +"Nay, nay, Aunt Jeanne, do not look grieved. I will indeed go down and +serve the supper, if thou takest it so to heart. The man is nothing to +me, that I need fear to see him." + +"Thou art a good girl," replied Jeanne, much relieved, and little +dreaming how she had been gulled by Mademoiselle Victorine,--"thou art a +good girl, and thou shalt have my lavender-colored paduasoy gown if +thou wilt lay thyself out to see that all is at its best, both in the +bedrooms and for the supper. I would have Willan Blaycke perceive that +one may live as well outside of his house as in it. And, Victorine," she +added, with an attempt at indifference in her tone, "wear thy white gown +thou hadst on last Sunday. It pleased me better than any gown thou hast +worn this year,--that, and thy black silk apron with the red lace; they +become thee." + +So Victorine had arrayed herself in the white gown; it was of linen +quaintly woven, with a tiny star thrown up in the pattern, and shone +like damask. The apron was of heavy black silk, trimmed all around with +crimson lace, and crimson lace on the pockets. A crimson rose in +Victorine's black hair and crimson ribbons at her throat and on her +sleeves completed the toilet. It was ravishing; and nobody knew it +better than Mademoiselle Victorine herself, who had toiled many an hour +in the convent making the crimson lace for the precise purpose of +trimming a black apron with it, if ever she escaped from the convent, +and who had chosen out of fifty rose-bushes at the last Parish Fair the +one whose blossoms matched her crimson lace. There is a picture still to +be seen of Victorine in this costume; and many a handsome young girl, +having copied the costume exactly for a fancy ball, has looked from the +picture to herself and from herself to the picture, and gone to the ball +dissatisfied, thinking in her heart,-- + +"After all, I don't look half as well in it as that French girl did." + +As Victorine came leisurely down the stairs, half singing, half +chanting, her little song, Jeanne looked at her in admiration. + +"Well, and if either of the men have an eye for a pretty girl clad in +attire that becomes her, they can look at thee, my Victorine. That black +apron will go well with the lavender paduasoy also." + +"That it will, Aunt Jeanne," answered Victorine, her face glowing with +pleasure. "I can never thank thee enough. I did not think ever to have +the paduasoy for my own." + +"All my gowns are for thee," said Jeanne, in a voice of great +tenderness. "I shall presently take to the wearing of black; it better +suits my years. Thou canst be young; it is enough. I am an old woman." + +Victorine bent over and kissed her aunt, and whispered: "Fie on thee, +Aunt Jeanne! The Father Hennepin does not think thee an old woman; +neither Pierre Gaspard from the mill. I hear the men when they are +talking under my window of thee. Thou knowest thou mightest wed any day +if thou hadst the mind." + +Jeanne shook her head. "That I have not, then," she said. "I keep the +name of Willan Blaycke for all that of any man hereabouts which can be +offered to me. Thou art the one to wed, not I. But far off be that day," +she added hastily; "thou art young for it yet." + +"Ay," replied the artful young maiden, "that am I, and I think I will be +old before any man make a drudge of me. I like my freedom better. And +now will I go down and serve thy stepson,--the handsome magpie, the +reader of books." And with a mocking laugh Victorine bounded down the +staircase and went into the kitchen. Her grandfather was running about +there in great confusion, from dresser to fireplace, to table, to +pantry, back and forth, breathless and red in the face. The pigeons were +sputtering before the fire, and the odor of the frying bacon filled the +place. + +"Diable! Girl, out of this!" he cried; "this is no place for thee. Go to +thine aunt." + +"She did bid me come and serve the supper for the strangers," replied +Victorine. "She herself will not come down." + +"Go to the devil! Thou shalt not, and it is I that say it," shouted +Victor; and Victorine, terrified, fled back to Jeanne, and reported her +grandfather's words. + +Poor Jeanne was at her wit's end now. "Why said he that?" she asked. + +"I know not," replied Victorine, demurely. "He was in one of his great +rages, and I do think that the pigeons are fast burning, by the smell." + +"Bah!" cried Jeanne, in disgust. "Is this a house to live in, where one +cannot be let down from one's chamber except in sight of the highway? +Run, Victorine! Look over and see if the strangers be in sight. I must +go down to the kitchen. I would a witch were at hand with a broom or a +tail of a mare. I'd mount and down the chimney, I warrant me!" + +Laughing heartily, Victorine ran to reconnoitre. "There is none in +sight," she cried. "Thou canst come down. A man is asleep under the +pear-tree, but I think not he is one of them." + +Jeanne ran quickly down the stairs, followed by Victorine, who, as she +entered the kitchen again, took up her position in one corner, and stood +leaning against the wall, tapping her pretty little black slippers with +their crimson bows impatiently on the floor. Jeanne drew her father to +one side, and whispered in his ear. He retorted angrily, in a louder +tone. Not a look or tone was lost on Victorine. Presently the old man, +shrugging his shoulders, went back to the pigeons, and began to turn the +spit, muttering to himself in French. Jeanne had conquered. + +"Thy grandfather is in a rage," she said to Victorine, "because we must +give meat and drink to the man who has treated me so ill; that is why he +did not wish thee to serve. But I have persuaded him that it is needful +that we do all we can to keep Willan Blaycke well disposed to us. He +might withhold from me all my money if he so chose; and he is rich, and +we are but poor people. We could not find any redress. So do thou take +care and treat him as if thou hadst never heard aught against him from +me. It will lie with thee, child, to see that he goes not away angered; +for thy grandfather is in a mood when the saints themselves could not +hold his tongue if he have a mind to speak. Keep thou out of his sight +till supper be ready. I stay here till all is done." + +Between the kitchen and the common living-room, which was also the +dining-room, was a long dark passage-way, at one end of which was a +small storeroom. Here Victorine took refuge, to wait till her aunt +should call her to serve the supper. The window of this storeroom was +wide open. The shutter had fallen off the hinges several days before, +and Benoit had forgotten to put it up. Victorine seated herself on a +cider cask close to the window, and leaning her head against the wall +began to sing again in a low tone. She had a habit of singing at all +times, and often hardly knew that she sang at all. The Provencal melody +was still running in her head. + + "Ah! luck for the bees, + The flowers are in flower; + Luck for the bees in spring. + Ah me, but the flowers, they die in an hour; + No summer is fair as the spring. + Ah! luck for the bees; + The honey in flowers + Is highest when they are on wing!" + +she sang. Then suddenly breaking off she began singing a wild, sad +melody of another song:-- + + "The sad spring rain, + It has come at last. + The graves lie plain, + And the brooks run fast; + And drip, drip, drip, + Falls the sad spring rain; + And tears fall fresh, + In the sad spring air, + From lovers' eyes, + On the graves laid bare." + +It was very dark in the storeroom; it was dark out of doors. The moon +had been up for an hour, but the sky was overcast thick with clouds. +Willan Blaycke was still asleep under the pear-tree. His head was only a +few feet from the storeroom window. The sound of Victorine's singing +reached his ears, but did not at first waken him, only blended +confusedly with his dreams. In a few seconds, however, he waked, sprang +to his feet, and looked about him in bewilderment. Out of the darkness, +seemingly within arm's reach, came the low sweet notes,-- + + "And drip, drip, drip, + Falls the sad spring rain; + And tears fall fresh, + In the sad spring air, + From lovers' eyes, + On the graves laid bare." + +Groping his way in the direction from which the voice came, Willan +stumbled against the wall of the house, and put his hand on the +window-sill. "Who sings in here?" he cried, fumbling in the empty space. + +"Holy Mother!" shrieked Victorine, and ran out of the storeroom, letting +the door shut behind her with all its force. The noise echoed through +the inn, and waked Willan's friend, who was also taking a nap in one of +the old leather-cushioned high-backed chairs in the bar-room. Rubbing +his eyes, he came out to look for Willan. He met him on the threshold. + +"Ah!" he said, "where have you been all this time? I have slept in a +chair, and am vastly rested." + +"The Lord only knows where I have been," answered Willan, laughing. "I +too have slept; but a woman with a voice like the voice of a wild bird +has been singing strange melodies in my ear." + +The elder man smiled. "The dreams of young men," he said, "are wont to +have the sound of women's voices in them." + +"This was no dream," retorted Willan. "She was so near me I heard the +panting breath with which she cried out and fled when I made a step +towards her." + +"Gentlemen, will it please you to walk in to supper?" said Victor, +appearing in the doorway with a clean white apron on, and no trace, in +his smiling and obsequious countenance, of the rage in which he had been +a few minutes before. + +A second talk with Jeanne after Victorine had left the kitchen had +produced a deep impression on Victor's mind. He was now as eager as +Jeanne herself for the meeting between Victorine and Willan Blaycke. + +The pigeons were not burned, after all. Most savory did they smell, and +Willan Blaycke and his friend fell to with a will. + +"Saidst thou not thou hadst some of thy famous pear cider left, +landlord?" asked Willan. + +"Ay, sir, my granddaughter has gone to draw it; she will be here in a +trice." + +As he spoke the door opened, and Victorine entered, bearing in her left +hand a tray with two curious old blue tankards on it; in her right hand +a gray stone jug with blue bands at its neck. Both the jug and the +tankards had come over from Normandy years ago. Victorine raised her +eyes, and looking first at Willan, then at his friend, went immediately +to the older man, and courtesying gracefully, set her tray down on the +table by his side, and filled the two tankards. The cider was like +champagne; it foamed and sparkled. The old man eyed it keenly. + +"This looks like the cidre mousseux I drank at Littry," he said, and +taking up his tankard tossed it off at a draught. "Tastes like it, too, +by Jove!" he said. "Old man, out of what fruits in this bleak country +dost thou conjure such a drink?" + +Victor smiled. Praise of the cider of the Golden Pear went to his heart +of hearts. "Monsieur has been in Calvados," he said. "It is kind of him +then to praise this poor drink of mine, which would be but scorned +there. There is not a warm enough sunshine to ripen our pears here to +their best, and the variety is not the same; but such as they are, I +have an orchard of twenty trees, and it is by reason of them that the +inn has its name." + +Willan was not listening to this conversation. He held his fork, with a +bit of untasted pigeon on it, uplifted in one hand; with the other he +drummed nervously on the table. His eyes were riveted on Victorine, who +stood behind the old man's chair, her soft black eyes glancing quietly +from one thing to another on the table to see if all were right. +Willan's gaze did not escape the keen eyes of Victorine's grandfather. +Chuckling inwardly, he assumed an expression of great anxiety, and +coming closer to Willan's chair said in a deprecating tone,-- + +"Are not the pigeons done to your liking, sir? You do not eat." + +Willan started, dropped his fork, then hastily took it up again. + +"Yes, yes," he said, "that they are; done to a turn." And he fell to +eating again. But do what he would, he could not keep his eyes off the +face of the girl. If she moved, his gaze followed her about the room, as +straight as a steel follows on after a magnet; and when she stood still, +he cast furtive glances that way each minute. In very truth, he might +well be forgiven for so doing. Not often does it fall to the lot of men +to see a more bewitching face than the face of Victorine Dubois. Many a +woman might be found fairer and of a nobler cast of feature; but in the +countenance of Victorine Dubois was an unaccountable charm wellnigh +independent of feature, of complexion, of all which goes to the ordinary +summing up of a woman's beauty. There was in the glance of her eye a +something, I know not what, which no man living could wholly resist. It +was at once defiant and alluring, tender and mocking, artless and +mischievous. No man could make it out; no man might see it twice alike +in the space of an hour. No more was the girl herself twice alike in an +hour, or a day, for that matter. She was far more like some frolicsome +creature of the woods than like a mortal woman. The quality of wildness +which Willan had felt in her voice was in her nature. Neither her +grandfather nor her mother had in the least comprehended her during the +few months she had lived with them. A certain gentleness of nature, +which was far more physical than mental, far more an idle nonchalance +than recognition of relations to others, had blinded them to her real +capriciousness and selfishness. They rarely interfered with her, or +observed her with any discrimination. Their love was content with her +surface of good humor, gayety, and beauty; she was an ever-present +delight and pride to them both, and that she might only partially +reciprocate this fondness never crossed their minds. They did not +realize that during all these eighteen years that they had been caring, +planning, and plotting for her their names had represented nothing in +her mind except unseen, unknown relatives to whom she was indebted for +support, but to whom she also owed what she hated and rebelled +against,--her imprisonment in the convent. Why should she love them? +Blood tells, however; and when Victorine found herself free, and face to +face with the grandfather of whom she had so long heard and only once +seen, and the Aunt Jeanne who had been described to her as the loving +benefactress of her youth, she had a new and affectionate sentiment +towards them. But she would at any minute have calmly sacrificed them +both for the furtherance of her own interests; and the thoughts she was +thinking while Willan Blaycke gazed at her so ardently this night were +precisely as follows:-- + +"If I could only have a good chance at him, I could make him marry me. I +see it in his face. I suppose I'd never see Aunt Jeanne again, or +grandfather; but what of that? I'd play my cards better than Aunt Jeanne +did, I know that much. Let me once get to be mistress of that stone +house--" And the color grew deeper and deeper on Victorine's cheeks in +the excitement of these reflections. + +"Poor girl!" Willan Blaycke was thinking. "I must not gaze at her so +constantly. The color in her cheeks betrays that I distress her." And +the honest gentleman tried his best to look away and bear good part in +conversation with his friend. It was a doubly good stroke on the part of +the wily Victorine to take her place behind the elder man's chair. It +looked like a proper and modest preference on her part for age; and it +kept her out of the old man's sight, and in the direct range of Willan's +eyes as he conversed with his friend. When she had occasion to hand +anything to Willan she did so with an apparent shyness which was +captivating; and the tone of voice in which she spoke to him was low and +timid. + +Old Victor could hardly contain himself. He went back and forth between +the dining-room and kitchen far oftener than was necessary, that he +might have the pleasure of saying to Jeanne: "It works! it works! He +doth gaze the eyes out of his head at her. The girl could not do better. +She hath affected the very thing which will snare him the quickest." + +"Oh no, father! Thou mistakest Victorine. She hath no plan of snaring +him; it was with much ado I got her to consent to serve him at all. It +was but for my sake she did it." + +Victor stared at Jeanne when she said this. "Thou hast not told her, +then?" he said. + +"Nay, that would have spoiled all; if the girl herself had it in her +head, he would have seen it." + +Victor walked slowly back into the dining-room, and took further and +closer observations of Mademoiselle Victorine's behavior and +expressions. When he went next to the kitchen he clapped Jeanne on the +shoulder, and said with a laugh: "'Tis a wise mother knows her own +child. If that girl in yonder be not bent on turning the head of Willan +Blaycke before she sleeps to-night, may the devil fly away with me!" + +"Well, likely he may, if thou prove not too heavy a load," retorted the +filial Jeanne. "I tell thee the girl's heart is full of anger against +Willan Blaycke. She is but doing my bidding. I charged her to see to it +that he was pleased, that he should go away our friend." + +"And so he will go," replied Victor, dryly; "but not for thy bidding or +mine. The man is that far pleased already that he shifteth as if the +very chair were hot beneath him. A most dutiful niece thou hast, +Mistress Jeanne!" + +When supper was over Willan Blaycke walked hastily out of the house. He +wanted to be alone. The clouds had broken away, and the full moon shone +out gloriously. The great pear-tree looked like a tree wrapped in cloud, +its blossoms were so thick and white. Willan paced back and forth +beneath it, where he had lain sleeping before supper. He looked toward +the window from whence he had heard the singing voice. "It must have +been she," he said. "How shall I bring it to pass to see her again? for +that I will and must." He went to the window and looked in. All was +dark. As he turned away the door at the farther end opened, and a ray of +light flashing in from the hall beyond showed Victorine bearing in her +hand the jug of cider. She had made this excuse to go to the storeroom +again, having observed that Willan had left the house. + +"He might seek me again there," thought she. + +Willan heard the sound, turned back, and bounding to the window +exclaimed, "Was it thou who sang?" + +Victorine affected not to hear. Setting down her jug, she came close to +the window and said respectfully: "Didst thou call? What can I fetch, +sir?" + +Willan Blaycke leaned both his arms on the window-sill, and looking into +the eyes of Victorine Dubois replied: "Marry, girl, thou hast already +fetched me to such a pass that thy voice rings in my ears. I asked thee +if it were thou who sang?" + +Retreating from the window a step or two, Victorine said sorrowfully: "I +did not think that thou hadst the face of one who would jest lightly +with maidens." And she made as if she would go away. + +"Pardon, pardon!" cried Willan. "I am not jesting; I implore thee, think +it not. I did sleep under this tree before supper, and heard such +singing! I had thought it a bird over my head except that the song had +words. I know it was thou. Be not angry. Why shouldst thou? Where didst +thou learn those wild songs?" + +"From Sister Clarice, in the convent," answered Victorine. "It is only +last Easter that my grandfather fetched me from the convent to live with +him and my aunt Jeanne." + +"Thy aunt Jeanne," said Willan, slowly. "Is she thy aunt?" + +"Yes," said Victorine, sadly; "she that was thy father's wife, whom thou +wilt not have in thy house." + +This was a bold stroke on Victorine's part. To tell truth, she had had +no idea one moment before of saying any such thing; but a sudden emotion +of resentment got the better of her, and the words were uttered before +she knew it. + +Willan was angry. "All alike," he thought to himself,--"a bad lot. I +dare say the woman has set the girl here for nothing else than to try to +play on my feelings." And it was in a very cold tone that he replied to +Victorine,-- + +"Thou art not able to judge of such matters at thy age. Thy aunt is +better here than there. Thou knowest," he added in a gentler tone, +seeing Victorine's great black eyes swimming in sudden tears, "that she +was never as mother to me. I had never seen her till I returned a man +grown." + +Victorine was sobbing now. "Oh," she cried, "what ill luck is mine! I +have angered thee; and my aunt did especially charge me that I was to +treat thee well. She doth never speak an ill word of thee, sir, never! +Do not thou charge my hasty words to her." And Victorine leaned out of +the window, and looked up in Willan Blaycke's face with a look which she +had had good reason to know was well calculated to move a man's heart. + +Willan Blaycke had led a singularly pure life. He was of a reticent and +partly phlegmatic nature; though he looked so like his father, he +resembled him little in temperament. This calmness of nature, added to a +deep-seated pride, had stood him in stead of firmly rooted principles of +virtue, and had carried him safe through all the temptations of his +unprotected and lonely youth. He had the air and bearing, and had had in +most things the experience, of a man of the world; and yet he was as +ignorant of the wily ways of a wily woman as if he had never been out of +the wilderness. Victorine's tears smote on him poignantly. + +"Thou poor child!" he said most kindly, "do not weep. Thou hast done no +harm. I bear no ill will to thine aunt, and never did; and if I had, +thou wouldst have disarmed it. This inn seems to me no place for a young +maiden like thee." + +Victorine glanced cautiously around her, and whispered: "It were +ungrateful in me to say as much; but oh, sir, if thou didst but know how +I wish myself back in the convent! I like not the ways of this place; +and I fear so much the men who are often here. When thou didst speak at +first I did think thou wert like them; but now I perceive that thou art +quite different. Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister Clarice +did tell me." Victorine stopped, called up a blush to her cheeks, and +said: "But I must not stay talking with thee. My aunt will be looking +for me." + +"Stay," said Willan. "What did the Sister Clarice tell thee of men? I +thought not that nuns conversed on such matters." + +"Oh!" replied Victorine, innocently, "it was different with the Sister +Clarice. She was a noble lady who had been betrothed, and her betrothed +died; and it was because there were none left so noble and so good as +he, she said, that she had taken the veil and would die in the convent. +She did talk to me whole nights about this young lord whom she was to +have wed, and she did think often that she saw his face look down +through the roof of the cell." + +Clever Victorine! She had invented this tale on the spur of the instant. +She could not have done better if she had plotted long to devise a +method of flattering Willan Blaycke. It is strange how like inspiration +are the impulses of artful women at times. It would seem wellnigh +certain that they must be prompted by malicious fiends wishing to lure +men on to destruction in the surest way. + +Victorine had talked with Willan perhaps five minutes. In that space of +time she had persuaded him of four things, all false,--that she was an +innocent, guileless girl; that she had been seized with a sudden and +reverential admiration for him; that she had no greater desire in life +than to be back again in the safe shelter of the convent; and that her +aunt Jeanne had never said an ill-word of him. + +"Victorine! Victorine!" called a sharp loud voice,--the voice of +Jeanne,--who would have bitten her tongue out rather than have broken +in on this interview, if she had only known. "Victorine, where art thou +loitering?" + +"Oh, for heaven's sake, sir, do not thou tell my grandfather that I have +talked with thee!" cried Victorine, in feigned terror. "Here I am, aunt; +I will be there in one second," she cried aloud, and ran hastily down +the storeroom. At the door she stopped, hesitated, turned back, and +going towards the window said wistfully: "Thou hast never been here +before all these three months. I suppose thou travellest this way very +seldom." + +The full moon shone on Victorine's face as she said this. Her expression +was like that of a wistful little child. Willan Blaycke did not quite +know what he was doing. He reached his hand across the window-sill +towards Victorine; she did not extend hers. "I will come again sooner," +he said. "Wilt thou not shake hands?" + +Victorine advanced, hesitated, advanced again; it was inimitably done. +"The next time, if I know thee better, I might dare," she whispered, and +fled like a deer. + +"Where hast thou been?" said Jeanne, angrily. "The supper dishes are +yet all to wash." + +Victorine danced gayly around the kitchen floor. "Talking with the son +of thy husband," she said. "He seems to me much cleverer than a magpie." + +Jeanne burst out laughing. "Thou witch!" she said, secretly well +pleased. "But where didst thou fall upon him? Thou hast not been in the +bar-room?" + +"Nay, he fell upon me, the rather," replied Victorine, artlessly, "as I +was resting me at the window of the long storeroom. He heard me singing, +and came there." + +"Did he praise thy voice?" asked Jeanne. "He is a brave singer himself." + +"Is he?" said Victorine, eagerly. "He did not tell me that. He said my +voice was like the voice of a wild bird. And there be birds and birds +again, I was minded to tell him, and not all birds make music; but he +seemed to me not one to take jests readily." + +"So," said Jeanne; "that he is not. Leaves he early in the morning?" + +"I think so," replied Victorine. "He did not tell me, but I heard the +elder man say to Benoit to have the horses ready at earliest light." + +"Thou must serve them again in the morning," said Jeanne. "It will be +but the once more." + +"Nay," answered Victorine, "I will not." + +Something in the girl's tone arrested her aunt's attention. "And why?" +she said sharply, looking scrutinizingly at her. + +Victorine returned the gaze with one as steady. It was as well, she +thought, that there should be an understanding between her aunt and +herself soon as late. + +"Because he will come again the sooner, Aunt Jeanne, if he sees me no +more after to-night." And Victorine gave a little mocking nod with her +head, turned towards the dresser piled high with dishes, and began to +make a great clatter washing them. + +Jeanne was silent. She did not know how to take this. + +Victorine glanced up at her mischievously, and laughed aloud. "Better a +grape for me than two figs for thee. Dost know the old proverb, Aunt +Jeanne? Thou hadst thy figs; I will e'en pluck the grape." + +"Bah, child! thou talkest wildly," said Jeanne; "I know not what thou +'rt at." + +But she did know very well; only she did not choose to seem to +understand. However, as she thought matters over later in the evening, +in the solitude of her own room, one thing was clear to her, and that +was that it would probably be safe to trust Mademoiselle Victorine to +row her own boat; and Jeanne said as much to her father when he inquired +of her how matters had sped. + +In spite of Victorine's refusal to serve at the breakfast, she had not +the least idea of letting Willan go away in the morning without being +reminded of her presence. She was up before light, dressed in a pretty +pink and white flowered gown, which set off her black hair and eyes +well, and made her look as if she were related to an apple-blossom. She +watched and listened till she heard the sound of voices and the horses' +feet in the courtyard below; then throwing open her casement she leaned +out and began to water her flowers on the stairway roof. At the first +sound Willan Blaycke looked up and saw her. It was as pretty a picture +as a man need wish to see, and Willan gazed his fill at it. The window +was so high up in the air that the girl might well be supposed not to +see anything which was going on in the courtyard; indeed, she never once +looked that way, but went on daintily watering plant after plant, +picking off dead leaves, crumpling them up in her fingers and throwing +them down as if she were alone in the place; singing, too, softly in a +low tone snatches of a song, the words of which went floating away +tantalizingly over Willan's head, in spite of all his efforts to hear. + +It was a great tribute to Victorine's powers as an actress that it never +once crossed Willan's mind that she could possibly know he was looking +at her all this time. It was equally a token of another man's estimate +of her, that when old Benoit, hearing the singing, looked up and saw her +watering her flowers at this unexampled hour, he said under his breath, +"Diable!" and then glancing at the face of Willan, who stood gazing up +at the window utterly unconscious of the old ostler's presence, said +"Diable!" again, but this time with a broad and amused smile. + + + +III. + + + The fountain leaps as if its nearest goal + Were sky, and shines as if its life were light. + No crystal prism flashes on our sight + Such radiant splendor of the rainbow's whole + Of color. Who would dream the fountain stole + Its tints, and if the sun no more were bright + Would instant fade to its own pallid white? + Who dream that never higher than the dole + Of its own source, its stream may rise? + Thus we + See often hearts of men that by love's glow + Are sudden lighted, lifted till they show + All semblances of true nobility; + The passion spent, they tire of purity, + And sink again to their own levels low! + +The next time Willan Blaycke came to the Golden Pear he did not see +Victorine. This was by no device of hers, though if she had considered +beforehand she could not better have helped on the impression she had +made on him than by letting him go away disappointed, having come hoping +to see her. She was away on a visit at the home of Pierre Gaspard the +miller, whose eldest daughter Annette was Victorine's one friend in the +parish. There was an eldest son, also, Pierre second, on whom +Mademoiselle Victorine had cast observant glances, and had already +thought to herself that "if nothing else turned up--but there was time +enough yet." Not so thought Pierre, who was madly in love with +Victorine, and was so put about by her cold and capricious ways with him +that he was fast coming to be good for nothing in the mill or on the +farm. But he is of no consequence in this account of the career of +Mademoiselle, only this,--that if it had not been for him she had not +probably been away from the Golden Pear on the occasion of Willan +Blaycke's second visit. Pierre had not shown himself at the inn for some +weeks, and Victorine was uneasy about him. Spite of her plans about a +much finer bird in the bush, she was by no means minded to lose the bird +she had in hand. She was too clear-sighted a young lady not to perceive +that it would be no bad thing to be ultimately Mistress Gaspard of the +mill,--no bad thing if she could not do better, of which she was as yet +far from sure. So she had inveigled her aunt into taking the notion into +her head that she needed change, and the two had ridden over to +Gaspard's for a three days' visit, the very day before Willan arrived. + +"I warrant me he was set aback when I did tell him as he alighted that I +feared me he would not be well served just at present, as there was no +woman about the house," said Victor, chuckling as he told Jeanne the +story. "He did give a little start,--not so little but that I saw it +well, though he fetched himself up with his pride in a trice, and said +loftily: 'I have no doubt all will be sufficient; it is but a bite of +supper and a bed that I require. I must go on at daybreak,' But Benoit +saw him all the evening pacing back and forth under the pear-tree, and +many times looking up at the shut casement of the window where he had +seen Victorine standing on the morning when he was last here." + +"Did he ask aught about her?" said Jeanne. + +"Bah!" said Victor, contemptuously. "Dost take him for a fool? He will +be farther gone than he is yet, ere he will let either thee or me see +that the girl is aught to him." + +"I wish he had found her here," said Jeanne. "It was an ill bit of luck +that took her away; and that Pierre, he is like to go mad about her, +since these three days under one roof. I knew not he was so daft, or I +had not taken her there." + +"She were well wed to Pierre Gaspard," said Victor; "mated with one's +own degree is best mated, after all. What shall we say if the lad come +asking her hand? He will not ask twice, I can tell you that of a +Gaspard." + +"Trust the girl to keep him from asking till she be ready to say him yea +or nay," replied Jeanne. "I know not wherever the child hath learnt such +ways with men; surely in the convent she saw none but priests." + +"And are not priests men?" sneered Victor, with an evil laugh. "Faith, +and I think there is nought which other men teach which they do not +teach better!" + +"Fie, father! thou shouldst not speak ill of the clergy; it is bad +luck," said Jeanne. Jeanne was far honester of nature than either her +father or her child; she was not entirely without reverence, and as far +as she could, without too much inconvenience, kept good faith with her +religion. + +When Victorine heard that Willan Blaycke had been at the inn in their +absence, she shrugged her pretty shoulders, and said, laughingly, "Eh, +but that is good!" + +"Why sayest thou so?" replied Jeanne. "I say it is ill." + +"And I say it is good," retorted Victorine; and not another word could +Jeanne get out of her on the matter. + +Victorine was right. As Willan Blaycke rode away from the Golden Pear, +he was so vexed with the unexpected disappointment that he was in a mood +fit to do some desperate thing. He had tried with all his might to put +Victorine's face and voice and sweet little form out of his thoughts, +but it was beyond his power. She haunted him by day and by night,--worse +by night than by day,--for he dreamed continually of standing just the +other side of a window-sill across which Victorine reached snowy little +hands and laid them in his, and just as he was about to grasp them the +vision faded, and he waked up to find himself alone. Willan Blaycke had +never loved any woman. If he had,--if he had had even the least +experience in the way of passionate fancies, he could have rated this +impression which Victorine had produced on him for what it was worth and +no more, and taking counsel of his pride have waited till the discomfort +of it should have passed away. But he knew no better than to suppose +that because it was so keen, so haunting, it must last forever. He was +almost appalled at the condition in which he found himself. It more than +equalled all the descriptions which he had read of unquenchable love. He +could not eat; he could not occupy himself with any affairs: all +business was tedious to him, and all society irksome. He lay awake long +hours, seeing the arch black eyes and rosy cheeks and piquant little +mouth; worn out by restlessness, he slept, only to see the eyes and +cheeks and mouth more vividly. It was all to no purpose that he reasoned +with himself,--that he asked himself sternly a hundred times a day,-- + +"Wilt thou take the granddaughter of Victor Dubois to be the mother of +thy children? Is it not enough that thy father disgraced his name for +that blood? Wilt thou do likewise?" + +The only answer which came to all these questions was Victorine's soft +whisper: "Oh, if thou didst but know, sir, how I wish myself safe back +in the convent!" and, "Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister +Clarice did tell me." + +"Poor little girl!" he said; "she is of their blood, but not of their +sort. Her mother was doubtless a good and pure woman, even though she +had not good birth or breeding; and this child hath had good training +from the Sisters in the convent. She is of a most ladylike bearing, and +has a fine sense of all which is proper and becoming, else would she not +so dislike the ways of an inn, and have such fear of the men that gaze +on her there." + +So touching is the blindness of those blinded by love! It is enough to +make one weep sometimes to see it,--to see, as in this instance of +Willan Blaycke, an upright, modest, and honest gentleman creating out of +the very virtues of his own nature the being whom he will worship, and +then clothing this ideal with a bit of common clay, of immodest and +ill-behaved flesh, which he hath found ready-made to his hand, and full +of the snare of good looks. + +When Willan Blaycke rode away this time from the Golden Pear, he was, as +we say, in a mood ready to do some desperate thing, he was so vexed and +disappointed. What he did do, proved it; he turned his horse and rode +straight for Gaspard's mill. The artful Benoit had innocently dropped +the remark, as he was holding the stirrup for Willan to mount, that +Mistress Jeanne and her niece were at Pierre Gaspard's; that for his +part he wished them back,--there was no luck about a house without a +woman in it. + +Willan Blaycke made some indifferent reply, as if all that were nothing +to him, and galloped off. But before he had gone five miles Benoit's +leaven worked, and he turned into a short-cut lane he knew which led to +the mill. He did not stop to ask himself what he should do there; he +simply galloped on towards Victorine. It was only a couple of leagues to +the mill, and its old tower and wheel were in sight before he thought of +its being near. Then he began to consider what errand he could make; +none occurred to him. He reined his horse up to a slow walk, and fell +into a reverie,--so deep a one that he did not see what he might have +seen had he looked attentively into a copse of poplars on a high bank +close to his road,--two young girls sitting on the ground peeling +slender willow stems for baskets. It was Annette Gaspard and Victorine; +and at the sound of a horse's feet they both leaned forward and looked +down into the road. + +"Oh, see, Victorine!" Annette cried; "a brave rider goes there. Who can +he be? I wonder if he goes to the mill? Perhaps my father will keep him +to dinner." + +At the first glance Victorine recognized Willan Blaycke, but she gave no +sign to her friend that she knew him. + +"He sitteth his horse like one asleep," she said, "or in a dream. I call +him not a brave rider. He hath forgotten something," she added; "see, he +is turning about!" And with keen disappointment the girls saw the +horseman wheel suddenly, and gallop back on the road he had come. At the +last moment, by a mighty effort, Willan had wrenched his will to the +decision that he would not seek Victorine at the mill. + +And this was why, when her aunt told her that he had been at the inn +during their absence, Victorine shrugged her shoulders, and said with so +pleased a laugh, "Eh! that is good." She understood by a lightning +intuition all which had happened,--that he had ridden towards the mill +seeking her, and had changed his mind at the last, and gone away. But +she kept her own counsel, told nobody that she had seen him, and said in +her mischievous heart, "He will be back before long." + +And so he was; but not even Victorine, with all her confidence in the +strength of the hold she had so suddenly acquired on him, could have +imagined how soon and with what purpose he would return. On the evening +of the sixth day, just at sunset, he appeared, walking with his +saddle-bags on his shoulders and leading his horse. The beast limped +badly, and had evidently got a sore hurt. Old Benoit was standing in the +arched entrance of the courtyard as they approached. + +"Marry, but that beast is in a bad way!" he exclaimed, and went to meet +them. Benoit loved a horse; and Willan Blaycke's black stallion was a +horse to which any man's heart might well go out, so knowing, docile, +proud, and swift was the creature, and withal most beautifully made. The +poor thing went haltingly enough now, and every few minutes stopped and +looked around piteously into his master's face. + +"And the man doth look as distressed as the beast," thought Benoit, as +he drew near; "it is a good man that so loves an animal." And Benoit +warmed toward Willan as he saw his anxious face. + +If Benoit had only known! No wonder Willan's face was sorrow-stricken! +It was he himself that had purposely lamed the stallion, that he might +have plain and reasonable excuse for staying at the Golden Pear some +days. He had not meant to hurt the poor creature so much, and his +conscience pricked him horribly at every step the horse took. He patted +him on his neck, spoke kindly to him, and did all in his power to atone +for his cruelty. That all was very little, however, for each step was +torture to the beast; his fore feet were nearly bleeding. This was what +Willan had done: the day before he had taken off two of the horse's +shoes, and then galloped fast over miles of rough and stony road. The +horse had borne himself gallantly, and shown no fatigue till nightfall, +when he suddenly went lame, and had grown worse in the night, so that +Willan had come very near having to lie by at an inn some leagues to the +north, where he had no mind to stay. A heavy price he was paying for the +delight of looking on Victorine's face, he began to think, as he toiled +along on foot, mile after mile, the saddle-bags on his shoulders, and +the hot sun beating down on his head; but reach the Golden Pear that day +he would, and he did,--almost as footsore as the stallion. Neither +master nor beast was wonted to rough ways. + +"My horse is sadly lame," Willan said to Benoit as he came up. "He cast +two shoes yesterday, and I was forced to ride on, spite of it, for there +was no blacksmith on the road I came. I fear me thou canst not shoe him +to-night, his feet have grown so sore!" + +"No, nor to-morrow nor the day after," cried Benoit, taking up the +inflamed feet and looking at them closely. "It was a sin, sir, to ride +such a creature unshod; he is a noble steed." + +"Nay, I have not ridden a step to-day," answered Willan, "and I am +wellnigh as sore as he. We have come all the way from the north +boundary,--a matter of some six leagues, I think,--from the inn of Jean +Gauvois." + +"But he is a farrier himself!" cried Benoit. "How let he the beast go +out like this?" + +"It was I forbade him to touch the horse," replied the wily Willan. "He +did lame a good mare for me once, driving a nail into the quick. I +thought the horse would be better to walk this far and get thy more +skilful handling. There is not a man in this country, they tell me, can +shoe a horse so well as thou. Dost thou not know some secret of +healing," he continued, "by which thou canst harden the feet, so that +they will be fit to shoe to-morrow?" + +Benoit shook his head. "Thy horse hath been too tenderly reared," he +said. "A hurt goes harder with him than with our horses. But I will do +my best, sir. I doubt not it will inconvenience thee much to wait here +till he be well. If thou couldst content thee with a beast sorry to look +at, but like the wind to go, we have a nag would carry thee along, and +thou couldst leave the stallion till thy return." + +"But I come not back this way," replied Willan, strangely ready with his +lies, now he had once undertaken the role of a manoeuvrer. "I go far +south, even down to the harbors of the sound. I must bide the beast's +time now. He hath made time for me many a day, and I do assure you, good +Benoit, I love him as if he were my brother." + +"Ay," replied the ostler; "so thought I when I saw thee bent under thy +saddle-bags and leading the horse by the rein. It's an evil man likes +not his beast. We say in Normandy, sir,-- + + "'Evil master to good beast, + Serve him ill at every feast!'" + +"So he deserves," replied Willan, heartily; and in his heart he added, +"I hope I shall not get my deserts." + +Benoit led the poor horse away toward the stables, and Willan entered +the house. No one was to be seen. Benoit had forgotten to tell him that +no one was at home except Victorine. It was a market-day at St. Urban's; +and Victor and Jeanne had gone for the day, and would not be back till +late in the evening. + +Willan roamed on from room to room,--through the bar-room, the +living-room, the kitchen; all were empty, silent. As he retraced his +steps he stopped for a second at the foot of the stairs which led from +the living-room to the narrow passage-way overhead. + +Victorine was in her aunt's room, and heard the steps. "Who is there?" +she called. Willan recognized her voice; he considered a second what he +should reply. + +"Benoit! is it thou?" Victorine called again impatiently; and the next +minute she bounded down the stairway, crying, "Why dost thou terrify me +so, thou bad Benoit, not answering me when I--" She stopped, face to +face with Willan Blaycke, and gave a cry of honest surprise. + +"Ah! but is it really thou?" she said, the rosy color mounting all over +her face as she recollected how she was attired. She had been asleep +all the warm afternoon, and had on only a white petticoat and a short +gown of figured stuff, red and white. Her hair was falling over her +shoulders. Willan's heart gave a bound as he looked at her. Before he +had fairly seen her, she had turned to fly. + +"Yes, it is I,--it is I," he called after her. "Wilt thou not come +back?" + +"Nay," answered Victorine, from the upper stair; "that I may not do, for +the house is alone." Victorine was herself now, and was wise enough not +to go quite out of sight. She looked entrancing between the dark wooden +balustrades, one slender hand holding to them, and the other catching up +part of her hair. "When my aunt returns, if she bids me to wait at +supper I shall see thee." And Victorine was gone. + +"Then sing for me at thy window," entreated Willan. + +"I know not the whole of any song," cried Victorine; but broke, as she +said it, into a snatch of a carol which seemed to the poor infatuated +man at the foot of the stairway like the song of an angel. He hurried +out, and threw himself down under the pear-tree where he had lain +before. The blossoms had all fallen from the pear-tree now, and through +the thinned branches he could see Victorine's window distinctly. She +could see him also. + +"It would be no hard thing to love such a man as he, methinks," she said +to herself as she went on leisurely weaving the thick braids of her +hair, and humming a song just low enough for Willan to half hear and +half lose the words. + + "Once in a hedge a bird went singing, + Singing because there was nobody near. + Close to the hedge a voice came crying, + 'Sing it again! I am waiting to hear. + Sing it forever! 'T is sweet to hear.' + + "Never again that bird went singing + Till it was surer that no one was near. + Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting, + Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear. + Sing it again! It was sweet to hear.'" + +"I wonder if Sister Clarice's lover had asked her to sing, as Willan +Blaycke just now asked me, that she did make this song," thought +Victorine. "It hath a marvellous fitness, surely." And she repeated the +last three lines. + + "Long in that hedge there was somebody waiting, + Crying in vain, 'I am waiting to hear. + Sing it again! It was sweet to hear.'" + +"But I should be silent like the bird, and not sing," she reflected, and +paused for a while. Willan listened patiently for a few moments. Then +growing impatient, he picked up a handful of turf and flung it up at the +window. Victorine laughed to herself as she heard it, but did not sing. +Another soft thud against the casement; no reply from Victorine. Then in +a moment more, in a rich deep voice, and a tune far sweeter than any +Victorine had sung, came these words:-- + + "Faint and weary toiled a pilgrim, + Faint and weary of his load; + Sudden came a sweet bird winging + Glad and swift across his road. + + "'Blessed songster!' cried the pilgrim, + 'Where is now the load I bore? + I forget it in thy singing; + Hearing thee, I faint no more,' + + "While he spoke the bird went winging + Higher still, and soared away; + 'Cruel songster!' cried the pilgrim, + 'Cruel songster not to stay!' + + "Was the songster cruel? Never! + High above some other road + Glad and swift he still was singing, + Lightening other pilgrims' load!" + +Victorine bent her head and listened intently to this song. It touched +the best side of her nature. + +"Indeed, that is a good song," she said to herself, "but it fitteth not +my singing. I make choice for whom I sing; I am not minded so to give +pleasure to all the world." + +She racked her brains to recall some song which would be as pertinent a +reply to Willan's song as his had been to hers; but she could think of +none. She was vexed; for the romance of this conversing by means of +songs pleased her mightily. At last, half in earnest and half in fun, +she struck boldly into a measure on which she would hardly have ventured +could she have seen the serious and tender expression on the face of her +listener under the pear-tree. As Willan caught line after line of the +rollicking measure, his countenance changed. + +"An elfish mood is upon her," he thought. "She doth hold herself so safe +in her chamber that she may venture on words she had not sung nearer at +hand. She is not without mischief in her blood, no doubt." And Willan's +own look began to grow less reverential and more eager as he listened. + + "The bee is a fool in the summer; + He knows it when summer is flown: + He might, for all good of his honey, + As well have let flowers alone. + + "The butterfly, he is the wiser; + He uses his wings when they 're grown; + He takes his delight in the summer, + And dies when the summer is done. + + "A heart is a weight in the bosom; + A heart can be heavy as stone: + Oh, what is the use of a lover? + A maiden is better alone." + +Victorine was a little frightened herself, as she sang this last stanza. +However, she said to herself: "I will bear me so discreetly at supper +that the man shall doubt his very ears if he have ever heard me sing +such words or not. It is well to perplex a man. The more he be +perplexed, the more he meditateth on thee; and the more he meditateth on +thee, the more his desire will grow, if it have once taken root." + +A very wise young lady in her generation was this graduate of a convent +where no men save priests ever came! + +Just as Victorine had sung the last verse of her song, she heard the +sound of wheels and voices on the road. Victor and Jeanne were coming +home. Willan heard the sounds also, and slowly arose from the ground and +sauntered into the courtyard. He had an instinct that it would be better +not to be seen under the pear-tree. + +Great was the satisfaction of Victor and Jeanne when they found that +Willan Blaycke was a guest in the inn; still greater when they learned +that he would be kept there for at least two days by the lameness of his +horse. + +"Thou need'st not make great haste with the healing of the beast," said +Victor to Benoit; "it might be a good turn to keep the man here for a +space." And the master exchanged one significant glance with his man, +and saw that he need say no more. + +There was no such specific understanding between Jeanne and Victorine. +From some perverse and roguish impulse the girl chose to take no counsel +in this game she had begun to play; but each woman knew that the other +comprehended the situation perfectly. + +When Victorine came into the dining-room to serve Willan Blaycke's +supper, she looked, to his eyes, prettier than ever. She wore the same +white gown and black silk apron with crimson lace she had worn before. +Her cheeks and her eyes were bright from the excitement of the +serenading and counter-serenading in which she had been engaged. Her +whole bearing was an inimitable blending of shyness and archness, +tempered by almost reverential respect. Willan Blaycke would have been +either more or less than mortal man if he had resisted it. He did +not,--he succumbed then and there and utterly to his love for Victorine; +and the next morning when breakfast was ready he electrified Victor +Dubois by saying, with a not wholly successful attempt at jocularity,-- + +"Look you! your man tells me I am like to be kept here a matter of some +three days or more, before my horse be fit to bear me. Now, it irks me +to be the cause of so much trouble, seeing that I am the only traveller +in the house. I pray you that I may sit down with you all at meal-times, +as is your wont, and that you make no change in the manner of your +living by reason of my being in the house. I shall be better pleased +so." + +There was about as much command as request in Willan's manner; and after +some pretended hesitancy Victor yielded, only saying, by way of +breaking down the last barrier,-- + +"My daughter hath desired not to see thee. I know not how she may take +this request of thine; it seemeth but reasonable unto me, and it will be +that saving of work for her. I think she may consent." + +Nothing but her love for Victorine would have induced Jeanne to sit +again at meat with her stepson, but for Victorine's sake Jeanne would +have done much harder things; and indeed, after the first few moments of +awkwardness had passed by, she found that she was much less +uncomfortable in Willan's presence than she had anticipated. + +Willan's own manner did much to bring this about. He was so deeply in +love with Victorine that it had already transformed his sentiments on +most points, and on none more than in regard to Jeanne. He thought no +better of her character than he had thought before; but he found himself +frequently recollecting, as he had never done before, or at least had +never done in a kindly way, that, after all, she had been his father's +wife for ten years, and it would perhaps have been a more dignified +thing in him to have attempted to make her continue in a style of living +suitable to his father's name than to have relegated her, as he had +done, to her original and lower social station. + +Jeanne's behavior towards him was very judicious. Affection is the best +teacher of tact in many an emergency in life; we see it every day among +ignorant and untaught people. + +Jeanne knew, or felt without knowing, that the less she appeared to be +conscious of anything unusual or unpleasant in this resumption of +familiar relations on the surface, between herself and Willan, the more +free his mind would be to occupy itself with Victorine; and she acted +accordingly. She never obtruded herself on his attention; she never +betrayed any antagonism toward him, or any recollection of the former +and different footing on which they had lived. A stranger sitting at the +table would not have dreamed, from anything in her manner to him, that +she had ever occupied any other position than that of the landlord's +daughter and landlady of the inn. + +A clear-sighted observer looking on at affairs in the Golden Pear for +the next three days would have seen that all the energies of both Victor +and Jeanne were bent to one end,--namely, leaving the coast clear for +Willan Blaycke to fall in love with Victorine. But all that Willan +thought was that Victor and his daughter were far quieter and modester +people than he had supposed, and seemed disposed to keep themselves to +themselves in a most proper fashion. It never crossed his mind that +there was anything odd in his finding Victorine so often and so long +alone in the living-room; in the uniform disappearance of both Victor +and Jeanne at an early hour in the evening. Willan was too much in love +to wonder at or disapprove of anything which gave him an opportunity of +talking with Victorine, or, still better, of looking at her. + +What he liked best was silently to watch her as she moved about, doing +her light duties in her own graceful way. He was not a voluble lover; he +was still too much bewildered at his own condition. Moreover, he had not +yet shaken himself free from the tormenting disapproval of his +conscience; he lost sight of that very fast, however, as the days sped +on. Victorine played her cards most admirably. She did not betray even +by a look that she understood that he loved her; she showed towards him +an open and honest admiration, and an eager interest in all that he said +or did,--an almost affectionate good-will, too, in serving his every +want, and trying to make the time of his detention pass pleasantly to +him. + +"It must be a sore trial, sir, for thee to be kept in a poor place like +this so many days. Benoit says that he thinks not thy horse can go +safely for yet some days," she said to Willan one morning. "Would it +amuse thee to ride over to Pierre Gaspard's mill to-day? If thou couldst +abide the gait of my grandfather's nag, I might go on my pony, and show +thee the way. The river is high now, and it is a fair sight to see the +white blossoms along the banks." + +Cunning Victorine! She had all sorts of motives in this proposition. She +thought it would be well to show Willan Blaycke to Pierre. "He may +discover that there are other men beside himself in the world," she +mused; and, "It would please me much to go riding up to the door for +Annette to see with the same brave rider she did so admire;" and, "There +are many ways to bring a man near one in riding through the woods." All +these and many more similar musings lay hid behind the innocent look she +lifted to Willan's face as she suggested the ride. + +It was only the third morning of Willan's stay at the inn; but the time +had been put to very good use. Already it had become natural to him to +come and go with Victorine,--to stay where she was, to seek her if she +were missing. Already he had learned the way up the outside staircase to +the platform where she kept her flowers and sometimes sat. He was living +in a dream,--going the way of all men, head-long, blindfold, into a life +of which he knew and could know nothing. + +"Indeed, and that is what I should like best of all things," he replied +to Victorine. "Will thy aunt let thee go?" + +"Why not?" asked Victorine, opening her eyes wide in astonishment. "I +ride all over the parish on my pony alone." + +"Stupid of me!" ejaculated Willan, inwardly: "as if these people could +know any scruples about etiquette!" + +"These people," as Willan contemptuously called them, stood at the door +of the inn, and watched him riding away with Victorine with hardly +disguised exultation. Not till the riders were fairly out of sight did +Victor venture to turn his face toward Jeanne's. Then, bursting into a +loud laugh, he clapped Jeanne on the shoulder, and said: "We'll see thee +grandmother of thy husband's grandchildren yet, Jeanne. Ha! ha!" + +Jeanne flushed. She was not without a sense of shame. Her love for +Victorine made her sensitive to the stain on her birth. + +"Thinkest thou it could ever be known?" she asked anxiously. + +"Never," replied her father,--"never; 'tis as safe as if we were all +dead. And for that, the living are safer than the dead, if there be +tight enough lock on their mouths." + +"He doth seem to be as much in love as one need," said Jeanne. + +"Ay," said Victor, "more than ever his father was with thee." + +"Canst thou not let that alone?" said Jeanne, angrily. "Surely it is +long enough gone by, and small profit came of it." + +"Not so, not so, daughter," replied Victor, soothingly; "if we can but +set the girl in thy shoes, thou didst not wear thine for nought, even +though they pinched thee for a time." + +"That they did," retorted Jeanne; "it gives me a cramp now but to +remember them." + +Willan and Victorine galloped merrily along the river road. The woods +were sweet with spring fragrances; great thickets of dogwood trees were +white with flowers; mossy hillocks along the roadside were pink with the +dainty bells of the Linnaea. The road was little more than a woodman's +path, and curved now right, now left, in seeming caprice; now forded a +stream, now came out into a cleared field, again plunged back into dense +groves of larch and pine. + +"Never knew I that the woods were so beautiful thus early in the year," +said the honest Willan. + +"Nor I, till to-day," said the artful Victorine, who knew well enough +what Willan did not know himself. + +"Dost thou ride here alone?" asked Willan. "It is a wild place for thee +to be alone." + +"If I came not alone, I could not come at all," replied Victorine, +sorrowfully. "My grandfather is too busy, and my aunt likes not to ride +except she must, on a market day or to go to church. No one but thou +hast ever walked or ridden with me," she added in a low voice, sighing; +"and now after two days or three thou wilt be gone." + +Willan sighed also, but did not speak. The words, "I will always ride by +thy side, Victorine," were on his lips, but he felt himself still +withheld from speaking them. + +The visit at the mill was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, +and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine riding +familiarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of the +richest men in the country, and a young man at that,--and a young man, +moreover, who looked and behaved as if he were in love with his +companion,--how could the poor miller be expected to be cordial and +unconstrained with such a sight before his eyes! Annette also was more +overawed even than Victorine had desired she should be by the sight of +the handsome stranger,--so overawed, and withal perhaps a little +curious, that she was dumb and awkward; and as for _Mere_ Gaspard, she +never under any circumstances had a word to say. So the visit was very +stupid, and everybody felt ill at ease,--especially Willan, who had lost +his temper in the beginning at a speech of Pierre's to Victorine, which +seemed to his jealous sense too familiar. + +"I thought thou never wouldst take leave," he said ill-naturedly to +Victorine, as they rode away. + +Victorine turned towards him with an admirably counterfeited expression +of surprise. "Oh, sir," she said, "I did think I ought to wait for thee +to take leave. I was dying with the desire I had to be back in the woods +again; and only when I could not bear it any longer, did I bethink me to +say that my aunt expected us back to dinner." + +Long they lingered on the river-banks on their way home. Even the +plotting brain of Victorine was not insensible to the charm of the sky, +the air, the budding foliage, and the myriads of blossoms. "Oh, sir," +she said, "I think there never was such a day as this before!" + +"I know there never was," replied Willan, looking at her with an +expression which was key to his words. But the daughter of Jeanne Dubois +was not to be wooed by any vague sentimentalisms. There was one sentence +which she was intently waiting to hear Willan Blaycke speak. Anything +short of that Mademoiselle Victorine was too innocent to comprehend. + +"Sweet child!" thought Willan to himself, "she doth not know the speech +of lovers. I mistrust that if I wooed her outright, she would be +afraid." + +It was long past noon when they reached the Golden Pear. Dinner had +waited till the hungry Victor and Jeanne could wait no longer; but a +very pretty and dainty little repast was ready for Willan and Victorine. +As she sat opposite him at the table, so bright and beaming, her whole +face full of pleasure, Willan leaned both his arms on the table and +looked at her in silence for some minutes. + +"Victorine!" he said. Victorine started. She was honestly very hungry, +and had been so absorbed in eating her dinner she had not noticed +Willan's look. She dropped her knife and sprang up. + +"What is it, sir?" she said; "what shall I fetch?" Her instantaneous +resumption of the serving-maid's relation to him jarred on Willan at +that second indescribably, and shut down like a floodgate on the words +he was about to speak. + +"Nothing, nothing," said he. "I was only going to say that thou must +sleep this afternoon; thou art tired." + +"Nay, I am not tired," said Victorine, petulantly. "What is a matter of +six leagues of a morning? I could ride it again between this and sunset, +and not be tired." + +But she was tired, and she did sleep, though she had not meant to do so +when she threw herself on her bed, a little later; she had meant only to +rest herself for a few minutes, and then in a fresh toilette return to +Willan. But she slept on and on until after sunset, and Willan wandered +aimlessly about, wondering what had become of her. Jeanne saw him, but +forebore to take any note of his uneasiness. She had looked in upon +Victorine in her slumber, and was well content that it should be so. + +"The girl will awake refreshed and rosy," thought Jeanne; "and it will +do no harm, but rather good, if he have missed her sorely all the +afternoon." + +Supper was over, and the evening work all done when Victorine waked. It +was dusk. Rubbing her eyes, she sprang up and went to the window. Jeanne +heard her steps, and coming to the foot of the stairs called: "Thou +need'st not to come down; all is done. What shall I bring thee to eat?" + +"Why didst thou not waken me?" replied Victorine, petulantly; "I meant +not to sleep." + +"I thought the sleep was better," replied her aunt. "Thou didst look +tired, and it suits no woman's looks to be tired." + +Victorine was silent. She saw Willan walking up and down under the +pear-tree. She leaned out of her window and moved one of the +flower-pots. Willan looked up; in a second more he had bounded up the +staircase, and eagerly said: "Art thou there? Wilt thou never come +down?" + +Victorine was uncertain in her own mind what was the best thing to do +next; so she replied evasively: "Thou wert right, after all. I did not +feel myself tired, but I have slept until now." + +"Then thou art surely rested. Canst thou not come and walk with me in +the pear orchard?" said Willan. + +"I fear me I may not do that after nightfall," replied Victorine. "My +aunt would be angry." + +"She need not know," replied the eager Willan. "Thou canst come down by +this stairway, and it is already near dark." + +Victorine laughed a little low laugh. This pleased her. "Yes," she said, +"I have often come down by, that post from my window; but truly, I fear +I ought not to do it for thee. What should I say to my aunt if she +missed me?" + +"Oh, she thinks thee asleep," said Willan. "She told me at supper that +she would not waken thee." + +All of which Mistress Jeanne heard distinctly, standing midway on the +wide staircase, with Victorine's supper of bread and milk in her hand. +She had like to have spilled the whole bowlful of milk for laughing. But +she stood still, holding her breath lest Victorine should hear her, till +the conversation ceased, and she heard Victorine moving about in her +room again. Then she went in, and kissing Victorine, said: "Eat thy +supper now, and go to bed; it is late. Good-night. I'll wake thee early +enough in the morning to pay for not having called thee this afternoon. +Good-night." + +Then Jeanne went down to her own room, blew out her candle, and seated +herself at the window to hear what would happen. + +"My aunt's candle is out; she hath gone to bed," whispered Victorine, as +holding Willan's hand she stole softly down the outer stair. "I do doubt +much that I am doing wrong." + +"Nay, nay," whispered Willan. "Thou sweet one, what wrong can there be +in thy walking a little time with me? Thy aunt did let thee ride with me +all the day." And he tenderly guided Victorine's steps down the steep +stairs. + +"Pretty well! pretty well!" laughed Mistress Jeanne behind her casement; +and as soon as the sound of Willan's and Victorine's steps had died +away, she ran downstairs to tell Victor what had happened. Victor was +not so pleased as Jeanne; he did not share her confidence in Victorine's +character. + +"Sacre!" he said; "what wert thou thinking of? Dost want another niece +to be fetched up in a convent? Thou mayst thank thyself for it, if thou +art grandmother to one. I trust no man out of sight, and no girl. The +man's in love with the girl, that is plain; but he means no marrying." + +"That thou dost not know," retorted Jeanne. "I tell thee he is an +honorable, high-minded man, and as pure as if he were but just now +weaned. I know him, and thou dost not. He will marry her, or he will +leave her alone." + +"We shall see," muttered the coarse old man as he walked away,--"we +shall see. Like mother, like child. I trust them not." And in a thorough +ill-humor Victor betook himself to the courtyard. What he heard there +did not reassure him. Old Benoit had seen Willan and Victorine going +down through the poplar copse toward the pear orchard. "And may the +saints forsake me," said Benoit, "if I do not think he had his arm +around her waist and her head on his shoulder. Think'st thou he will +marry her?" + +"Nay," growled Victor; "he's no fool. That Jeanne hath set her heart on +it, and thinketh it will come about; but not so I." + +"He seems of a rare fine-breeding and honorable speech," said Benoit. + +"Ay, ay," replied Victor, "words are quick said, and fine manners come +easy to some; but a man looks where he weds." + +"His father did not have chance for much looking," sneered Benoit. + +"This is another breed, even if his father begot him," replied Victor. +"He goeth no such way as that." And thoroughly disquieted, Victor +returned to the house to report to Jeanne what Benoit had seen. She was +still undisturbed. + +"Thou wilt see," was her only reply; and the two sat down together in +the porch to await the lovers' return. Hour after hour passed; even +Jeanne began to grow alarmed. It was long after midnight. + +"I fear some accident hath befallen them," she said at last. "Would it +be well, thinkest thou, to go in search of them?" + +"Not a step!" cried Victor. "He took her away, and he must needs bring +her back. We await them here. He shall see whether he may tamper with +the granddaughter of Victor Dubois." + +"Hush, father!" said Jeanne, "here they come." + +Walking very slowly, arm in arm, came Willan and Victorine. They had +evidently no purpose of entering the house clandestinely, but were +approaching the front door. + +"Hoity, toity!" muttered Victor; "he thinks he can lord it over us, +surely." + +"Be quiet, father!" entreated Jeanne. Her quick eye saw something new in +the bearing of both Willan and Victorine. But Victor was not to be +quieted. With an angry oath, he sprung forward from the porch, and began +to upbraid Willan in no measured tones. + +Willan lifted his right hand authoritatively. "Wait!" he said. "Do not +say what thou wilt repent, Victor Dubois. Thy granddaughter hath +promised to be my wife." + +So the new generation avenged the old; and Willan Blaycke, in the prime +of his cultured and fastidious manhood, fell victim to a spell less +coarsely woven but no less demoralizing than that which had imbittered +the last years of his father's life. + +[Footnote: Note.--"The Inn of the Golden Pear" includes three chapters +of a longer story entitled "Elspeth Pynevor,"--a story of such +remarkable vigor and promise, and planned on such noble and powerful +lines as to deepen regret that its author's death left it but half +finished. A single sentence has been added by another hand to round the +episode of Willan Blaycke's infatuation to conclusion.] + + + + +The Mystery of Wilhelm Ruetter. + + + +It was long past dusk of an August evening. Farmer Weitbreck stood +leaning on the big gate of his barnyard, looking first up and then down +the road. He was chewing a straw, and his face wore an expression of +deep perplexity. These were troublous times in Lancaster County. Never +before had the farmers been so put to it for farm service; harvest-time +had come, and instead of the stream of laborers seeking employment, +which usually at this season set in as regularly as river freshets in +spring, it was this year almost impossible to hire any one. + +The explanation of this nobody knew or could divine; but the fact was +indisputable, and the farmers were in dismay,--nobody more so than +Farmer Weitbreck, who had miles of bottom-lands, in grain of one sort +and another, all yellow and nodding, and ready for the sickle, and +nobody but himself and his son John to swing scythe, sickle, or flail on +the place. + +"Never I am caught this way anoder year," thought he, as he gazed +wearily up and down the dark, silent road; "but that does to me no goot +this time that is now." + +Gustavus Weitbreck had lived so long on his Pennsylvania farm that he +even thought in English instead of in German, and, strangely enough, in +English much less broken and idiomatic than that which he spoke. But his +phraseology was the only thing about him that had changed. In modes of +feeling, habits of life, he was the same he had been forty years ago, +when he farmed a little plot of land, half wheat, half vineyard, in the +Mayence meadows in the fatherland,--slow, methodical, saving, stupid, +upright, obstinate. All these traits "Old Weitbreck," as he was called +all through the country, possessed to a degree much out of the ordinary; +and it was a combination of two of them--the obstinacy and the +savingness--which had brought him into his present predicament. + +In June he had had a good laborer,--one of the best known, and eagerly +sought by every farmer in the county; a man who had never yet been +beaten in a mowing-match or a reaping. By his help the haying had been +done in not much more than two thirds the usual time; but when John +Weitbreck, like a sensible fellow, said, "Now, we would better keep Alf +on till harvest; there is plenty of odds-and-ends work about the farm he +can help at, and we won't get his like again in a hurry," his father had +cried out,-- + +"Mein Gott! It is that you tink I must be made out of money! I vill not +keep dis man on so big wages to do vat you call odd-and-end vork. We do +odd-and-end vork ourself." + +There was no discussion of the point. John Weitbreck knew better than +ever to waste his time and breath or temper in trying to change a +purpose of his father's or convince him of a mistake. But he bided his +time; and he would not have been human if he had not now taken secret +satisfaction, seeing his father's anxiety daily increase as the August +sun grew hotter and hotter, and the grain rattled in the husks waiting +to be reaped, while they two, straining their arms to the utmost, and in +long days' work, seemed to produce small impression on the great fields. + +"The women shall come work in field to-morrow," thought the old man, as +he continued his anxious reverie. "It is not that they sit idle all day +in house, when the wheat grows to rattle like the peas in pod. They can +help, the muetter and Carlen; that will be much help; they can do." And +hearing John's steps behind him, the old man turned and said,-- + +"Johan, dere comes yet no man to reap. To-morrow must go in the field +Carlen and the muetter; it must. The wheat get fast too dry; it is more +as two men can do." + +John bit his lips. He was aghast. Never had he seen his mother and +sister at work in the fields. John had been born in America; and he was +American, not German, in his feeling about this. Without due +consideration he answered,-- + +"I would rather work day and night, father, than see my mother and +sister in the fields. I will do it, too, if only you will not make them +go!" + +The old man, irritated by the secret knowledge that he had nobody but +himself to blame for the present dilemma, still more irritated, also, by +this proof of what was always exceedingly displeasing to him,--his son's +having adopted American standards and opinions,--broke out furiously +with a wrath wholly disproportionate to the occasion,-- + +"You be tam, Johan Weitbreck. You tink we are fine gentlemen and ladies, +like dese Americans dat is too proud to vork vid hands. I say tam dis +country, vere day say all is alike, an' vork all; and ven you come here, +it is dat nobody vill vork, if he can help, and vimmins ish shame to be +seen vork. It is not shame to be seen vork; I vork, mein vife vork too, +an' my childrens vork too, py tam!" + +John walked away,--his only resource when his father was in a passion. +John occupied that hardest of all positions,--the position of a +full-grown, mature man in a father's home, where he is regarded as +nothing more than a boy. + +As he entered the kitchen and saw his pretty sister Carlen at the high +spinning-wheel, walking back and forth drawing the fine yarn between +her chubby fingers, all the while humming a low song to which the +whirring of the wheel made harmonious accompaniment, he thought to +himself bitterly: "Work, indeed! As if they did not work now longer than +we do, and quite as hard! She's been spinning ever since daylight, I +believe." + +"Is it hard work spinning, Liebchen?" he asked. + +Carlen turned her round blue eyes on him with astonishment. There was +something in his tone that smote vaguely on her consciousness. What +could he mean, asking such a question as that? + +"No," she said, "it is not hard exactly. But when you do it very long it +does make the arms ache, holding them so long in the same position; and +it tires one to stand all day!" + +"Ay," said John, "that is the way it tires one to reap; my back is near +broke with it to-day." + +"Has no one come to help yet?" she said. + +"No!" said John, angrily, "and that is what I told father when he let +Alf go. It is good enough for him for being so stingy and short-sighted; +but the brunt of it comes on me,--that's the worst of it. I don't see +what's got all the men. There have always been plenty round every year +till now." + +"Alf said he shouldn't be here next year," said Carlen, each cheek +showing a little signal of pink as she spoke; but it was a dim light the +one candle gave, and John did not see the flush. "He was going to the +west to farm; in Oregon, he said." + +"Ay, that's it!" replied John. "That's where everybody can go but me! +I'll be going too some day, Carlen. I can't stand things here. If it +weren't for you I'd have been gone long ago." + +"I wouldn't leave mother and father for all the world, John," cried +Carlen, warmly, "and I don't think it would be right for you to! What +would father do with the farm without you?" + +"Well, why doesn't he see that, then, and treat me as a man ought to be +treated?" exclaimed John; "he thinks I'm no older than when he used to +beat me with the strap." + +"I think fathers and mothers are always that way," said the gentle, +cheery Carlen, with a low laugh. "The mother tells me each time how to +wind the warp, as she did when I was little; and she will always look +into the churn for herself. I think it is the way we are made. We will +do the same when we are old, John, and our children will be wondering at +us!" + +John laughed. This was always the way with Carlen. She could put a man +in good humor in a few minutes, however cross he felt in the beginning. + +"I won't, then!" he exclaimed. "I know I won't. If ever I have a son +grown, I'll treat him like a son grown, not like a baby." + +"May I be there to see!" said Carlen, merrily,-- + + "And you remember free + The words I said to thee. + +"Hold the candle here for me, will you, that's a good boy. While we have +talked, my yarn has tangled." + +As they stood close together, John holding the candle high over Carlen's +head, she bending over the tangled yarn, the kitchen door opened +suddenly, and their father came in, bringing with him a stranger,--a +young man seemingly about twenty-five years of age, tall, well made, +handsome, but with a face so melancholy that both John and Carlen felt a +shiver as they looked upon it. + +"Here now comes de hand, at last of de time, Johan," cried the old man. +"It vill be that all can vel be done now. And it is goot that he is from +mine own country. He cannot English speak, many vords; but dat is +nothing; he can vork. I tolt you dere vould be mans come!" + +John looked scrutinizingly at the newcomer. The man's eyes fell. + +"What is your name?" said John. + +"Wilhelm Ruetter," he answered. + +"How long have you been in this country?" + +"Ten days." + +"Where are your friends?" + +"I haf none." + +"None?" + +"None." + +These replies were given in a tone as melancholy as the expression of +the face. + +Carlen stood still, her wheel arrested, the yarn between her thumb and +ringer, her eyes fastened on the stranger's face. A thrill of +unspeakable pity stirred her. So young, so sad, thus alone in the world; +who ever heard of such a fate? + +"But there were people who came with you in the ship?" said John. "There +is some one who knows who you are, I suppose." + +"No, no von dat knows," replied the newcomer. + +"Haf done vid too much questions," interrupted Farmer Weitbreck. "I haf +him asked all. He stays till harvest be done. He can vork. It is to be +easy see he can vork." + +John did not like the appearance of things. "Too much mystery here," he +thought. "However, it is not long he will be here, and he will be in the +fields all the time; there cannot be much danger. But who ever heard of +a man whom no human being knew?" + +As they sat at supper, Farmer Weitbreck and his wife plied Wilhelm with +questions about their old friends in Mayence. He was evidently familiar +with all the localities and names which they mentioned. His replies, +however, were given as far as possible in monosyllables, and he spoke no +word voluntarily. Sitting with his head bent slightly forward, his eyes +fixed on the floor, he had the expression of one lost in thoughts of the +gloomiest kind. + +"Make yourself to be more happy, mein lad," said the farmer, as he bade +him good-night and clapped him on the shoulder. "You haf come to house +vere is German be speaked, and is Germany in hearts; dat vill be to you +as friends." + +A strange look of even keener pain passed over the young man's face, and +he left the room hastily, without a word of good-night. + +"He's a surly brute!" cried John; "nice company he'll be in the field! I +believe I'd sooner have nobody!" + +"I think he has seen some dreadful trouble," said Carlen. "I wish we +could do something for him; perhaps his friends are all dead. I think +that must be it, don't you think so, muetter?" + +Frau Weitbreck was incarnate silence and reticence. These traits were +native in her, and had been intensified to an abnormal extent by thirty +years of life with a husband whose temper and peculiarities were such as +to make silence and reticence the sole conditions of peace and comfort. +To so great a degree had this second nature of the good frau been +developed, that she herself did not now know that it was a second +nature; therefore it stood her in hand as well as if she had been +originally born to it, and it would have been hard to find in Lancaster +County a more placid and contented wife than she. She never dreamed that +her custom of silent acquiescence in all that Gustavus said--of waiting +in all cases, small and great, for his decision--had in the outset been +born of radical and uncomfortable disagreements with him. And as for +Gustavus himself, if anybody had hinted to him that his frau could +think, or ever had thought, any word or deed of his other than right, he +would have chuckled complacently at that person's blind ignorance of the +truth. + +"Mein frau, she is goot," he said; "goot frau, goot muetter. American +fraus not goot so she; all de time talk and no vork. American fraus, +American mans, are sheep in dere house." + +But in regard to this young stranger, Frau Weitbreck seemed strangely +stirred from her usual phlegmatic silence. Carlen's appeal to her had +barely been spoken, when, rising in her place at the head of the table, +the old woman said solemnly, in German,-- + +"Yes, Liebchen, he goes with the eyes like eyes of a man that saw always +the dead. It must be as you say, that all whom he loves are in the +grave. Poor boy! poor boy! it is now that one must be to him mother and +father and brother." + +"And sister too," said Carlen, warmly. "I will be his sister." + +"And I not his brother till he gets a civiller tongue in his head," said +John. + +"It is not to be brother I haf him brought," interrupted the old man. +"Alvays you vimmen are too soon; it may be he are goot, it may be he are +pad; I do not know. It is to vork I haf him brought." + +"Yes," echoed Frau Weitbreck; "we do not know." + +It was not so easy as Carlen and her mother had thought, to be like +mother and sister to Wilhelm. The days went by, and still he was as much +a stranger as on the evening of his arrival. He never voluntarily +addressed any one. To all remarks or even questions he replied in the +fewest words and curtest phrases possible. A smile was never seen on his +face. He sat at the table like a mute at a funeral, ate without lifting +his eyes, and silently rose as soon as his own meal was finished. He had +soon selected his favorite seat in the kitchen. It was on the right-hand +side of the big fireplace, in a corner. Here he sat all through the +evenings, carving, out of cows' horns or wood, boxes and small figures +such as are made by the peasants in the German Tyrol. In this work he +had a surprising skill. What he did with the carvings when finished, no +one knew. One night John said to him,-- + +"I do not see, Wilhelm, how you can have so steady a hand after holding +the sickle all day. My arm aches, and my hand trembles so that I can but +just carry my cup to my lips." + +Wilhelm made no reply, but held his right hand straight out at arm's +length, with the delicate figure he was carving poised on his +forefinger. It stood as steady as on the firm ground. + +Carlen looked at him admiringly. "It is good to be so steady-handed," +she said; "you must be strong, Wilhelm." + +"Yes," he said, "I haf strong;" and went on carving. + +Nothing more like conversation than this was ever drawn from him. Yet he +seemed not averse to seeing people. He never left the kitchen till the +time came for bed; but when that came he slipped away silent, taking no +part in the general good-night unless he was forced to do so. Sometimes +Carlen, having said jokingly to John, "Now, I will make Wilhelm say +good-night to-night," succeeded in surprising him before he could leave +the room; but often, even when she had thus planned, he contrived to +evade her, and was gone before she knew it. + +He slept in a small chamber in the barn,--a dreary enough little place, +but he seemed to find it all sufficient. He had no possessions except +the leather pack he had brought on his back. This lay on the floor +unlocked; and when the good Frau Weitbreck, persuading herself that she +was actuated solely by a righteous, motherly interest in the young man, +opened it, she found nothing whatever there, except a few garments of +the commonest description,--no book, no paper, no name on any article. +It would not appear possible that a man of so decent a seeming as +Wilhelm could have come from Germany to America with so few personal +belongings. Frau Weitbreck felt less at ease in her mind about him after +she examined this pack. + +He had come straight from the ship to their house, he had said, when he +arrived; had walked on day after day, going he knew not whither, asking +mile by mile for work. He did not even know one State's name from +another. He simply chose to go south rather than north,--always south, +he said. + +"Why?" + +He did not know. + +He was indeed strong. The sickle was in his hand a plaything, so +swift-swung that he seemed to be doing little more than simply striding +up and down the field, the grain falling to right and left at his steps. +From sunrise to sunset he worked tirelessly. The famous Alf had never +done so much in a day. Farmer Weitbreck chuckled as he looked on. + +"Vat now you say of dat Alf?" he said triumphantly to John; "vork he as +dis man? Oh, but he make swing de hook!" + +John assented unqualifiedly to this praise of Wilhelm's strength and +skill; but nevertheless he shook his head. + +"Ay, ay," he said, "I never saw his equal; but I like him not. What +carries he in his heart to be so sour? He is like a man bewitched. I +know not if there be such a thing as to be sold to the devil, as the +stories say; but if there be, on my word, I think Wilhelm has made some +such bargain. A man could not look worse if he had signed himself away." + +"I see not dat he haf fear in his face," replied the old man. + +"No," said John, "neither do I see fear. It is worse than fear. I would +like to see his face come alive with a fear. He gives me cold shivers +like a grave underfoot. I shall be glad when he is gone." + +Farmer Weitbreck laughed. He and his son were likely to be again at +odds on the subject of a laborer. + +"But he vill not go. I haf said to him to stay till Christmas, maybe +always." + +John's surprise was unbounded. + +"To stay! Till Christmas!" he cried. "What for? What do we need of a man +in the winter?" + +"It is not dat to feed him is much, and all dat he make vid de knife is +mine. It is home he vants, no oder ting; he vork not for money." + +"Father," said John, earnestly, "there must be something wrong about +that man. I have thought so from the first. Why should he work for +nothing but his board,--a great strong fellow like that, that could make +good day's wages anywhere? Don't keep him after the harvest is over. I +can't bear the sight of him." + +"Den you can turn de eyes to your head von oder way," retorted his +father. "I find him goot to see; and," after a pause, "so do Carlen." + +John started. "Good heavens, father!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh, you need not speak by de heavens, mein son!" rejoined the old man, +in a taunting tone. "I tink I can mine own vay, vidout you to be help. I +was not yesterday born!" + +John was gone. Flight was his usual refuge when he felt his temper +becoming too much for him; but now his steps were quickened by an +impulse of terrible fear. Between him and his sister had always been a +bond closer than is wont to link brother and sister. Only one year apart +in age, they had grown up together in an intimacy like that of twins; +from their cradles till now they had had their sports, tastes, joys, +sorrows in common, not a secret from each other since they could +remember. At least, this was true of John; was he to find it no longer +true of Carlen? He would know, and that right speedily. As by a flash of +lightning he thought he saw his father's scheme,--if Carlen were to wed +this man, this strong and tireless worker, this unknown, mysterious +worker, who wanted only shelter and home and cared not for money, what +an invaluable hand would be gained on the farm! John groaned as he +thought to himself how little anything--any doubt, any misgiving, +perhaps even an actual danger--would in his father's mind outweigh the +one fact that the man did not "vork for money." + +As he walked toward the house, revolving these disquieting conjectures, +all his first suspicion and antagonism toward Wilhelm revived in full +force, and he was in a mood well calculated to distort the simplest +acts, when he suddenly saw sitting in the square stoop at the door the +two persons who filled his thoughts, Wilhelm and Carlen,--Wilhelm +steadily at work as usual at his carving, his eyes closely fixed on it, +his figure, as was its wont, rigidly still; and Carlen,--ah! it was an +unlucky moment John had taken to search out the state of Carlen's +feeling toward Wilhelm,--Carlen sitting in a posture of dreamy reverie, +one hand lying idle in her lap holding her knitting, the ball rolling +away unnoticed on the ground; her other arm thrown carelessly over the +railing of the stoop, her eyes fixed on Wilhelm's bowed head. + +John stood still and watched her,--watched her long. She did not move. +She was almost as rigidly still as Wilhelm himself. Her eyes did not +leave his face. One might safely sit in that way by the hour and gaze +undetected at Wilhelm. He rarely looked up except when he was addressed. + +After standing thus a few moments John turned away, bitter and sick at +heart. What had he been about, that he had not seen this? He, the loving +comrade brother, to be slower of sight than the hard, grasping parent! + +"I will ask mother," he thought. "I can't ask Carlen now! It is too +late." + +He found his mother in the kitchen, busy getting the bountiful supper +which was a daily ordinance in the Weitbreck religion. To John's +sharpened perceptions the fact that Carlen was not as usual helping in +this labor loomed up into significance. + +"Why does not Carlen help you, muetter?" he said hastily. "What is she +doing there, idling with Wilhelm in the stoop?" + +Frau Weitbreck smiled. "It is not alvays to vork, ven one is young," she +said. "I haf not forget!" And she nodded her head meaningly. + +John clenched his hands. Where had he been? Who had blinded him? How had +all this come about, so soon and without his knowledge? Were his father +and his mother mad? He thought they must be. + +"It is a shame for that Wilhelm to so much as put his eyes on Carlen's +face," he cried. "I think we are fools; what know we about him? I doubt +him in and out. I wish he had never darkened our doors." + +Frau Weitbreck glanced cautiously at the open door. She was frying sweet +cakes in the boiling lard. Forgetting everything in her fear of being +overheard, she went softly, with the dripping skimmer in her hand, +across the kitchen, the fat falling on her shining floor at every step, +and closed the door. Then she came close to her son, and said in a +whisper, "The fader think it is goot." At John's angry exclamation she +raised her hand in warning. + +"Do not loud spraken," she whispered; "Carlen will hear." + +"Well, then, she shall hear!" cried John, half beside himself. "It is +high time she did hear from somebody besides you and father! I reckon +I've got something to say about this thing, too, if I'm her brother. +By----, no tramp like that is going to marry my sister without I know +more about him!" And before the terrified old woman could stop him, he +had gone at long strides across the kitchen, through the best room, and +reached the stoop, saying in a loud tone: "Carlen! I want to see you." + +Carlen started as one roused from sleep. Seeing her ball lying at a +distance on the ground, she ran to pick it up, and with scarlet cheeks +and uneasy eyes turned to her brother. + +"Yes, John," she said, "I am coming." + +Wilhelm did not raise his eyes, or betray by any change of feature that +he had heard the sound or perceived the motion. As Carlen passed him her +eyes involuntarily rested on his bowed head, a world of pity, +perplexity, in the glance. John saw it, and frowned. + +"Come with me," he said sternly,--"come down in the pasture; I want to +speak to you." + +Carlen looked up apprehensively into his face; never had she seen there +so stern a look. + +"I must help muetter with the supper," she said, hesitating. + +John laughed scornfully. "You were helping with the supper, I suppose, +sitting out with yon tramp!" And he pointed to the stoop. + +Carlen had, with all her sunny cheerfulness, a vein of her father's +temper. Her face hardened, and her blue eyes grew darker. + +"Why do you call Wilhelm a tramp," she said coldly. + +"What is he then, if he is not a tramp?" retorted John. + +"He is no tramp," she replied, still more doggedly. + +"What do you know about him?" said John. + +Carlen made no reply. Her silence irritated John more than any words +could have done; and losing self-control, losing sight of prudence, he +poured out on her a torrent of angry accusation and scornful reproach. + +She stood still, her eyes fixed on the ground. Even in his hot wrath, +John noticed this unwonted downcast look, and taunted her with it. + +"You have even caught his miserable hangdog trick of not looking anybody +in the face," he cried. "Look up now! look me in the eye, and say what +you mean by all this." + +Thus roughly bidden, Carlen raised her blue eyes and confronted her +brother with a look hardly less angry than his own. + +"It is you who have to say to me what all this means that you have been +saying," she cried. "I think you are out of your senses. I do not know +what has happened to you." And she turned to walk back to the house. + +John seized her shoulders in his brawny hands, and whirled her round +till she faced him again. + +"Tell me the truth!" he said fiercely; "do you love this Wilhelm?" + +Carlen opened her lips to reply. At that second a step was heard, and +looking up they saw Wilhelm himself coming toward them, walking at his +usual slow pace, his head sunk on his breast, his eyes on the ground. +Great waves of blushes ran in tumultuous flood up Carlen's neck, cheeks, +forehead. John took his hands from her shoulders, and stepped back with +a look of disgust and a smothered ejaculation. Wilhelm, hearing the +sound, looked up, regarded them with a cold, unchanged eye, and turned +in another direction. + +The color deepened on Carlen's face. In a hard and bitter tone she said, +pointing with a swift gesture to Wilhelm's retreating form: "You can see +for yourself that there is nothing between us. I do not know what craze +has got into your head." And she walked away, this time unchecked by her +brother. He needed no further replies in words. Tokens stronger than any +speech had answered him. Muttering angrily to himself, he went on down +to the pasture after the cows. It was a beautiful field, more like New +England than Pennsylvania; a brook ran zigzagging through it, and here +and there in the land were sharp lifts where rocks cropped out, making +miniature cliffs overhanging some portions of the brook's-course. Gray +lichens and green mosses grew on these rocks, and belts of wild flag and +sedges surrounded their base. The cows, in a warm day, used to stand +knee-deep there, in shade of the rocks. + +It was a favorite place of Wilhelm's. He sometimes lay on the top of one +of these rocks the greater part of the night, looking down into the +gliding water or up into the sky. Carlen from her window had more than +once seen him thus, and passionately longed to go down and comfort his +lonely sorrow. + +It was indeed true, as she had said to her brother, that there was +"nothing between" her and Wilhelm. Never a word had passed; never a look +or tone to betray that he knew whether she were fair or not,--whether +she lived or not. She came and went in his presence, as did all others, +with no more apparent relation to the currents of his strange veiled +existence than if they or he belonged to a phantom world. But it was +also true that never since the first day of his mysterious coming had +Wilhelm been long absent from Carlen's thoughts; and she did indeed find +him--as her father's keen eyes, sharpened by greed, had observed--good +to look upon. That most insidious of love's allies, pity, had stormed +the fortress of Carlen's heart, and carried it by a single charge. What +could a girl give, do, or be, that would be too much for one so +stricken, so lonely as was Wilhelm! The melancholy beauty of his face, +his lithe figure, his great strength, all combined to heighten this +impression, and to fan the flames of the passion in Carlen's virgin +soul. It was indeed, as John had sorrowfully said to himself, "too late" +to speak to Carlen. + +As John stood now at the pasture bars, waiting for the herd of cows, +slow winding up the slope from the brook, he saw Wilhelm on the rocks +below. He had thrown himself down on his back, and lay there with his +arms crossed on his breast. Presently he clasped both hands over his +eyes as if to shut out a sight that he could no longer bear. Something +akin to pity stirred even in John's angry heart as he watched him. + +"What can it be," he said, "that makes him hate even the sky? It may be +it is a sweetheart he has lost, and he is one of that strange kind of +men who can love but once; and it is loving the dead that makes him so +like one dead himself. Poor Carlen! I think myself he never so much as +sees her." + +A strange reverie, surely, for the brother who had so few short moments +ago been angrily reproaching his sister for the disgrace and shame of +caring for this tramp. But the pity was short-lived in John's bosom. His +inborn distrust and antagonism to the man were too strong for any +gentler sentiment toward him to live long by their side. And when the +family gathered at the supper-table he fixed upon Wilhelm so suspicious +and hostile a gaze that even Wilhelm's absent mind perceived it, and he +in turn looked inquiringly at John, a sudden bewilderment apparent in +his manner. It disappeared, however, almost immediately, dying away in +his usual melancholy absorption. It had produced scarce a ripple on the +monotonous surface of his habitual gloom. But Carlen had perceived all, +both the look on John's face and the bewilderment on Wilhelm's; and it +roused in her a resentment so fierce toward John, she could not forbear +showing it. "How cruel!" she thought. "As if the poor fellow had not all +he could bear already without being treated unkindly by us!" And she +redoubled her efforts to win Wilhelm's attention and divert his +thoughts, all in vain; kindness and unkindness glanced off alike, +powerless, from the veil in which he was wrapped. + +John sat by with roused attention and sharpened perception, noting all. +Had it been all along like this? Where had his eyes been for the past +month? Had he too been under a spell? It looked like it. He groaned in +spirit as he sat silently playing with his food, not eating; and when +his father said, "Why haf you not appetite, Johan?" he rose abruptly, +pushed back his chair, and leaving the table without a word went out and +down again into the pasture, where the dewy grass and the quivering +stars in the brook shimmered in the pale light of a young moon. To John, +also, the mossy rocks in this pasture were a favorite spot for rest and +meditation. Since the days when he and Carlen had fished from their +edges, with bent pins and yarn, for minnows, he had loved the place: +they had spent happy hours enough there to count up into days; and not +the least among the innumerable annoyances and irritations of which he +had been anxious in regard to Wilhelm was the fact that he too had +perceived the charm of the field, and chosen it for his own melancholy +retreat. + +As he seated himself on one of the rocks, he saw a figure gliding +swiftly down the hill. + +It was Carlen. + +As she drew near he looked at her without speaking, but the loving girl +was not repelled. Springing lightly to the rock, she threw her arms +around his neck, and kissing him said: "I saw you coming down here, +John, and I ran after you. Do not be angry with me, brother; it breaks +my heart." + +A sudden revulsion of shame for his unjust suspicion filled John with +tenderness. + +"Mein Schwester," he said fondly,--they had always the habit of using +the German tongue for fond epithets,--"mein Schwester klein, I love you +so much I cannot help being wretched when I see you in danger, but I am +not angry." + +Nestling herself close by his side, Carlen looked over into the water. + +"This is the very rock I fell off of that day, do you remember?" she +said; "and how wet you got fishing me out! And oh, what an awful beating +father gave you! and I always thought it was wicked, for if you had not +pulled me out I should have drowned." + +"It was for letting you fall in he beat me," laughed John; and they +both grew tender and merry, recalling the babyhood times. + +"How long, long ago!" cried Carlen. + +"It seems only a day," said John. + +"I think time goes faster for a man than for a woman," sighed Carlen. +"It is a shorter day in the fields than in the house." + +"Are you not content, my sister?" said John. + +Carlen was silent. + +"You have always seemed so," he said reproachfully. + +"It is always the same, John," she murmured. "Each day like every other +day. I would like it to be some days different." + +John sighed. He knew of what this new unrest was born. He longed to +begin to speak of Wilhelm, and yet he knew not how. Now that, after +longer reflection, he had become sure in his own mind that Wilhelm cared +nothing for his sister, he felt an instinctive shrinking from +recognizing to himself, or letting it be recognized between them, that +she unwooed had learned to love. His heart ached with dread of the +suffering which might be in store for her. + +Carlen herself cut the gordian knot. + +"Brother," she whispered, "why do you think Wilhelm is not good?" + +"I said not that, Carlen," he replied evasively. "I only say we know +nothing; and it is dangerous to trust where one knows nothing." + +"It would not be trust if we knew," answered the loyal girl. "I believe +he is good; but, John, John, what misery in his eyes! Saw you ever +anything like it?" + +"No," he replied; "never. Has he never told you anything about himself, +Carlen?" + +"Once," she answered, "I took courage to ask him if he had relatives in +Germany; and he said no; and I exclaimed then, 'What, all dead!' 'All +dead,' he answered, in such a voice I hardly dared speak again, but I +did. I said: 'Well, one might have the terrible sorrow to lose all one's +relatives. It needs only that three should die, my father and mother and +my brother,--only three, and two are already old,--and I should have no +relatives myself; but if one is left without relatives, there are always +friends, thank God!' And he looked at me,--he never looks at one, you +know; but he looked at me then as if I had done a sin to speak the word, +and he said, 'I have no friends. They are all dead too,' and then went +away! Oh, brother, why cannot we win him out of this grief? We can be +good friends to him; can you not find out for me what it is?" + +It was a cruel weapon to use, but on the instant John made up his mind +to use it. It might spare Carlen grief, in the end. + +"I have thought," he said, "that it might be for a dead sweetheart he +mourned thus. There are men, you know, who love that way and never smile +again." + +Short-sighted John, to have dreamed that he could forestall any +conjecture in the girl's heart! + +"I have thought of that," she answered meekly; "it would seem as if it +could be nothing else. But, John, if she be really dead--" Carlen did +not finish the sentence; it was not necessary. + +After a silence she spoke again: "Dear John, if you could be more +friendly with him I think it might be different. He is your age. Father +and mother are too old, and to me he will not speak." She sighed deeply +as she spoke these last words, and went on: "Of course, if it is for a +dead sweetheart that he is grieving thus, it is only natural that the +sight of women should be to him worse than the sight of men. But it is +very seldom, John, that a man will mourn his whole life for a +sweetheart; is it not, John? Why, men marry again, almost always, even +when it is a wife that they have lost; and a sweetheart is not so much +as a wife." + +"I have heard," said the pitiless John, "that a man is quicker healed of +grief for a wife than for one he had thought to wed, but lost." + +"You are a man," said Carlen. "You can tell if that would be true." + +"No, I cannot," he answered, "for I have loved no woman but you, my +sister; and on my word I think I will be in no haste to, either. It +brings misery, it seems to me." + +If Carlen had spoken her thought at these words, she would have said, +"Yes, it brings misery; but even so it is better than joy." But Carlen +was ashamed; afraid also. She had passed now into a new life, whither +her brother, she perceived, could not follow. She could barely reach +his hand across the boundary line which parted them. + +"I hope you will love some one, John," she said. "You would be happy +with a wife. You are old enough to have a home of your own." + +"Only a year older than you, my sister," he rejoined. + +"I too am old enough to have a home of my own," she said, with a gentle +dignity of tone, which more impressed John with a sense of the change in +Carlen than all else which had been said. + +It was time to return to the house. As he had done when he was ten, and +she nine, John stood at the bottom of the steepest rock, with +upstretched arms, by the help of which Carlen leaped lightly down. + +"We are not children any more," she said, with a little laugh. + +"More's the pity!" said John, half lightly, half sadly, as they went on +hand in hand. + +When they reached the bars, Carlen paused. Withdrawing her hand from +John's and laying it on his shoulder, she said: "Brother, will you not +try to find out what is Wilhelm's grief? Can you not try to be friends +with him?" + +John made no answer. It was a hard thing to promise. + +"For my sake, brother," said the girl. "I have spoken to no one else but +you. I would die before any one else should know; even my mother." + +John could not resist this. "Yes," he said; "I will try. It will be +hard; but I will try my best, Carlen. I will have a talk with Wilhelm +to-morrow." + +And the brother and sister parted, he only the sadder, she far happier, +for their talk. "To-morrow," she thought, "I will know! To-morrow! oh, +to-morrow!" And she fell asleep more peacefully than had been her wont +for many nights. + +On the morrow it chanced that John and Wilhelm went separate ways to +work and did not meet until noon. In the afternoon Wilhelm was sent on +an errand to a farm some five miles away, and thus the day passed +without John's having found any opportunity for the promised talk. +Carlen perceived with keen disappointment this frustration of his +purpose, but comforted herself, thinking, with the swift forerunning +trust of youth: "To-morrow he will surely get a chance. To-morrow he +will have something to tell me. To-morrow!" + +When Wilhelm returned from this errand, he came singing up the road. +Carlen heard the voice and looked out of the window in amazement. Never +before had a note of singing been heard from Wilhelm's voice. She could +not believe her ears; neither her eyes, when she saw him walking +swiftly, almost running, erect, his head held straight, his eyes gazing +free and confident before him. + +What had happened? What could have happened? Now, for the first time, +Carlen saw the full beauty of his face; it wore an exultant look as of +one set free, triumphant. He leaped lightly over the bars; he stooped +and fondled the dog, speaking to him in a merry tone; then he whistled, +then broke again into singing a gay German song. Carlen was stupefied +with wonder. Who was this new man in the body of Wilhelm? Where had +disappeared the man of slow-moving figure, bent head, downcast eyes, +gloom-stricken face, whom until that hour she had known? Carlen clasped +her hands in an agony of bewilderment. + +"If he has found his sweetheart, I shall die," she thought. "How could +it be? A letter, perhaps? A message?" She dreaded to see him. She +lingered in her room till it was past the supper hour, dreading what she +knew not, yet knew. When she went down the four were seated at supper. +As she opened the door roars of laughter greeted her, and the first +sight she saw was Wilhelm's face, full of vivacity, excitement. He was +telling a jesting story, at which even her mother was heartily laughing. +Her father had laughed till the tears were rolling down his cheeks. John +was holding his sides. Wilhelm was a mimic, it appeared; he was +imitating the ridiculous speech, gait, gestures, of a man he had seen in +the village that afternoon. + +"I sent you to village sooner as dis, if I haf known vat you are like +ven you come back," said Farmer Weitbreck, wiping his eyes. + +And John echoed his father. "Upon my word, Wilhelm, you are a good +actor. Why have you kept your light under a bushel so long?" And John +looked at him with a new interest and liking. If this were the true +Wilhelm, he might welcome him indeed as a brother. + +Carlen alone looked grave, anxious, unhappy. She could not laugh. Tale +after tale, jest after jest, fell from Wilhelm's lips. Such a +story-teller never before sat at the Weitbreck board. The old kitchen +never echoed with such laughter. + +Finally John exclaimed: "Man alive, where have you kept yourself all +this time? Have you been ill till now, that you hid your tongue? What +has cured you in a day?" + +Wilhelm laughed a laugh so ringing, it made him seem like a boy. + +"Yes, I have been ill till to-day," he said; "and now I am well." And he +rattled on again, with his merry talk. + +Carlen grew cold with fear; surely this meant but one thing. Nothing +else, nothing less, could have thus in an hour rolled away the burden of +his sadness. + +Later in the evening she said timidly, "Did you hear any news in the +village this afternoon, Wilhelm?" + +"No; no news," he said. "I had heard no news." + +As he said this a strange look flitted swiftly across his face, and was +gone before any eye but a loving woman's had noted it. It did not escape +Carlen's, and she fell into a reverie of wondering what possible double +meaning could have underlain his words. + +"Did you know Mr. Dietman in Germany?" she asked. This was the name of +the farmer to whose house he had been sent on an errand. They were +new-comers into the town, since spring. + +"No!" replied Wilhelm, with another strange, sharp glance at Carlen. "I +saw him not before." + +"Have they children?" she continued. "Are they old?" + +"No; young," he answered. "They haf one child, little baby." + +Carlen could not contrive any other questions to ask. "It must have been +a letter," she thought; and her face grew sadder. + +It was a late bedtime when the family parted for the night. The +astonishing change in Wilhelm's manner was now even more apparent than +it had yet been. Instead of slipping off, as was his usual habit, +without exchanging a good-night with any one, he insisted on shaking +hands with each, still talking and laughing with gay and affectionate +words, and repeating, over and again, "Good-night, good-night." Farmer +Weitbreck was carried out of himself with pleasure at all this, and +holding Wilhelm's hand fast in his, shaking it heartily, and clapping +him on the shoulder, he exclaimed in fatherly familiarity: "Dis is goot, +mein son! dis is goot. Now are you von of us." And he glanced meaningly +at John, who smiled back in secret intelligence. As he did so there went +like a flash through his mind the question, "Can Carlen have spoken with +him to-day? Can that be it?" But a look at Carlen's pale, perplexed face +quickly dissipated this idea. "She looks frightened," thought John. "I +do not much wonder. I will get a word with her." But Carlen had gone +before he missed her. Running swiftly upstairs, she locked the door of +her room, and threw herself on her knees at her open window. Presently +she saw Wilhelm going down to the brook. She watched his every motion. +First, he walked slowly up and down the entire length of the field, +following the brook's course closely, stopping often and bending over, +picking flowers. A curious little white flower called "Ladies'-Tress" +grew there in great abundance, and he often brought bunches of it to +her. + +"Perhaps it is not for me this time," thought Carlen, and the tears came +into her eyes. After a time Wilhelm ceased gathering the flowers, and +seated himself on his favorite rock,--the same one where John and Carlen +had sat the night before. "Will he stay there all night?" thought the +unhappy girl, as she watched him. "He is so full of joy he does not want +to sleep. What will become of me! what will become of me!" + +At last Wilhelm arose and came toward the house, bringing the bunch of +flowers in his hand. At the pasture bars he paused, and looked back over +the scene. It was a beautiful picture, the moon making it light as day; +even from Carlen's window could be seen the sparkle of the brook. + +As he turned to go to the barn his head sank on his breast, his steps +lagged. He wore again the expression of gloomy thought. A new fear arose +in Carlen's breast. Was he mad? Had the wild hilarity of his speech and +demeanor in the evening been merely a new phase of disorder in an +unsettled brain? Even in this was a strange, sad comfort to Carlen. She +would rather have him mad, with alternations of insane joy and gloom, +than know that he belonged to another. Long after he had disappeared in +the doorway at the foot of the stairs which led to his sleeping-place in +the barn-loft, she remained kneeling at the window, watching to see if +he came out again. Then she crept into bed, and lay tossing, wakeful, +and anxious till near dawn. She had but just fallen asleep when she was +aroused by cries. It was John's voice. He was calling loudly at the +window of their mother's bedroom beneath her own. + +"Father! father! Get up, quick! Come out to the barn!" + +Then followed confused words she could not understand. Leaning from her +window she called: "What is it, John? What has happened?" But he was +already too far on his way back to the barn to hear her. + +A terrible presentiment shot into her mind of some ill to Wilhelm. +Vainly she wrestled with it. Why need she think everything that happened +must be connected with him? It was not yet light; she could not have +slept many minutes. With trembling hands she dressed, and running +swiftly down the stairs was at the door just as her father appeared +there. + +"What is it? What is it, father?" she cried. "What has happened?" + +"Go back!" he said in an unsteady voice. "It is nothing. Go back to bed. +It is not for vimmins!" + +Then Carlen was sure it was some ill to Wilhelm, and with a loud cry she +darted to the barn, and flew up the stairway leading to his room. + +John, hearing her steps, confronted her at the head of the stairs. + +"Good God, Carlen!" he cried, "go back! You must not come here. Where is +father?" + +"I will come in!" she answered wildly, trying to force her way past +him. "I will come in. You shall not keep me out. What has happened to +him? Let me by!" And she wrestled in her brother's strong arms with +strength almost equal to his. + +"Carlen! You shall not come in! You shall not see!" he cried. + +"Shall not see!" she shrieked. "Is he dead?" + +"Yes, my sister, he is dead," answered John, solemnly. In the next +instant he held Carlen's unconscious form in his arms; and when Farmer +Weitbreck, half dazed, reached the foot of the stairs, the first sight +which met his eyes was his daughter, held in her brother's arms, +apparently lifeless, her head hanging over his shoulder. + +"Haf she seen him?" he whispered. + +"No!" said John. "I only told her he was dead, to keep her from going +in, and she fainted dead away." + +"Ach!" groaned the old man, "dis is hard on her." + +"Yes," sighed the brother; "it is a cruel shame." + +Swiftly they carried her to the house, and laid her on her mother's +bed, then returned to their dreadful task in Wilhelm's chamber. + +Hung by a stout leathern strap from the roof-tree beam, there swung the +dead body of Wilhelm Ruetter, cold, stiff. He had been dead for hours; he +must have done the deed soon after bidding them good-night. + +"He vas mad, Johan; it must be he vas mad ven he laugh like dat last +night. Dat vas de beginning, Johan," said the old man, shaking from head +to foot with horror, as he helped his son lift down the body. + +"Yes!" answered John; "that must be it. I expect he has been mad all +along. I do not believe last night was the beginning. It was not like +any sane man to be so gloomy as he was, and never speak to a living +soul. But I never once thought of his being crazy. Look, father!" he +continued, his voice breaking into a sob, "he has left these flowers +here for Carlen! That does not look as if he was crazy! What can it all +mean?" + +On the top of a small chest lay the bunch of white Ladies'-Tress, with a +paper beneath it on which was written, "For Carlen Weitbreck,--these, +and the carvings in the box, all in memory of Wilhelm." + +"He meant to do it, den," said the old man. + +"Yes," said John. + +"Maybe Carlen vould not haf him, you tink?" + +"No," said John, hastily; "that is not possible." + +"I tought she luf him, an' he vould stay an' be her mann," sighed the +disappointed father. "Now all dat is no more." + +"It will kill her," cried John. + +"No!" said the father. "Vimmins does not die so as dat. She feel pad +maybe von year, maybe two. Dat is all. He vas great for vork. Dat Alf +vas not goot as he." + +The body was laid once more on the narrow pallet where it had slept for +its last few weeks on earth, and the two men stood by its side, +discussing what should next be done, how the necessary steps could be +taken with least possible publicity, when suddenly they heard the sound +of horses' feet and wheels, and looking out they saw Hans Dietman and +his wife driving rapidly into the yard. + +"Mein Gott! Vat bring dem here dis time in day," exclaimed Farmer +Weitbreck. "If dey ask for Wilhelm dey must all know!" + +"Yes," replied John; "that makes no difference. Everybody will have to +know." And he ran swiftly down to meet the strangely arrived neighbors. + +His first glance at their faces showed him that they had come on no +common errand. They were pale and full of excitement, and Hans's first +word was: "Vere is dot man you sent to mine place yesterday?" + +"Wilhelm?" stammered Farmer Weitbreck. + +"Wilhelm!" repeated Hans, scornfully. "His name is not 'Wilhelm.' His +name is Carl,--Carl Lepmann; and he is murderer. He killed von +man--shepherd, in our town--last spring; and dey never get trail of +him. So soon he came in our kitchen yesterday my vife she knew him; she +wait till I get home. Ve came ven it vas yet dark to let you know vot +man vas in your house." + +Farmer Weitbreck and his son exchanged glances; each was too shocked to +speak. Mr. and Mrs. Dietman looked from one to the other in +bewilderment. "Maype you tink ve speak not truth," Hans continued. +"Just let him come here, to our face, and you will see." + +"No!" said John, in a low, awe-stricken voice, "we do not think you are +not speaking truth." He paused; glanced again at his father. "We'd +better take them up!" he said. + +The old man nodded silently. Even his hard and phlegmatic nature was +shaken to the depths. + +John led the way up the stairs, saying briefly, "Come." The Dietmans +followed in bewilderment. + +"There he is," said John, pointing to the tall figure, rigid, under the +close-drawn white folds; "we found him here only an hour ago, hung from +the beam." + +A horror-stricken silence fell on the group. + +Hans spoke first. "He know dat we know; so he kill himself to save dat +de hangman have trouble." + +John resented the flippant tone. He understood now the whole mystery of +Wilhelm's life in this house. + +"He has never known a happy minute since he was here," he said. "He +never smiled; nor spoke, if he could help it. Only last night, after he +came back from your place, he laughed and sang, and was merry, and +looked like another man; and he bade us all good-night over and over, +and shook hands with every one. He had made up his mind, you see, that +the end had come, and it was nothing but a relief to him. He was glad to +die. He had not courage before. But now he knew he would be arrested he +had courage to kill himself. Poor fellow, I pity him!" And John smoothed +out the white folds over the clasped hands on the quiet-stricken breast, +resting at last. "He has been worse punished than if he had been hung in +the beginning," he said, and turned from the bed, facing the Dietmans as +if he constituted himself the dead man's protector. + +"I think no one but ourselves need know," he continued, thinking in his +heart of Carlen. "It is enough that he is dead. There is no good to be +gained for any one, that I see, by telling what he had done." + +"No," said Mrs. Dietman, tearfully; but her husband exclaimed, in a +vindictive tone: + +"I see not why it is to be covered in secret. He is murderer. It is to +be sent vord to Mayence he vas found." + +"Yes, they ought to know there," said John, slowly; "but there is no +need for it to be known here. He has injured no one here." + +"No," exclaimed Farmer Weitbreck. "He haf harm nobody here; he vas goot. +I haf ask him to stay and haf home in my house." + +It was a strange story. Early in the spring, it seemed, about six weeks +before Hans Dietman and his wife Gretchen were married, a shepherd on +the farm adjoining Gretchen's father's had been murdered by a +fellow-laborer on the same farm. They had had high words about a dog, +and had come to blows, but were parted by some of the other hands, and +had separated and gone their ways to their work with their respective +flocks. + +This was in the morning. At night neither they nor their flocks +returned; and, search being made, the dead body of the younger shepherd +was found lying at the foot of a precipice, mutilated and wounded, far +more than it would have been by any accidental fall. The other +shepherd, Carl Lepmann, had disappeared, and was never again seen by any +one who knew him, until this previous day, when he had entered the +Dietmans' door bearing his message from the Weitbreck farm. At the first +sight of his face, Gretchen Dietman had recognized him, thrown up her +arms involuntarily, and cried out in German: "My God! the man that +killed the shepherd!" Carl had halted on the threshold at hearing these +words, and his countenance had changed; but it was only for a second. He +regained his composure instantly, entered as if he had heard nothing, +delivered his message, and afterward remained for some time on the farm +chatting with the laborers, and seeming in excellent spirits. + +"And so vas he ven he come home," said Farmer Weitbreck; "he make dat ve +all laugh and laugh, like notings ever vas before, never before he open +his mouth to speak; he vas like at funeral all times, night and day. But +now he seem full of joy. It is de most strange ting as I haf seen in my +life." + +"I do not think so, father," said John. "I do not wonder he was glad to +be rid of his burden." + +It proved of no use to try to induce Hans Dietman to keep poor Carl's +secret. He saw no reason why a murderer should be sheltered from +disgrace. To have his name held up for the deserved execration seemed to +Hans the only punishment left for one who had thus evaded the hangman; +and he proceeded to inflict this punishment to the extent of his +ability. + +Finding that the tale could not be kept secret, John nerved himself to +tell it to Carlen. She heard it in silence from beginning to end, asked +a few searching questions, and then to John's unutterable astonishment +said: "Wilhelm never killed that man. You have none of you stopped to +see if there was proof." + +"But why did he fly, Liebchen?" asked John. + +"Because he knew he would be accused of the murder," she replied. "They +might have been fighting at the edge of the precipice and the shepherd +fell over, or the shepherd might have been killed by some one else, and +Wilhelm have found the body. He never killed him, John, never." + +There was something in Carlen's confident belief which communicated +itself to John's mind, and, coupled with the fact that there was +certainly only circumstantial evidence against Wilhelm, slowly brought +him to sharing her belief and tender sorrow. But they were alone in this +belief and alone in their sorrow. The verdict of the community was +unhesitatingly, unqualifiedly, against Wilhelm. + +"Would a man hang himself if he knew he were innocent?" said everybody. + +"All the more if he knew he could never prove himself innocent," said +John and Carlen. But no one else thought so. And how could the truth +ever be known in this world? + +Wilhelm was buried in a corner of the meadow field he had so loved. +Before two years had passed, wild blackberry vines had covered the grave +with a thick mat of tangled leaves, green in summer, blood-red in the +autumn. And before three more had passed there was no one in the place +who knew the secret of the grave. Farmer Weitbreck and his wife were +both dead, and the estate had passed into the hands of strangers who had +heard the story of Wilhelm, and knew that his body was buried somewhere +on the farm; but in which field they neither asked nor cared, and there +was no mourner to tell the story. John Weitbreck had realized his dream +of going West, a free man at last, and by no means a poor one; he looked +out over scores of broad fields of his own, one of the most fertile of +the Oregon valleys. + +Alf was with him, and Carlen; and Carlen was Alf's wife,--placid, +contented wife, and fond and happy mother,--so small ripples did there +remain from the tempestuous waves beneath which Carl Lepmann's life had +gone down. Some deftly carved boxes and figures of chamois and their +hunters stood on Carlen's best-room mantel, much admired by her +neighbors, and longed for by her toddling girl,--these, and a bunch of +dried and crumbling blossoms of the Ladies' Tress, were all that had +survived the storm. The dried flowers were in the largest of the boxes. +They lay there side by side with a bit of carved abalone shell Alf had +got from a Nez Perce Indian, and some curious seaweeds he had picked up +at the mouth of the Columbia River. Carlen's one gilt brooch was kept in +the same box, and when she took it out of a Sunday, the sight of the +withered flowers always reminded her of Wilhelm. She could not have told +why she kept them; it certainly was not because they woke in her breast +any thoughts which Alf might not have read without being disquieted. She +sometimes sighed, as she saw them, "Poor Wilhelm!" That was all. + +But there came one day a letter to John that awoke even in Carlen's +motherly and contented heart strange echoes from that past which she had +thought forever left behind. It was a letter from Hans Dietman, who +still lived on the Pennsylvania farm, and who had been recently joined +there by a younger brother from Germany. + +This brother had brought news which, too late, vindicated the memory of +Wilhelm. Carlen had been right. He was no murderer. + +It was with struggling emotions that Carlen heard the tale; pride, joy, +passionate regret, old affection, revived. John was half afraid to go +on, as he saw her face flushing, her eyes filling with tears, kindling +and shining with a light he had not seen in them since her youth. + +"Go on! go on!" she cried. "Why do you stop? Did I not tell you so? And +you never half believed me! Now you see I was right! I told you Wilhelm +never harmed a human being!" + +It was indeed a heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, to +the poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, even +its place forgotten. + +It seemed that a man sentenced in Mayence to be executed for murder had +confessed, the day before his execution, that it was he who had killed +the shepherd of whose death Carl Lepmann had so long been held guilty. +They had quarrelled about a girl, a faithless creature, forsworn to both +of them, and worth no man's love or desire; but jealous anger got the +better of their sense, and they grappled in fight, each determined to +kill the other. + +The shepherd had the worst of it; and just as he fell, mortally hurt, +Carl Lepmann had come up,--had come up in time to see the murderer leap +on his horse to ride away. + +In a voice, which the man said had haunted him ever since, Carl had +cried out: "My God! You ride away and leave him dead! and it will be I +who have killed him, for this morning we fought so they had to tear us +apart!" + +Smitten with remorse, the man had with Carl's help lifted the body and +thrown it over the precipice, at the foot of which it was afterward +found. He then endeavored to persuade the lad that it would never be +discovered, and he might safely return to his employer's farm. But +Carl's terror was too great, and he had finally been so wrought upon by +his entreaties that he had taken him two days' journey, by lonely ways, +the two riding sometimes in turn, sometimes together,--two days' and two +nights' journey,--till they reached the sea, where Carl had taken ship +for America. + +"He was a good lad, a tender-hearted lad," said the murderer. "He might +have accused me in many a village, and stood as good chance to be +believed as I, if he had told where the shepherd's body was thrown; but +he could be frightened as easily as a woman, and all he thought of was +to fly where he would never be heard of more. And it was the thought of +him, from that day till now, has given me more misery than the thought +of the dead man!" + +Carlen was crying bitterly; the letter was just ended, when Alf came +into the room asking bewilderedly what it was all about. + +The name Wilhelm meant nothing to him. It was the summer before Wilhelm +came that he had begun this Oregon farm, which he, from the first, had +fondly dedicated to Carlen in his thoughts; and when he went back to +Pennsylvania after her, he found her the same as when he went away, only +comelier and sweeter. It would not be easy to give Alf an uncomfortable +thought about his Carlen. But he did not like to see her cry. + +Neither, when he had heard the whole story, did he see why her tears +need have flowed so freely. It was sad, no doubt, and a bitter shame +too, for one man to suffer and go to his grave that way for the sin of +another. But it was long past and gone; no use in crying over it now. + +"What a tender-hearted, foolish wife it is!" he said in gruff fondness, +laying his hand on Carlen's shoulder, "crying over a man dead and buried +these seven years, and none of our kith or kin, either. Poor fellow! It +was a shame!" + +But Carlen said nothing. + + + + +Little Bel's Supplement. + + + +"Indeed, then, my mother, I'll not take the school at Wissan Bridge +without they promise me a supplement. It's the worst school i' a' Prince +Edward Island." + +"I doubt but ye're young to tackle wi' them boys, Bel," replied the +mother, gazing into her daughter's face with an intent expression in +which it would have been hard to say which predominated,--anxiety or +fond pride. "I'd sooner see ye take any other school between this an' +Charlottetown, an' no supplement." + +"I'm not afraid, my mother, but I'll manage 'em well enough; but I'll +not undertake it for the same money as a decent school is taught. +They'll promise me five pounds' supplement at the end o' the year, or +I'll not set foot i' the place." + +"Maybe they'll not be for givin' ye the school at all when they see +what's yer youth," replied the mother, in a half-antagonistic tone. +There was between this mother and daughter a continual undercurrent of +possible antagonism, overlain and usually smothered out of sight by +passionate attachment on both sides. + +Little Bel tossed her head. "Age is not everything that goes to the +makkin o' a teacher," she retorted. "There's Grizzy McLeod; she's +teachin' at the Cove these eight years, an' I'd shame her myself any day +she likes wi' spellin' an' the lines; an' if there's ever a boy in a +school o' mine that'll gie me a floutin' answer such's I've heard her +take by the dozen, I'll warrant ye he'll get a birchin'; an' the +trustees think there's no teacher like Grizzy. I'm not afraid." + +"Grizzy never had any great schoolin' herself," replied her mother, +piously. "There's no girl in all the farms that's had what ye've had, +Bel." + +"It isn't the schoolin', mother," retorted little Bel. "The schoolin' 's +got nothin' to do with it. I'd teach a school better than Grizzy McLeod +if I'd never had a day's schoolin'." + +"An' now if that's not the talk of a silly," retorted the quickly +angered parent. "Will ye be tellin' me perhaps, then, that them that +can't read theirselves is to be set to teach letters?" + +Little Bel was too loyal at heart to her illiterate mother to wound her +further by reiterating her point. Throwing her arms around her neck, and +kissing her warmly, she exclaimed: "Eh, my mother, it's not a silly that +ye could ever have for a child, wi' that clear head, and the wise things +always said to us from the time we're in our cradles. Ye've never a +child that's so clever as ye are yerself. I didn't mean just what I +said, ye must know, surely; only that the schoolin' part is the smallest +part o' the keepin' a school." + +"An' I'll never give in to such nonsense as that, either," said the +mother, only half mollified. "Ye can ask yer father, if ye like, if it +stands not to reason that the more a teacher knows, the more he can +teach. He'll take the conceit out o' ye better than I can." And good +Isabella McDonald turned angrily away, and drummed on the window-pane +with her knitting-needles to relieve her nervous discomfort at this +slight passage at arms with her best-beloved daughter. + +Little Bel's face flushed, and with compressed lips she turned silently +to the little oaken-framed looking-glass that hung so high on the wall +she could but just see her chin in it. As she slowly tied her pink +bonnet strings she grew happier. In truth, she would have been a maiden +hard to console if the face that looked back at her from the quaint oak +leaf and acorn wreath had not comforted her inmost soul, and made her +again at peace with herself. And as the mother looked on she too was +comforted; and in five minutes more, when Little Bel was ready to say +good-by, they flung their arms around each other, and embraced and +kissed, and the daughter said, "Good-by t' ye now, mother. Wish me well, +an' ye'll see that I get it,--supplement an' all," she added slyly. And +the mother said, "Good luck t' ye, child; an' it's luck to them that +gets ye." That was the way quarrels always ended between Isabella +McDonald and her oldest daughter. + +The oldest daughter, and yet only just turned of twenty; and there were +eight children younger than she, and one older. This is the way among +the Scotch farming-folk in Prince Edward Island. Children come tumbling +into the world like rabbits in a pen, and have to scramble for a living +almost as soon and as hard as the rabbits. It is a narrow life they +lead, and full of hardships and deprivations, but it has its +compensations. Sturdy virtues in sturdy bodies come of it,--the sort of +virtue made by the straitest Calvinism, and the sort of body made out of +oatmeal and milk. One might do much worse than inherit both. + +It seemed but a few years ago that John McDonald had wooed and won +Isabella McIntosh,--wooed her with difficulty in the bosom of her family +of six brothers and five sisters, and won her triumphantly in spite of +the open and contemptuous opposition of one of the five sisters. For +John himself was one of seven in his father's home, and whoever married +John must go there to live, to be only a daughter in a mother-in-law's +house, and take a daughter's share of the brunt of everything. "And +nothing to be got except a living, and it was a poor living the McDonald +farm gave beside the McIntosh," the McIntosh sisters said. And, +moreover: "The saint did not live that could get on with John McDonald's +mother. That was what had made him the silent fellow he was, always +being told by his mother to hold his tongue and have done speaking; and +a fine pepper-pot there'd be when Isabella's hasty tongue and temper +were flung into that batch!" + +There was no gainsaying all this. Nevertheless, Isabella married John, +went home with him into his father's house, put her shoulder against her +spoke in the family wheel, and did her best. And when, ten years later, +as reward of her affectionate trust and patience, she found herself sole +mistress of the McDonald farm, she did not feel herself ill paid. The +old father and mother were dead, two sisters had died and two had +married, and the two sons had gone to the States to seek better fortunes +than were to be made on Prince Edward Island. John, as eldest son, had, +according to the custom of the island, inherited the farm; and Mrs. +Isabella, confronting her three still unmarried sisters, was able at +last triumphantly to refute their still resentfully remembered +objections to her choice of a husband. + +"An' did ye suppose I did not all the time know that it was to this it +was sure to come, soon or late?" she said, with justifiable complacency. +"It's a good thing to have a house o' one's own an' an estate. An' the +linen that's in the house! I've no need to turn a hand to the flax-wheel +for ten years if I've no mind. An' ye can all bide your times, an' see +what John'll make o' the farm, now he's got where he can have things his +own way. His father was always set against anything that was new, an' +the place is run down shameful; but John'll bring it up, an' I'm not an +old woman yet." + +This last was the unkindest phrase Mrs. John McDonald permitted herself +to use. There was a rebound in it which told on the Mclntosh sisters; +for they, many years older than she, were already living on tolerance +in their father's house, where their oldest brother and his wife ruled +things with an iron hand. All hopes of a husband and a home of their own +had quite died out of their spinster bosoms, and they would not have +been human had they not secretly and grievously envied the comely, +blooming Isabella her husband, children, and home. + +But, with all this, it was no play-day life that Mrs. Isabella had led. +At the very best, and with the best of farms, Prince Edward Island +farming is no high-road to fortune; only a living, and that of the +plainest, is to be made; and when children come at the rate of ten in +twenty-two years, it is but a small showing that the farmer's bank +account makes at the end of that time. There is no margin for fineries, +luxuries, small ambitions of any kind. Isabella had her temptations in +these directions, but John was firm as a rock in withstanding them. If +he had not been, there would never have been this story to tell of his +Little Bel's school-teaching, for there would never have been money +enough in the bank to have given her two years' schooling in +Charlottetown, the best the little city afforded,--"and she boardin' +all the time like a lady," said the severe McIntosh aunts, who +disapproved of all such wide-flying ambitions, which made women +discontented with and unfitted for farming life. + +"And why should Isabella be setting her daughters up for teachers?" they +said. "It's no great schoolin' she had herself, and if her girls do as +well as she's done, they'll be lucky,"--a speech which made John +McDonald laugh out when it was reported to him. He could afford to laugh +now. + +"I mind there was a day when they thought different o' me from that," he +said. "I'm obliged to them for nothin'; but I'd like the little one to +have a better chance than the marryin' o' a man like me, an' if +anything'll get it for her, it'll be schoolin'." + +The "boardin' like a lady," which had so offended the Misses Mclntosh's +sense of propriety, was not, after all, so great an extravagance as they +had supposed; for it was in his own brother's house her thrifty father +had put her, and had stipulated that part of the price of her board was +to be paid in produce of one sort and another from the farm, at market +rates; "an' so, ye see, the lass 'll be eatin' it there 'stead of here," +he said to his wife when he told her of the arrangement, "an' it's a +sma' difference it'll make to us i' the end o' the two years." + +"An' a big difference to her a' her life," replied Isabella, warmly. + +"Ay, wife," said John, "if it fa's out as ye hope; but it's main +uncertain countin' on the book-knowledge. There's some it draws up an' +some it draws down; it's a millstone. But the lass is bright; she's as +like you as two peas in a pod. If ye'd had the chance she's had--" + +Rising color in Isabella's face warned John to stop. It is a strange +thing to see how often there hovers a flitting shadow of jealousy +between a mother and the daughter to whom the father unconsciously +manifests a chivalrous tenderness akin to that which in his youth he had +given only to the sweetheart he sought for wife. Unacknowledged, +perhaps, even unmanifested save in occasional swift and unreasonable +petulances, it is still there, making many a heartache, which is none +the less bitter that it is inexplicable to itself, and dares not so much +as confess its own existence. + +"It's a better thing for a woman to make her way i' the world on the +book-learnin' than to be always at the wheel an' the churn an' the +floors to be whitened," replied Isabella, sharply. "An' one year like +another, till the year comes ye're buried. I look for Bel to marry a +minister, or maybe even better." + +"Ye'd a chance at a minister yersel', then, my girl," replied the wise +John, "an' ye did not take it." At which memory the wife laughed, and +the two loyal hearts were merry together for a moment, and young again. + +Little Bel had, indeed, even before the Charlottetown schooling, had a +far better chance than her mother; for in her mother's day there was no +free school in the island, and in families of ten and twelve it was only +a turn and turn about that the children had at school. Since the free +schools had been established many a grown man and woman had sighed +curiously at the better luck of the youngsters under the new regime. No +excuse now for the poorest man's children not knowing how to read and +write and more; and if they chose to keep on, nothing to hinder their +dipping into studies of which their parents never heard so much as the +names. + +And this was not the only better chance which Little Bel had had. John +McDonald's farm joined the lands of the manse; his house was a short +mile from the manse itself; and by a bit of good fortune for Little Bel +it happened that just as she was growing into girlhood there came a new +minister to the manse,--a young man from Halifax, with a young bride, +the daughter of an officer in the Halifax garrison,--gentlefolks, both +of them, but single-hearted and full of fervor in their work for the +souls of the plain farming-people given into their charge. And both Mr. +Allan and Mrs. Allan had caught sight of Little Bel's face on their +first Sunday in church, and Mrs. Allan had traced to her a flute-like +voice she had detected in the Sunday-school singing; and before long, to +Isabella's great but unspoken pride, the child had been "bidden to the +manse for the minister's wife to hear her sing;" and from that day there +was a new vista in Little Bel's life. + +Her voice was sweet as a lark's and as pure, and her passionate love +for music a gift in itself. "It would be a sin not to cultivate it," +said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "even if she never sees another piano +than mine, nor has any other time in her life except these few years to +enjoy it; she will always have had these, and nothing can separate her +from her voice." + +And so it came to pass that when, at sixteen, Little Bel went to +Charlottetown for her final two years of study at the High School, she +played almost as well as Mrs. Allan herself, and sang far better. And in +all Isabella McDonald's day-dreams of the child's future, vague or +minute, there was one feature never left out. The "good husband" coming +always was to be a man who could "give her a piano." + +In Charlottetown Bel found no such friend as Mrs. Allan; but she had a +young school-mate who had a piano, and--poor short-sighted creature that +she was, Bel thought--hated the sight of it, detested to practise, and +shed many a tear over her lessons. This girl's parents were thankful to +see their daughter impressed by Bel's enthusiasm for music; and so well +did the clever girl play her cards that before she had been six months +in the place, she was installed as music-teacher to her own +schoolfellow, earning thereby not only money enough to buy the few +clothes she needed, but, what to her was better than money, the +privilege of the use of the piano an hour a day. + +So when she went home, at the end of the two years, she had lost +nothing,--in fact, had made substantial progress; and her old friend and +teacher, Mrs. Allan, was as proud as she was astonished when she first +heard her play and sing. Still more astonished was she at the forceful +character the girl had developed. She went away a gentle, loving, +clinging child; her nature, like her voice, belonging to the order of +birds,--bright, flitting, merry, confiding. She returned a woman, still +loving, still gentle in her manner, but with a new poise in her bearing, +a resoluteness, a fire, of which her first girlhood had given no +suggestion. It was strange to see how similar yet unlike were the +comments made on her in the manse and in the farmhouse by the two +couples most interested in her welfare. + +"It is wonderful, Robert," said Mrs. Allan to her husband, "how that +girl has changed, and yet not changed. It is the music that has lifted +her up so. What a glorious thing is a real passion for any art in a +human soul! But she can never live here among these people. I must take +her to Halifax." + +"No," said Mr. Allan; "her work will be here. She belongs to her people +in heart, all the same. She will not be discontented." + +"Husband, I'm doubtin' if we've done the right thing by the child, after +a'," said the mother, tearfully, to the father, at the end of the first +evening after Bel's return. "She's got the ways o' the city on her, an' +she carries herself as if she'd be teachin' the minister his own self. I +doubt but she'll feel herself strange i' the house." + +"Never you fash yourself," replied John. "The girl's got her head, +that's a'; but her heart's i' the right place. Ye'll see she'll put her +strength to whatever there's to be done. She'll be a master hand at +teachin', I'll wager!" + +"You always did think she was perfection," replied the mother, in a +crisp but not ill-natured tone, "an' I'm not gainsayin' that she's not +as near it as is often seen; but I'm main uneasy to see her carryin' +herself so positive." + +If John thought in his heart that Bel had come through direct heredity +on the maternal side by this "carryin' herself positive," he knew better +than to say so, and his only reply was a good-natured laugh, with: +"You'll see! I'm not afraid. She's a good child, an' always was." + +Bel passed her examination triumphantly, and got the Wissan Bridge +school; but she got only a contingent promise of the five-pound +supplement. It went sorely against her will to waive this point. Very +keenly Mr. Allan, who was on the Examining Board, watched her face as +she modestly yet firmly pressed it. + +The trustees did not deny that the Wissan Bridge school was a difficult +and unruly one; that to manage it well was worth more money than the +ordinary school salaries. The question was whether this very young lady +could manage it at all; and if she failed, as the last incumbent +had,--failed egregiously, too; the school had broken up in riotous +confusion before the end of the year,--the canny Scotchmen of the School +Board did not wish to be pledged to pay that extra five pounds. The +utmost Bel could extract from them was a promise that if at the end of +the year her teaching had proved satisfactory, the five pounds should be +paid. More they would not say; and after a short, sharp struggle with +herself Bel accepted the terms; but she could not restrain a farewell +shot at the trustees as she turned to go. "I'm as sure o' my five pounds +as if ye'd promised it downright, sirs. I shall keep ye a good school at +Wissan Bridge." + +"We'll make it guineas, then, Miss Bel," cried Mr. Allan, +enthusiastically, looking at his colleagues, who nodded their heads, and +said, laughing, "Yes, guineas it is." + +"And guineas it will be," retorted Little Bel, as with cheeks like +peonies she left the room. + +"Egad, but she's a fine spirit o' her ain, an' as bonnie a face as I've +seen since I remember," cried old Mr. Dalgetty, the senior member of +the Board, and the one hardest to please. "I'd not mind bein' a pupil at +Wissan Bridge school the comin' term myself." And he gave an old man's +privileged chuckle as he looked at his colleagues. "But she's over-young +for the work,--over-young." + +"She'll do it," said Mr. Allan, confidently. "Ye need have no fear. My +wife's had the training of the girl since she was little. She's got the +best o' stuff in her. She'll do it." + +Mr. Allan's prediction was fulfilled. Bel did it. But she did it at the +cost of harder work than even she had anticipated. If it had not been +for her music she would never have pulled through with the boys of +Wissan Bridge. By her music she tamed them. The young Marsyas himself +never piped to a wilder set of creatures than the uncouth lads and young +men that sat in wide-eyed, wide-mouthed astonishment listening to the +first song their pretty young schoolmistress sang for them. To have +singing exercises part of the regular school routine was a new thing at +Wissan Bridge. It took like wild-fire; and when Little Bel, shrewd and +diplomatic as a statesman, invited the two oldest and worst boys in the +school to come Wednesday and Saturday afternoons to her boarding-place +to practise singing with her to the accompaniment of the piano, so as to +be able to help her lead the rest, her sovereignty was established. They +were not conquered; they were converted,--a far surer and more lasting +process. Neither of them would, from that day out, have been guilty of +an act, word, or look to annoy her, any more than if they had been rival +lovers suing for her hand. As Bel's good luck would have it,--and Bel +was born to good luck, there is no denying it,--one of these boys had a +good tenor voice, the other a fine barytone; they had both in their +rough way been singers all their lives, and were lovers of music. + +"That was more than half the battle, my mother," confessed Bel, when, at +the end of the first term she was at home for a few days, and was +recounting her experiences. "Except for the singin' I'd never have got +Archie McLeod under, nor Sandy Stairs either. I doubt they'd have been +too many for me, but now they're like two more teachers to the fore. I'd +leave the school-room to them for a day, an' not a lad'd dare stir in +his seat without their leave. I call them my constables; an' I'm +teaching them a small bit of chemistry out o' school hours, too, an' +that's a hold on them. They'll see me out safe; an' I'm thinkin' I'll +owe them a bit part o' the five guineas when I get it," she added +reflectively. + +"The minister says ye're sure of it," replied her mother. "He says ye've +the best school a'ready in all his circuit. I don't know how ever ye +come to't so quick, child." And Isabella McDonald smiled wistfully, +spite of all her pride in her clever bairn. + +"Ye see, then, what he'll say after the examination at New Year's," +gleefully replied Bel, "if he thinks the school is so good now. It'll be +twice as good then; an' such singin' as was never heard before in any +school-house on the island, I'll warrant me. I'm to have the piano over +for the day to the school-house. Archie and Sandy'll move it in a big +wagon, to save me payin' for the cartin'; an' I'm to pay a half-pound +for the use of it if it's not hurt,--a dear bargain, but she'd not let +it go a shilling less. And, to be sure, there is the risk to be +counted. An' she knew I 'd have it if it had been twice that. But I got +it out of her that for that price she was to let me have all the school +over twice a week, for two months before, to practise. So it's not too +dear. Ye'll see what ye'll hear then." + +It had been part of Little Bel's good luck that she had succeeded in +obtaining board in the only family in the village which had the +distinction of owning a piano; and by paying a small sum extra, she had +obtained the use of this piano for an hour each day,--the best +investment of Little Bel's life, as the sequel showed. + +It was a bitter winter on Prince Edward Island. By New Year's time the +roads were many of them wellnigh impassable with snow. Fierce winds +swept to and fro, obliterating tracks by noon which had been clear in +the morning; and nobody went abroad if he could help it. New Year's Day +opened fiercest of all, with scurries of snow, lowering sky, and a wind +that threatened to be a gale before night. But, for all that, the +tying-posts behind the Wissan Bridge school-house were crowded full of +steaming horses under buffalo-robes, which must stamp and paw and +shiver, and endure the day as best they might, while the New Year's +examination went on. Everybody had come. The fame of the singing of the +Wissan Bridge school had spread far and near, and it had been whispered +about that there was to be a "piece" sung which was finer than anything +ever sung in the Charlottetown churches. + +The school-house was decorated with evergreens,--pine and spruce. The +New Year's Day having fallen on a Monday, Little Bel had had a clear +working-day on the Saturday previous; and her faithful henchmen, Archie +and Sandy, had been busy every evening for a week drawing the boughs on +their sleds and piling them up in the yard. The teacher's desk had been +removed, and in its place stood the shining red mahogany piano,--a new +and wonderful sight to many eyes there. + +All was ready, the room crowded full, and the Board of Trustees not yet +arrived. There sat their three big arm-chairs on the raised platform, +empty,--a depressing and perplexing sight to Little Bel, who, in her +short blue merino gown, with a knot of pink ribbon at her throat, and a +roll of white paper (her schedule of exercises) in her hand, stood on +the left hand of the piano, her eyes fixed expectantly on the doors. The +minutes lengthened out into quarter of an hour, half an hour. Anxiously +Bel consulted with her father what should be done. + +"The roads are something fearfu', child," he replied; "we must make big +allowance for that. They're sure to be comin', at least some one o' +them. It was never known that they failed on the New Year's examination, +an' it would seem a sore disrespect to begin without them here." + +Before he had finished speaking there was heard a merry jingling of +bells outside, dozens and dozens it seemed, and hilarious voices and +laughter, and the snorting of overdriven horses, and the stamping of +feet, and more voices and more laughter. Everybody looked in his +neighbor's face. What sounds were these? Who ever heard a sober School +Board arrive in such fashion as this? But it was the School +Board,--nothing less: a good deal more, however. Little Bel's heart +sank within her as she saw the foremost figure entering the room. What +evil destiny had brought Sandy Bruce in the character of school visitor +that day?--Sandy Bruce, retired school-teacher himself, superintendent +of the hospital in Charlottetown, road-master, ship-owner, +exciseman,--Sandy Bruce, whose sharp and unexpected questions had been +known to floor the best of scholars and upset the plans of the best of +teachers. Yes, here he was,--Sandy Bruce himself; and it was his fierce +little Norwegian ponies, with their silver bells and fur collars, the +admiration of all Charlottetown, that had made such a clatter and +stamping outside, and were still keeping it up; for every time they +stirred the bells tinkled like a peal of chimes. And, woe upon woe, +behind him came, not Bel's friend and pastor, Mr. Allan, but the crusty +old Dalgetty, whose doing it had been a year before, as Bel very well +knew, that the five-pound supplement had been only conditionally +promised. + +Conflicting emotions turned Bel's face scarlet as she advanced to meet +them; the most casual observer could not have failed to see that dismay +predominated, and Sandy Bruce was no casual observer; nothing escaped +his keen glance and keener intuition, and it was almost with a wicked +twinkle in his little hazel eyes that he said, still shaking off the +snow, stamping and puffing: "Eh, but ye were not lookin' for me, +teacher! The minister was sent for to go to old Elspie Breadalbane, +who's dyin' the morn; and I happened by as he was startin', an' he made +me promise to come i' his place; an' I picked up my friend Dalgetty here +a few miles back, wi' his horse flounderin' i' the drifts. Except for me +ye'd ha' had no board at all here to-day; so I hope ye'll give me no bad +welcome." + +As he spoke he was studying her face, where the color came and went like +waves; not a thought in the girl's heart he did not read. "Poor little +lassie!" he was thinking to himself. "She's shaking in her shoes with +fear o' me. I'll not put her out. She's a dainty blossom of a girl. +What's kept her from being trodden down by these Wissan Bridge +racketers, I'd like to know." + +But when he seated himself on the platform, and took his first look at +the rows of pupils in the centre of the room, he was near starting with +amazement. The Wissan Bridge "racketers," as he had mentally called +them, were not to be seen. Very well he knew many of them by sight; for +his shipping business called him often to Wissan Bridge, and this was +not the first time he had been inside the school-house, which had been +so long the dread and terror of school boards and teachers alike. A +puzzled frown gathered between Sandy Bruce's eyebrows as he gazed. + +"What has happened to the youngsters, then? Have they all been convarted +i' this twelvemonth?" he was thinking. And the flitting perplexed +thought did not escape the observation of John McDonald, who was as +quick a reader of faces as Sandy himself, and had been by no means free +from anxiety for his little Bel when he saw the redoubtable visage of +the exciseman appear in the doorway. + +"He's takin' it in quick the way the bairn's got them a' in hand," +thought John. "If only she can hold hersel' cool now!" + +No danger. Bel was not the one to lose a battle by appearing to quail in +the outset, however clearly she might see herself outnumbered. And +sympathetic and eager glances from her constables, Archie and Sandy, +told her that they were all ready for the fray. These glances Sandy +Bruce chanced to intercept, and they heightened his bewilderment. To +Archie McLeod he was by no means a stranger, having had occasion more +than once to deal with him, boy as he was, for complications with +riotous misdoings. He had happened to know, also, that it was Archie +McLeod who had been head and front of the last year's revolt in the +school,--the one boy that no teacher hitherto had been able to control. +And here stood Archie McLeod, rising in his place, leader of the form, +glancing down on the boys around him with the eye of a general, watching +the teacher's eye, meanwhile, as a dog watches for his master's signal. + +And the orderly yet alert and joyously eager expression of the whole +school,--it had so much the look of a miracle to Sandy Bruce's eye, +that, not having been for years accustomed to the restraint and dignity +of school visitors, of technical official, he was on the point of giving +a loud whistle of astonishment Luckily recollecting himself in time, he +smothered the whistle and the "Whew! what's all this?" which had been on +his tongue's end, in a vigorous and unnecessary blowing of his nose. And +before that was over, and his eyes well wiped, there stood the whole +school on its feet before him, and the room ringing with such a chorus +as was never heard in a Prince Edward Island school-room before. This +completed his bewilderment, and swallowed it up in delight. If Sandy +Bruce had an overmastering passion in his rugged nature, it was for +music. To the sound of the bag-pipes he had often said he would march to +death and "not know it for dyin'." The drum and the fife could draw him +as quickly now as when he was a boy, and the sweet singing of a woman's +voice was all the token he wanted of the certainty of heaven and the +existence of angels. + +When Little Bel's clear, flute-like soprano notes rang out, carrying +along the fifty young voices she led, Sandy jumped up on his feet, +waving his hand, in a sudden heat of excitement, right and left; and +looking swiftly all about him on the platform, he said: "It's not +sittin' we'es take such welcome as this, my neebors!" Each man and woman +there, catching the quick contagion, rose; and it was a tumultuous crowd +of glowing faces that pressed forward around the piano as the singing +went on,--fathers, mothers, rustics, all; and the children, pleased and +astonished, sang better than ever, and when the chorus was ended it was +some minutes before all was quiet. + +Many things had been settled in that few minutes. John McDonald's heart +was at rest. "The music'll carry a' before it, no matter if they do make +a failure here 'n' there," he thought. "The bairn is a' right." The +mother's heart was at rest also. + +"She's done wonders wi' 'em,--wonders! I doubt not but it'll go through +as it's begun. Her face's a picture to look on. Bless her!" Isabella was +saying behind her placid smile. + +"Eh, but she's won her guineas out o' us," thought old Dalgetty, +ungrudgingly, "and won 'em well." + +"I don't see why everybody is so afraid of Sandy Bruce," thought Little +Bel. "He looks as kind and as pleased as my own father. I don't believe +he'll ask any o' his botherin' questions." + +What Sandy Bruce thought it would be hard to tell; nearer the truth, +probably, to say that his head was in too much of a whirl to think +anything. Certain it is that he did not ask any botherin' questions, but +sat, leaning forward on his stout oaken staff, held firmly between his +knees, and did not move for the next hour, his eyes resting alternately +on the school and on the young teacher, who, now that her first fright +was over, was conducting her entertainment with the composure and +dignity of an experienced instructor. + +The exercises were simple,--declamations, reading of selected +compositions, examinations of the principal classes. At short intervals +came songs to break the monotony. The first one after the opening chorus +was "Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon." At the first bars of this Sandy +Bruce could not keep silence, but broke into a lone accompaniment in a +deep bass voice, untrained but sweet. + +"Ah," thought Little Bel, "what'll he say to the last one, I wonder?" + +When the time came she found out. If she had chosen the arrangement of +her music with full knowledge of Sandy Bruce's preferences, and with the +express determination to rouse him to a climax of enthusiasm, she could +not have done better. + +When the end of the simple programme of recitations and exhibition had +been reached, she came forward to the edge of the platform--her cheeks +were deep pink now, and her eyes shone with excitement--and said, +turning to the trustees and spectators: "We have finished, now, all we +have to show for our year's work, and we will close our entertainment by +singing 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled!'" + +"Ay, ay! that wi' we!" shouted Sandy Bruce, again leaping to his feet; +and as the first of the grand chords of that grand old tune rang out +full and loud under Little Bel's firm touch, he strode forward to the +piano, and with a kindly nod to her struck in. + +With the full force of his deep, bass-like, violoncello notes, gathering +up all the others and fusing them into a pealing strain, it was +electin'. Everybody sang. Old voices, that had not sung for a quarter of +a century or more, joined in. It was a furor: Dalgetty swung his tartan +cap, Sandy his hat; handkerchiefs were waved, staves rang on the floor. +The children, half frightened in spite of their pleasure, were quieter +than their elders. + +"Eh, but it was good fun to see the old folks gone crazy for once!" said +Archie McLeod, in recounting the scene. "Now, if they'd get that way +oftener they'd not be so hard down on us youngsters." + +At the conclusion of the song the first thing Little Bel heard was +Dalgetty's piping voice behind her,-- + +"And guineas it is, Miss McDonald. Ye've won it fair an' square. Guineas +it is!" + +"Eh, what? Guineas! What is 't ye're sayin'?" asked Sandy Bruce; his +eyes, steady glowing like coals, gazing at Little Bel. + +"The supplement, sir," answered Little Bel, lifting her eyes roguishly +to his. "Mr. Dalgetty thought I was too young for the school, an' he'd +promise me no supplement till he saw if I'd be equal to 't." + +This was the sly Bel's little revenge on Dalgetty, who began confusedly +to explain that it was not he any more than the other trustees, and he +only wished that they had all been here to see, as he had seen, how +finely the school had been managed; but nobody heard what he said, for +above all the humming and buzzing and laughing there came up from the +centre of the school-room a reiterated call of "Sirs!" "Trustees!" "Mr. +Trustee!" "Board!" + +It was Archie McLeod, standing up on the backs of two seats, waving a +white paper, and trying frantically to make himself heard. The face of a +man galloping for life and death, coming up at the last second with a +reprieve for one about to be shot, could hardly be fuller of intense +anxiety than was Archie's as he waved his paper and shouted. + +Little Bel gazed bewilderingly at him. This was not down on her +programme of the exercises. What could it be? + +As soon as partial silence enabled him to speak, Archie proceeded to +read a petition, setting forth, to the respected Board of Trustees, that +the undersigned, boys and girls of the Wissan Bridge School, did hereby +unanimously request that they might have no other teacher than Miss +McDonald, "as long as she lives." + +This last clause had been the cause of bitter disputing between Archie +and Sandy,--Sandy insisting upon having it in; Archie insisting that it +was absurd, because they would not go to school as long as Miss McDonald +lived. "But there's the little ones and the babies that'll be growin' +up," retorted Sandy, "an' there'll never be another like her: I say, 'as +long as she lives'"; and "as long as she lives" it was. And when Archie, +with an unnecessary emphasis, delivered this closing clause of the +petition, it was received with a roar of laughter from the platform, +which made him flush angrily, and say, with a vicious punch in Sandy's +ribs: "There, I told ye, it spoiled it a'. They're fit to die over it; +an' sma' blame to 'em, ye silly!" + +But he was reassured when he heard Sandy Bruce's voice overtopping the +tumult with: "A vary sensible request, my lad; an' I, for one, am o' yer +way o' thinkin'." + +In which speech was a deeper significance than anybody at the time +dreamed. In that hurly-burly and hilarious confusion no one had time to +weigh words or note meanings; but there were some who recalled it a few +months later when they were bidden to a wedding at the house of John +McDonald,--a wedding at which Sandy Bruce was groom, and Little Bel the +brightest, most winsome of brides. + +It was an odd way that Sandy went to work to win her: his ways had been +odd all his life,--so odd that it had long ago been accepted in the +minds of the Charlottetown people that he would never find a woman to +wed him; only now and then an unusually perspicacious person divined +that the reason of his bachelorhood was not at all that women did not +wish to wed him, spite of his odd ways, but that he himself found no +woman exactly to his taste. + +True it was that Sandy Bruce, aged forty, had never yet desired any +woman for his wife till he looked into the face of Little Bel in the +Wissan Bridge school-house. And equally true was it that before the last +strains of "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled" had died away on that +memorable afternoon of her exhibition of her school, he had determined +that his wife she should be. + +This was the way he took to win her. No one can deny that it was odd. + +There was some talk between him and his temporary colleague on the +School Board, old Dalgetty, as they drove home together behind the brisk +Norwegian ponies; and the result of this conversation was that the next +morning early--in fact, before Little Bel was dressed, so late had she +been indulged, for once, in sleeping, after her hard labors in the +exhibition the day before--the Norwegian ponies were jingling their +bells at John McDonald's door; and John himself might have been seen, +with a seriously puzzled face, listening to words earnestly spoken by +Sandy, as he shook off the snow and blanketed the ponies. + +As the talk progressed, John glanced up involuntarily at Little Bel's +window. Could it be that he sighed? At any rate, there was no regret in +his heart as he shook Sandy's hand warmly, and said: "Ye've my free +consent to try; but I doubt she's not easy won. She's her head now, an' +her ain way; but she's a good lass, an' a sweet one." + +"An' I need no man to tell me that," said the dauntless Sandy, as he +gave back the hearty hand-grip of his friend; "an' she'll never repent +it, the longest day o' her life, if she'll ha' me for her man." And he +strode into the house, bearing in his hand the five golden guineas which +his friend Dalgetty had, at his request, commissioned him to pay. + +"Into her own hand, mind ye, mon," chuckled Dalgetty, mischievously. +"Ye'll not be leavin' it wi' the mither." To which sly satire Sandy's +only reply was a soft laugh and nod of his head. + +As soon as Little Bel crossed the threshold of the room where Sandy +Bruce stood waiting for her, she knew the errand on which he had come. +It was written in his face. Neither could it be truthfully said to be a +surprise to Little Bel; for she had not been woman, had she failed to +recognize on the previous day that the rugged Scotchman's whole nature +had gone out toward her in a sudden and overmastering attraction. + +Sandy looked at her keenly. "Eh, ye know't a'ready," he said,--"the +thing I came to say t' ye." And he paused, still eying her more like a +judge than a lover. + +Little Bel turned scarlet. This was not her ideal of a wooer. "Know +what, Mr. Bruce?" she said resentfully. "How should I know what ye came +to say?" + +"Tush! tush, lass! do na prevaricate," Sandy began, his eyes gloating on +her lovely confusion; "do na preteend--" But the sweet blue eyes were +too much for him. Breaking down utterly, he tossed the guineas to one +side on the table, and stretching out both hands toward Bel, he +exclaimed,--"Ye're the sweetest thing the eyes o' a mon ever rested on, +lass, an' I'm goin' to win ye if ye'll let me." And as Bel opened her +mouth to speak, he laid one hand, quietly as a mother might, across her +lips, and continued: "Na! na! I'll not let ye speak yet. I'm not a silly +to look for ye to be ready to say me yes at this quick askin'; but I'll +not let ye say me nay neither. Ye'll not refuse me the only thing I'm +askin' the day, an' that's that ye'll let me try to make ye love me. +Ye'll not say nay to that, lass. I'll gie my life to it." And now he +waited for an answer. + +None came. Tears were in Bel's eyes as she looked up in his face. Twice +she opened her lips to speak, and twice her heart and the words failed +her. The tears became drops and rolled down the cheeks. Sandy was +dismayed. + +"Ye're not afraid o' me, ye sweet thing, are ye?" he gasped out. "I'd +not vex ye for the world. If ye bid me to go, I'd go." + +"No, I'm not afraid o' ye, Mr. Bruce," sobbed Bel. "I don't know what it +is makes me so silly. I'm not afraid o' ye, though. But I was for a few +minutes yesterday," she added archly, with a little glint of a roguish +smile, which broke through the tears like an April sun through rain, and +turned Sandy's head in the twinkling of an eye. + +"Ay, ay," he said; "I minded it weel, an' I said to myself then, in that +first sight I had o' yer face, that I'd not harm a hair o' yer head. Oh, +my little lass, would ye gie me a kiss,--just one, to show ye're not +afraid, and to gie me leave to try to win ye out o' likin' into lovin'?" +he continued, drawing closer and bending toward her. + +And then a wonderful thing happened. Little Bel, who, although she was +twenty years old, and had by no means been without her admirers, had +never yet kissed any man but her father and brothers, put up her rosy +lips, as confidingly as a little child, to be kissed by this strange +wooer, who wooed only for leave to woo. + +"An' if he'd only known it, he might ha' asked a' he wanted then as well +as later," said Little Bel, honestly avowing the whole to her mother. +"As soon as he put his hands on me the very heart in me said he was my +man for a' my life. An' there's no shame in it that I can see. If a man +may love that way in the lighting of an eye, why may not a girl do the +same? There's not one kind o' heart i' the breast of a man an' another +kind i' the breast of a woman, as ever I heard." In which Little Bel, in +her innocence, was wiser than people wiser than she. + +And after this there is no need of telling more,--only a picture or two +which are perhaps worth sketching in few words. One is the expression +which was seen on Sandy Bruce's face one day, not many weeks after his +first interview with Little Bel, when, in reply to his question, "An' +now, my own lass, what'll ye have for your weddin' gift from me? Tell me +the thing ye want most i' a' the earth, an' if it's in my means ye shall +have it the day ye gie me the thing I want maist i' the whole earth." + +"I've got it a'ready, Sandy," said Little Bel, taking his face in her +hands, and making a feint of kissing him; then withdrawing coquettishly. +Wise, innocent Bel! Sandy understood. + +"Ay, my lass; but next to me. What's the next thing ye'd have?" + +Bel hesitated. Even to her wooer's generosity it might seem a daring +request,--the thing she craved. + +"Tell me, lass," said Sandy, sternly. "I've mair money than ye think. +There's no lady in a' Charlottetown can go finer than ye if ye've a +mind." + +"For shame, Sandy!" cried Bel. "An' you to think it was fine apparel I'd +be askin'! It's a--a"--the word refused to leave her tongue--"a--piano, +Sandy;" and she gazed anxiously at him. "I'll never ask ye for another +thing till the day o' my death, Sandy, if ye'll gie me that." + +Sandy shouted in delight. For a brief space a fear had seized him--of +which he now felt shame indeed--that his sweet lassie might be about to +ask for jewels or rich attire; and it would have sorely hurt Sandy's +pride in her had this been so. + +"A piano!" he shouted. "An' did ye not think I'd that a'ready in my +mind? O' coorse, a piano, an' every other instrument under the skies +that ye'll wish, my lass, ye shall have. The more music ye make, the +gladder the house'll be. Is there nothin' else ye want, lass,--nothin'?" + +"Nothing in all this world, Sandy, but you and a piano," replied Little +Bel. + +The other picture was on a New Year's Day, just a twelvemonth from the +day of Little Bel's exhibition in the Wissan Bridge school-house. It is +a bright day; the sleighing is superb all over the island, and the +Charlottetown streets are full of gay sleighs and jingling bells,--none +so gay, however, as Sandy Bruce's, and no bells so merry as the silver +ones on his fierce little Norwegian ponies, that curvet and prance, and +are all their driver can hold. Rolled up in furs to her chin, how rosy +and handsome looks Little Bel by her husband's side, and how full of +proud content is his face as he sees the people all turning to look at +her beauty! And who is this driving the Norwegian ponies? Who but +Archie,--Archie McLeod, who has followed his young teacher to her new +home, and is to grow up, under Sandy Bruce's teachings, into a sharp and +successful man of the shipping business. + +And as they turn a corner they come near running into another fur-piled, +swift-gliding sleigh, with a grizzled old head looking out of a tartan +hood, and eyes like hawks',--Dalgetty himself; and as they pass the head +nods and the eyes laugh, and a sharp voice cries, "Guineas it is!" + +"Better than guineas!" answered back Mrs. Sandy Bruce, quick as a flash; +and in the same second cries Archie, from the front seat, with a saucy +laugh, "And as long as she lives, Mr. Dalgetty!" + + + + +The Captain of the "Heather Bell". + + + +You might have known he was a Scotchman by the name of his little +steamer; and if you had not known it by that, you would have known it as +soon as you looked at him. Scotch, pure, unmitigated, unmistakable +Scotch, was Donald Mackintosh, from the crown of his auburn head down to +the soles of his big awkward feet. Six feet two inches in his stockings +he stood, and so straight that he looked taller even than that; +blue-gray eyes full of a canny twinkle; freckles,--yes, freckles that +were really past the bounds of belief, for up into his hair they ran, +and to the rims of his eyes,--no pale, dull, equivocal freckles, such as +might be mistaken for dingy spots of anything else, but brilliant, +golden-brown freckles, almost auburn like his hair. Once seen, never to +be forgotten were Donald Mackintosh's freckles. All this does not sound +like the description of a handsome man; but we are not through yet with +what is to be said about Donald Mackintosh's looks. We have said nothing +of his straight massive nose, his tawny curling beard, which shaded up +to yellow around a broad and laughing mouth, where were perpetually +flashing teeth of an even ivory whiteness a woman might have coveted. +No, not handsome, but better than handsome, was Donald Mackintosh; he +was superb. Everybody said so: nobody could have been found to dispute +it,--nobody but Donald himself; he thought, honestly thought, he was +hideous. All that he could see on the rare occasions when he looked in a +glass was an expanse of fiery red freckles, topped off with what he +would have called a shock of red hair. Uglier than anything he had ever +seen in his life, he said to himself many a time, and grew shyer and +shyer and more afraid of women each time he said it; and all this while +there was not a girl in Charlottetown that did not know him in her +thoughts, if indeed she did not openly speak of him, as that "splendid +Donald Mackintosh," or "the handsome 'Heather Bell' captain." + +But nothing could have made Donald believe this, which was in one way a +pity, though in another way not. If he had known how women admired him, +he would have inevitably been more or less spoiled by it, wasted his +time, and not have been so good a sailor. On the other hand, it was a +pity to see him,--forty years old, and alone in the world,--not a chick +nor a child of his own, nor any home except such miserable makeshifts as +a sailor finds in inns or boarding-houses. + +It was a wonder that the warm-hearted fellow had kept a cheery nature +and face all these years living thus. But the "Heather Bell" stood to +him in place of wife, children, home. There is no passion in life so +like the passion of a man for a woman as the passion of a sailor for his +craft; and this passion Donald had to the full. It was odd how he came +to be a born sailor. His father and his father's fathers, as far back as +they knew, had been farmers--three generations of them--on the Prince +Edward Island farm where Donald was born; and still more generations of +them in old Scotland. Pure Scotch on both sides of the house for +hundreds of years were the Mackintoshes, and the Gaelic tongue was +to-day freer spoken in their houses than English. + +The Mackintosh farm on Prince Edward Island was in the parish of Orwell +Head, and Donald's earliest transgressions and earliest pleasures were +runaway excursions to the wharves of that sleepy shore. To him Spruce +Wharf was a centre of glorious maritime adventure. The small sloops that +plied up and down the coast of the island, running in at the inlets, and +stopping to gather up the farmers' produce and take it to Charlottetown +markets, seemed to him as grand as Indiamen; and when, in his twelfth +year, he found himself launched in life as a boy-of-all-work on one of +these sloops, whose captain was a friend of his father's, he felt that +his fortune was made. And so it was. He was in the line of promotion by +virtue of his own enthusiasm. No plank too small for the born sailor to +swim by. Before Donald was twenty-five he himself commanded one of these +little coasting-vessels. From this he took a great stride forward, and +became first officer on the iron-clad steamer plying between +Charlottetown and the mainland. The winter service on this boat was +terrible,--ploughing and cutting through nearly solid ice for long days +and nights of storm. Donald did not like it. He felt himself lost out in +the wild channel. His love was for the water near shore,--for the bays, +inlets, and river-mouths he had known since he was a child. + +He began to think he was not so much of a sailor as he had supposed,--so +great a shrinking grew up in him winter after winter from the perils and +hardships of the mail-steamer's route. But he persevered and bided his +time, and in ten years had the luck to become owner and master of a trim +little coasting-steamer which had been known for years as the "Sally +Wright," making two trips a week from Charlottetown to Orwell +Head,--known as the "Sally Wright" no longer, however; for the first +thing Donald did was to repaint her, from stem to stern, white, with +green and pink stripes, on her prow a cluster of pink heather blossoms, +and "Heather Bell" in big letters on the side. + +When he was asked where he got this fancy name, he said, lightly, he +did not know; it was a good Scotch name. This was not true. Donald knew +very well. On the window-sill in his mother's kitchen had stood always a +pot of pink heather. Come summer, come winter, the place was never +without a young heather growing; and the dainty pink bells were still to +Donald the man, as they had been to Donald the child, the loveliest +flowers in the world. But he would not for the profits of many a trip +have told his comrade captains why he had named his boat the "Heather +Bell." He had a sentiment about the name which he himself hardly +understood. It seemed out of all proportion to the occasion; but a day +was coming when it would seem more like a prophecy than a mere +sentiment. He had builded better than he knew when he chose that name +for the thing nearest his heart. + +Charlottetown is not a gay place; its standards and methods of amusement +are simple and primitive. Among the summer pleasures of the young people +picnics still rank high, and picnic excursions by steamboat or sloop +highest of all. Through June and July hardly a daily newspaper can be +found which does not contain the advertisement of one or more of these +excursions. After Donald made his little boat so fresh and gay with the +pink and green colors, and gave her the winning new name, she came to be +in great demand for these occasions. + +How much the captain's good looks had to do with the "Heather Bell's" +popularity as a pleasure-boat it would not do to ask; but there was +reason enough for her being liked aside from that. Sweet and fresh in +and out, with white deck, the chairs and settees all painted green, and +a gay streamer flying,--white, with three green bars,--and "Donald +Mackintosh, Captain," in green letters, and below these a spray of pink +heather, she looked more like a craft for festive sailing than for +cruising about from one farm-landing to another, picking up odds and +ends of farm produce,--eggs and butter, and oats and wool,--with now and +then a passenger. Donald liked this slow cruising and the market-work +best; but the picnic parties were profitable, and he took them whenever +he could. He kept apart, however, from the merry-makers as much as +possible, and was always glad at night when he had landed his noisy +cargo safe back at the Charlottetown piers. + +This disposition on his part to hold himself aloof was greatly +irritating to the Charlottetown girls, and to no one of them so much as +to pretty Katie McCloud, who, because she was his second cousin and had +known him all her life, felt, and not without reason, that he ought to +pay her something in the shape or semblance of attention when she was on +board his boat, even if she were a member of a large and gay party, most +of whom were strangers to him. There was another reason, too; but Katie +had kept it so long locked in the bottom of her heart that she hardly +realized its force and cogency, and, if she had, would have laughed, and +put it as far from her thoughts as she could. + +The truth was, Katie had been in love with Donald ever since she was ten +years old and he was twenty,--a long time, seeing that she was now +thirty and he forty; and never once, either in their youth or their +middle age, had there been a word of love-making between them. All the +same, deep in her heart the good little Katie had kept the image of +Donald in sacred tenderness by itself. No other man's love-making, +however earnest,--and Katie had been by no means without lovers,--had so +much as touched this sentiment. She judged them all by this secret +standard, and found them all wanting. She did not pine, neither did she +take a step of forwardness, or even coquettish advance, to Donald. She +was too full of Scotch reticence for that. The only step she did take, +in hope of bringing him nearer to her, was the going to Charlottetown to +learn the milliner's trade. + +Poor Katie! if she had but known she threw away her last chance when she +did it. She reasoned that Donald was in Charlottetown far more than he +was anywhere else; that if she stayed at home on the farm she could see +him only by glimpses, when the "Heather Bell" ran in at their +landing,--in and out and off again in an hour. What was that? And maybe +a Sunday once or twice a year, and at a Christmas gathering. No wonder +Katie thought that in the town where his business lay and he slept +three nights a week she would have a far better chance; that he would be +glad to come and see her in her tidy little shop. But when Donald heard +what she had done, he said gruffly: "Just like the rest; all for ribbons +and laces and silly gear. I thought Katie'd more sense. Why didn't she +stay at home on the farm?" And he said as much to her when he first saw +her in her new quarters. She tried to explain to him that she wanted to +support herself, and she could not do it on the farm. + +"No need,--no need," said her relentless cousin; "there was plenty for +all on the farm." And all the while he stood glowering at the counter +spread with gay ribbons and artificial flowers, and Katie was ready to +cry. This was in the first year of her life in Charlottetown. She was +only twenty-two then. In the eight years since then matters had quieted +down with Katie. It seemed certain that Donald would never marry. +Everybody said so. And if a man had lived till forty without it, what +else could be expected? If Katie had seen him seeking other women, her +quiet and unrewarded devotion would no doubt have flamed up in jealous +pain. But she knew that he gave to her as much as he gave to +any,--occasional and kindly courtesy, no less, no more. + +So the years slipped by, and in her patient industry Katie forgot how +old she was growing, until suddenly, on her thirtieth birthday, +something--the sight of a deepened line on her face, perhaps, or a pang +of memory of the old childish past, such as birthdays always +bring--something smote her with a sudden consciousness that life itself +was slipping away, and she was alone. No husband, no child, no home, +except as she earned each month, by fashioning bonnets and caps for the +Charlottetown women, money enough to pay the rent of the two small rooms +in which she slept, cooked, and plied her trade. Some tears rolled down +Katie's face as she sat before her looking-glass thinking these +unwelcome thoughts. + +"I'll go to the Orwell Head picnic to-morrow," she said to herself. +"It's so near the old place perhaps Donald'll walk over home with me. +It's long since he's seen the farm, I'll be bound." + +Now, Katie did not say to herself in so many words, "It will be like +old times when we were young, and it may be something will stir in +Donald's heart for me at the sight of the fields." Not only did she not +say this; she did not know that she thought it; but it was there, all +the same, a lurking, newly revived, vague, despairing sort of hope. And +because it was there she spent half the day retrimming a bonnet and +washing and ironing a gown to wear to the picnic; and after long and +anxious pondering of the matter, she deliberately took out of her best +box of artificial flowers a bunch of white heather, and added it to the +bonnet trimming. It did not look overmuch like heather, and it did not +suit the bonnet, of which Katie was dimly aware; but she wanted to say +to Donald, "See, I put a sprig of heather in my bonnet in honor of your +boat to-day." Simple little Katie! + +It was a large and noisy picnic, of the very sort Donald most disliked, +and he kept himself out of sight until the last moment, just before they +swung round at Spruce Wharf. Then, as he stood on the upper deck giving +orders about the flinging out of the ropes, Katie looked up at him from +below, and called, in a half-whisper: "Oh, Donald, I was thinking I'd +walk over home instead of staying here to the dance. Wouldn't ye be +goin' with me, Donald? They'd be glad to see ye." + +"Ay, Katie," answered Donald; "that will I, and be glad to be out of +this." And as soon as the boat was safely moored, he gave his orders to +his mate for the day, and leaping down joined the glad Katie; and before +the picnickers had even missed them they were well out of sight, walking +away briskly over the brown fields. + +Katie was full of happiness. As she glanced up into Donald's face she +found it handsomer and kinder than she had seen it, she thought, for +many years. + +"It was for this I came, Donald," she said merrily. "When I heard the +dance was to be in the Spruce Grove I made up my mind to come and +surprise the folks. It's nigh six months since I've been home." + +"Pity ye ever left it, my girl," said Donald, gravely. "The home's the +place for women." But he said it in a pleasant tone, and his eyes rested +affectionately on Katie's face. + +"Eh, but ye're bonny to-day, Katie; do ye know it?" he continued, his +glance lingering on her fresh color and her smiling face. In his heart +he was saying: "An' what is it makes her so young-looking to-day? It was +an old face she had on the last time I saw her." + +Happiness, Donald, happiness! Even those few minutes of it had worked +the change. + +Encouraged by this praise, Katie said, pointing to the flowers in her +bonnet, "It's the heather ye're meanin', maybe, Donald, an' not me?" + +"An' it's not," he replied earnestly, almost angrily, with a scornful +glance at the flowers. "Ye'll not be callin' that heather. Did ye never +see true heather, Katie? It's no more like the stalks ye've on yer head +than a barrow's like my boat yonder." + +Which was not true: the flowers were of the very best ever imported into +Charlottetown, and were a better representation of heather than most +artificial flowers are of the blossoms whose names they bear. Donald was +not a judge; and if he had been, it was a cruel thing to say. Katie's +eyes drooped: she had made a serious sacrifice in putting so dear a +bunch of flowers on her bonnet,--a bunch that she had, in her own mind, +been sure Lady Gownas, of Gownas House, would buy for her summer bonnet. +She had made this sacrifice purely to please Donald, and this was what +had come of it. Poor Katie! However, nothing could trouble her long +to-day, with Donald by her side in the sunny, bright fields; and she +would have him to herself till four in the afternoon. + +As they drew near the farm-house a strange sound fell on their ears; it +was as if a million of beehives were in full blast of buzzing in the +air. At the same second both Donald and Katie paused, listening. "What +can that be, now?" exclaimed Donald. Before the words had left his lips, +Katie cried, "It's a bee!--Elspie's spinning-bee." + +The spinning-bees are great fetes among the industrious maidens of +Prince Edward Island. After the spring shearings are over, the wool +washed and carded and made into rolls, there begin to circulate +invitations to spinning-bees at the different farm-houses. Each girl +carries her spinning-wheel on her shoulder. By eight o'clock in the +morning all are gathered and at work: some of them have walked ten miles +or more, and barefoot too, their shoes slung over the shoulder with the +wheel. Once arrived, they waste no time. The rolls of wool are piled +high in the corners of the rooms, and it is the ambition of each one to +spin all she can before dark. At ten o'clock cakes and lemonade are +served; at twelve, the dinner,--thick soup, roast meat, vegetables, +coffee and tea, and a pudding. All are seated at a long table, and the +hostesses serve; at six o'clock comes supper, and then the day's work is +done; after that a little chat or a ramble over the farm, and at eight +o'clock all are off for home. No young men, no games, no dances; yet the +girls look forward to the bees as their greatest spring pleasures, and +no one grudges the time or the strength they take. + +It was, indeed, a big bee that Elspie McCloud was having this June +morning. Twenty young girls, all in long white aprons, were spinning +away as if on a wager when Donald and Katie appeared at the door. The +door opened directly into the large room where they were. Katie went +first, Donald hanging back behind. "I think I'll not go in," he was +shamefacedly saying, and halting on the step, when above all the +wheel-whirring and yarn-singing came a glad cry,-- + +"Why, there's Katie--Katie McCloud! and Donald Mackintosh! For pity's +sake!" (the Prince Edward Islander's strongest ejaculation.) "Come in! +come in!" And in a second more a vision, it seemed to the dazed +Donald,--but it was not a vision at all, only a buxom young girl in a +blue homespun gown,--had seized him with one hand and Katie with the +other, and drawn them both into the room, into the general whir and +_melee_ of wheels, merry faces, and still merrier voices. + +It was Elspie, Katie's youngest sister,--Katie's special charge and care +when she was a baby, and now her special pet. The greatest desire of +Katie's heart was to have Elspie with her in Charlottetown, but the +father and mother would not consent. + +Donald stood like a man in a dream. He did not know it; but from the +moment his eyes first fell on Elspie's face they had followed it as iron +follows the magnet. Were there ever such sweet gray eyes in the world? +and such a pink and white skin? and hair yellow as gold? And what, oh, +what did she wear tucked in at the belt of her white apron but a sprig +of heather! Pink heather,--true, genuine, actual pink heather, such as +Donald had not seen for many a year. No wonder the eyes of the captain +of the "Heather Bell" followed that spray of pink heather wherever it +went flitting about from place to place, never long in one,--for it was +now time for dinner, and Donald and the old people were soon seated at a +small table by themselves, not to embarrass the young girls, and Elspie +and Katie together served the dinner; and though Elspie never once came +to the small table, yet did Donald see every motion she made and hear +every note of her lark's voice. He did not mistake what had happened to +him. Middle-aged, inexperienced, sober-souled man as he was, he knew +that at last he had got a wound,--a life wound, if it were not +healed,--and the consciousness of it struck him more and more dumb, till +his presence was like a damper on the festivities; so much so, that when +at three in the afternoon he and Katie took their departure, the door +had no more than closed on them before Elspie exclaimed pettishly: "An' +indeed I wish Katie'd left Cousin Donald behind. I don't know what it is +she thinks so much of him for. She's always sayin' there's none like +him; an' it's lucky it's true. The great glowerin' steeple o' a man, +with no word in his mouth!" And the young maidens all agreed with her. +It was a strange thing for a man to come and go like that, with nothing +to say for himself, they said, and he so handsome too. + +"Handsome!" cried Elspie; "is it handsome,--the face all a spatter with +the color of the hair? He's nice eyes of his own, but his skin's +deesgustin'." Which speech, if Donald had overheard it, would have +caused that there should never have been this story to tell. But luckily +Donald did not. All that he bore away from the McCloud farm-house that +June morning was a picture of a face and flitting figure, and the sound +in his ears of a voice,--a picture and a sound which he was destined to +see and hear all his life. + +He scarcely spoke on his way back to the boat, and Katie perplexed +herself vainly trying to account for his silence. It must be, she +thought, that he had been vexed by the sight of so many girls and the +sound of their idle chatter. He would have liked it better if nobody but +the family had been at home. What a shame for a man to live alone as he +did, and get into such unsocial ways! He grew more and more averse to +society each year. Now, if he were only married, and had a bright home, +where people came and went, with a bit of a tea now and then, how good +it would be for him,--take the stiffness out of his ways, and make him +more as he used to be fifteen, or even ten years ago! And so the good +Katie went on in her placid mind, trotting along silently by his side, +waiting for him to speak. + +"Where did she get the heather?" + +"What!" exclaimed Katie. The irrelevant question sounded like the speech +of one talking in his sleep. "Oh," she continued, "ye mean Elspie!" + +"Ay," said Donald. "She'd a bit of heather in her belt,--the true +heather, not sticks like yon," pointing a contemptuous finger toward +Katie's bonnet. "Where did she get it?" + +"Mother's always the heather growing in the house," answered Katie. "She +says she's homesick unless she sees it. It was grandmother brought it +over in the first, and it's never been let die out." + +"My mother the same," said Donald. "It's the first blossom I remember, +an' I'm thinking it will be the last," he continued, gazing at Katie +absently; but his face did not look as if it were absently he gazed. +There was a glow on his cheeks, and an intense expression in his eyes +which Katie had never seen there. They warmed her heart. + +"Yes," she said, "one can never forget what one has loved in the youth." + +"True, Katie, true. There's nothing like one's own and earliest," +replied Donald, full of his new and thrilling emotion; and as he said it +he reached out his hand and took hold of Katie's, as if they were boy +and girl together. "Many's the time I've raced wi' ye this way, Katie," +he said affectionately. + +"Ay, when I was a wee thing; an' ye always let go my hand at last, and +pretended I could outrin ye," laughed Katie, blissful tears filling her +eyes. + +What a happy day was this! Had it not been an inspiration to bring +Donald back to the old farm-house? Katie was sure it had. She was filled +with sweet reveries; and so silent on the way home that her merry +friends joked her unmercifully about her long walk inland with the +Captain. + +It was late in the night, or rather it was early the next morning, when +the "Heather Bell" reached her wharf. + +"I'll go up with ye, Katie," said Donald. "It's not decent for ye to go +alone." + +And when he bade her good-night he looked half-wistfully in her face, +and said: "But it's a lonely house for ye to come to, Katie, an' not a +soul but yourself in it." And he held her hand in his affectionately, as +a cousin might. + +Katie's heart beat like a hammer in her bosom at these words, but she +answered gravely: "Yes, it was sorely lonely at first, an' I wearied +myself out to get them to give me Elspie to learn the business wi' me; +but I'm more used to it now." + +"That is what I was thinkin'," said Donald, "that if the two o' ye were +here together, ye'd not be so lonely. Would she not like to come?" + +"Ay, that would she," replied the unconscious Katie; "she pines to be +with me. I'm more her mother than the mother herself; but they'll never +consent." + +"She's bonny," said Donald. I'd not seen her since she was little." + +"She's as good as she is bonny," said Katie, warmly; and that was the +last word between Katie and Donald that night. + +"As good as she is bonny." It rang in Donald's ears like a refrain of +heavenly music as he strode away. "As good as she is bonny;" and how +good must that be? She could not be as good as she was bonny, for she +was the bonniest lass that ever drew breath. Gray eyes and golden hair +and pink cheeks and pink heather all mingled in Donald's dreams that +night in fantastic and impossible combinations; and more than once he +waked in terror, with the sweat standing on his forehead from some +nightmare fancy of danger to the "Heather Bell" and to Elspie, both +being inextricably entangled together in his vision. + +The visions did not fade with the day. They pursued Donald, and haunted +his down-sitting and his uprising. He tried to shake them off, drive +them away; for when he came to think the thing over soberly, he called +himself an old fool to be thus going daft about a child like Elspie. + +"Barely twenty at the most, and me forty. She'd not look at an old +fellow like me, and maybe't would be like a sin if she did," said Donald +to himself over and over again. But it did no good. "As good as she is +bonny, bonny, bonny," rang in his ears, and the blue eyes and golden +hair and merry smile floated before his eyes. There was no help for it. +Since the world began there have been but two roads out of this sort of +mystic maze in which Donald now found himself lost,--but two roads, one +bright with joy, one dark with sorrow. And which road should it be +Donald's fate to travel must be for the child Elspie to say. After a few +days of bootless striving with himself, during which time he had spent +more hours with Katie than he had for a year before,--it was such a +comfort to him to see in her face the subtle likeness to Elspie, and to +hear her talk about plans of bringing her to Charlottetown for a visit +if nothing more,--after a few days of this, Captain Donald, one Saturday +afternoon, sailing past Orwell Head, suddenly ran into the inlet where +he had taken the picnic party, and, mooring the "Heather Bell" at Spruce +Wharf, announced to his astonished mate that he should lie by there till +Monday. + +It was a bold step of Captain Donald's. But he was not a man for +half-and-half ways in anything; and he had said grimly to himself that +this matter must be ended one way or the other,--either he would win the +child or lose her. He would know which. Girls had loved men twenty years +older than themselves, and girls might again. + +The Sunday passed off better than his utmost hopes. Everybody except +Elspie was cordially glad to see him. Visitors were not so common at the +Orwell Head farm-houses that they could fail of welcome. The McCloud +boys were thankful to hear all that Donald had to tell, and with the old +father and mother he had always been a prime favorite. It had been a +sore disappointment to them, as year after year went by, to see that +there seemed no likelihood of his becoming Katie's husband. As the day +wore on, even Elspie relaxed a little from her indifferent attention to +him, and began to perceive that, spite of the odious freckles, he was, +as the girls had said, a handsome man. + +Partly because of this, and partly from innate coquetry, she said, when +he was taking leave, "Ye'll not be comin' again for another year, +maybe?" + +"Ye'll see, then!" laughed Donald, with a sudden wise impulse to refrain +from giving the reply which sprang to his lips,--"To-morrow, if ye'd ask +me!" + +And from the same wise, strangely wise impulse he curbed his desire to +go again the next Sunday and the next. Not until three weeks had passed +did he go; and then Elspie was clearly and unmistakably glad to see him. +This was all Donald wanted. "I'll win her, the bonny thing!" he said to +himself. "An' I'll not be long, either." + +And he was right. A girl would have been hard indeed that would not +have been touched by the beaming, tender face which Donald wore, now +that hope lighted it up. His masterful bearing, too, was a pleasure to +the spirited Elspie, who had no liking for milksops, and had sent off +more than one lover because he came crawling too humbly to her feet. +Elspie had none of the gentle, quiet blood which ran in Katie's veins. +She had even been called Firebrand in her younger, childish days, so hot +was her temper, so hasty her tongue. But the firm rule of the Scottish +household and the pressure of the stern Scotch Calvinism preached in +their kirk had brought her well under her own control. + +"Eh, but the bonny lass has hersel' well in hand," thought the admiring +Donald more than once, as he saw her in some family discussion or +controversy keep silence, with flushing cheeks, when sharp words rose to +her tongue. + +All this time Katie was plodding away at her millinery, inexpressibly +cheered by Donald's new friendliness. He came often to see her, and told +her with the greatest frankness of his visits at the farm. He would take +her some day, he said; the trouble was, he could never be sure +beforehand when it would answer for him to stop there. Katie sunned +herself in this new familiar intercourse, and the thought of Donald +running up to the old farm of a Sunday as if he were one of the brothers +going home. In the contentment of these thoughts she grew younger and +prettier,--began to look as she did at twenty. And Donald, gazing +scrutinizingly in her face one day, seeking, as he was always doing, for +stray glimpses of resemblance to Elspie, saw this change, and +impulsively told her of it. + +"But ye're growin' young, Katie--d'ye know it?--young and bonny, my +girl." + +And Katie listened to the words with such sweet joy she feared her face +would tell too much, and put up her hands to hide it, crying: "Ah, ye're +tryin' to make me silly, you Donald, with such flatterin'. We're gettin' +old, Donald, you an' me," she added, with a guilty little undercurrent +of thought in her mind. "D'ye mind that I was thirty last month?" + +"Ay," replied Donald, gloomily, his face darkening,--"ay; I mind, by the +same token, I'm forty. It's no need ye have to be callin' yersel' old. +But I'm old, an' no mistake." The thought, as Katie had put it, had been +gall and wormwood to him. If Katie thought him old, what must he seem to +Elspie! + +It was early in June that Elspie had had the spinning-bee to which Katie +had brought the unwelcome Donald. The summer sped past, but a faster +summer than any reckoned on the calendar of months and days was speeding +in Elspie's heart. Such great love as Donald's reaches and warms its +object as inevitably as the heat of a fire warms those near it. Early in +June the spinning-bee, and before the last flax was pulled, early in +September, Elspie knew that she was restless till Donald came, glad when +he was by her side, and strangely sorry when he went away. Still, she +was not ready to admit to herself that it was anything more than her +natural liking for any pleasant friend who broke in on the lonely +monotony of the farm life. + +The final drying of the flax, which is an important crop on most of the +Prince Edward Island farms, is put off until autumn. After its first +drying in the fields where it grew, it is stored in bundles under cover +till all the other summer work is done, and autumn brings leisure. Then +the flax camp, as it is called, is built,--a big house of spruce boughs; +walls, flat roof, all of the green spruce boughs, thick enough to keep +out rain. This is usually in the heart of a spruce grove. Thither the +bundles of flax are carried and stacked in piles. In the centre of the +inclosure a slow fire is lighted, and above this on a frame of slats the +stalks of flax are laid for their last drying. It is a difficult and +dangerous process to keep the fire hot enough and not too hot, to shift +and turn and lift the flax at the right moment. Sometimes only a sudden +flinging of moist earth upon the fire saves it from blazing up into the +flax, and sometimes one careless second's oversight loses the +whole,--flax, spruce-bough house, all, in a light blaze, and gone in a +breath. + +The McClouds' flax camp had been built in the edge of the spruce grove +where the picnickers had held their dance and merry-making on that June +day, memorable to Donald and Elspie and Katie. It was well filled with +flax, in the drying of which nobody was more interested than Elspie. She +had big schemes for spinning and weaving in the coming winter. A whole +piece of linen she had promised to Katie, and a piece for herself, and, +as Elspie thought it over, maybe a good many more pieces than one she +might require for herself before spring. Who knew? + +It was October now, and many a Sunday evening had Elspie walked with +Donald alone down to Spruce Wharf, and lingered there watching the last +curl of steam from the "Heather Bell" as she rounded the point, bearing +Donald away. Elspie could not doubt why Donald came. Soon she would +wonder why he came and went so many times silent; that is, silent in +words, eloquent of eye and hand,--even the touch of his hand was like a +promise. + +No one was defter and more successful in this handling of the flax over +the fire than Elspie. It had sometimes happened that she, with the help +of one brother, had dried the whole crop. It was not thought safe for +one person to work at it alone for fear of accident with the fire. But +it fell out on this October afternoon, a Saturday, that Elspie, feeling +sure of Donald's being on his way to spend the Sunday with her, had +walked down to the wharf to meet him. Seeing no signs of the boat, she +went back to the flax camp, lighted the fire, and began to spread the +flax on the slats. There was not much more left to be dried,--"not more +than three hours' work in all," she said to herself. "Eh, but I'd like +to have done with it before the Sabbath!" And she fell to work with a +will, so briskly to work that she did not realize how time was +flying,--did not, strangest of all, hear the letting off of steam when +the "Heather Bell" moored at the wharf; and she was still busily turning +and lifting and separating the stalks of flax, bending low over the +frame, heated, hurrying, her whole heart in her work, when Donald came +striding up the field from the wharf,--striding at his greatest pace, +for he was disturbed at not finding Elspie at the landing to meet him. +He turned his head toward the spruce grove, thinking vaguely of the June +picnic, and what had come of his walking away from the dance that +morning, when suddenly a great column of smoke and fire rolled up from +the grove, and in the same second came piercing shrieks in Elspie's +voice. The grove was only a few rods away, but it seemed to Donald an +eternity before he reached the spot, to see not only the spruce boughs +and flax on fire, but Elspie tossing up her arms like one crazed, her +gown all ablaze. The brave, foolish girl, at the first blazing of the +stalks on the slats, had darted into the corner of the house and +snatched an armful of the piled flax there to save it; but as she passed +the flaming centre the whole sheaf she carried had caught fire also, and +in a twinkling of an eye had blazed up around her head, and when she +dropped it, had blazed up again fiercer than ever around her feet. + +With a groan Donald seized her. The flames leaped on him, too, as if to +wrestle with him; his brown beard crackled, his hair, but he fought +through it all. Throwing Elspie on the ground, he rolled her over and +over, crying aloud, "Oh, my darlin', if I break your sweet bones, it is +better than the fire!" And indeed it seemed as if it must break her +bones, so fiercely he rolled her over and over, tearing off his woollen +coat to smother the fire; beating it with his tartan cap, stamping it +with his knees and feet "Oh, my darlin'! make yourself easy. I'll save +ye! I'll save ye if I die for it," he cried. + +And through the smoke and the fire and the terror Elspie answered back: +"I'll not leave ye, my Donald. We're gettin' it under." And with her own +scorched hands she pulled the coat-flaps down over the smouldering bits +of flax, and tore off her burning garments. + +Not a coward thread in her whole body had little Elspie, and in less +time than the story could ever be told, all was over, and safely; and +there they sat on the ground, the two, locked in each other's +arms,--Donald's beard gone, and much of his hair; Elspie's pretty golden +hair also blackened, burned. It was the first thing Donald saw after he +made sure danger was past. Laying his hand on her head, he said, with a +half-sob,--he was hysterical now there was nothing more to be done: "Oh, +your bonny hair, my darlin'! It's all scorched away." + +"It'll grow!" said Elspie, looking up in his eyes archly. Her head was +on his shoulder, and she nestled closer; then she burst into tears and +laughter together, crying: "Oh, Donald, it was for you I was callin'. +Did ye hear me? I said to myself when the fire took hold, 'O God, send +Donald to save me!'" + +"An' he sent me, my darlin'," answered Donald. "Ye are my own darlin'; +say it, Elspie, say it!" he continued. "Oh, ye bonny bairn, but I've +loved ye like death since the first day I set eyes on your bonny face! +Say ye're my darlin'!" + +But he knew it without her saying a word; and the whispered "Yes, +Donald, I'm your darlin' if you want me," did not make him any surer. + +There was a great outcrying and trembling of hearts at the farm-house +when Donald and Elspie appeared in this sorry plight of torn and burned +clothes, blackened faces, scorched and singed hair. But thankfulness +soon swept away all other emotions,--thankfulness and a great joy, too; +for Donald's second word was, turning to the old father: "An' it is my +own that I've saved; she's gien hersel' to me for all time, an' we'll +ask for your blessin' on us without any waitin'!" Tears filled the +mother's eyes. She thought of another daughter. A dire instinct smote +her of woe to Katie. + +"Ay, Donald," she said, "it's a good day to us to see ye enter the +house as a son; but I never thought o'--" She stopped. + +Donald's quick consciousness imagined part of what she had on her mind. +"No," he said, half sad in the midst of his joy, "o' course ye didn't; +an' I wonder at mysel'. It's like winter weddin' wi' spring, ye'll be +sayin'. But I'll keep young for her sake. Ye'll see she's no old man for +a husband. There's nothing in a' the world I'll not do for the bairn. +It's no light love I bear her." + +"Ye'll be tellin' Katie on the morrow?" said the unconscious Elspie. + +"Ay, ay," replied the equally unconscious Donald; "an' she'll be main +glad o' 't. It's a hundred times in the summer that she's been sayin' +how she longed to have you in the town wi' her. An' now ye're comin', +comin' soon, oh, my bonny. I'll make a good home for ye both. Katie's +the same's my own, too, for always." + +The mother gazed earnestly at Donald. Could it be that he was so unaware +of Katie's heart? "Donald," she said suddenly, "I'll go down wi' ye if +ye'll take me. I've been wantin' to go. There's a many things I've to +do in the town." + +It had suddenly occurred to her that she might thus save Katie the shock +of hearing the news first from Donald's lips. + +It was well she did. When, with stammering lips and she hardly knew in +what words, she finally broke it to Katie that Donald had asked Elspie +to be his wife, and that Elspie loved him, and they would soon be +married, Katie stared into her face for a moment with wide, vacant eyes, +as if paralyzed by some vision of terror. Then, turning white, she +gasped out, "Mother!" No word more. None was necessary. + +"Ay, my bairn, I know," said the mother, with a trembling voice; "an' I +came mysel' that no other should tell ye." + +A long silence followed, broken only by an occasional shuddering sigh +from Katie; not a tear in her eyes, and her cheeks as scarlet as they +had been white a few moments before. The look on her face was +terrifying. + +"Will it kill ye, bairn?" sobbed the mother at last. "Don't look so. It +must be borne, my bairn; it must be borne." + +It was a shrill voice, unlike Katie's, which replied: "Ay, I'll bear +it; it must be borne. There's none knows it but you, mother," she added, +with a shade of relief in the tone. + +"An' never will if ye're brave, bairn," answered the mother. + +"It was the day of the picnic," cried Katie; "was't not? I remember he +said she was bonny." + +"Ay, 'twas then," replied the mother, so sorely torn between her love +for the two daughters, between whom had fallen this terrible sword. "Ay, +it was then. He says she has not been out of his mind by the night or by +the day since it." + +Katie shivered. "And it was I brought him," she said, with a tearless +sob bitterer than any loud weeping. "Ye'll be goin' back the night?" she +added drearily. + +"I'll bide if ye want me," said the mother. + +"I'm better alone, mother," said Katie, her voice for the first time +faltering. "I'll bear it. Never fear me, mother; but I'm best alone for +a bit. Ye'll give my warm love to Elspie, an' send her down here to me +to stay till she's married. I'll help her best if she's here. There'll +be much to be done. I'll do 't, mother; never fear me." + +"Are ye countin' too much on yer strength, bairn?" asked the now weeping +mother. "I'd rather see ye give way like." + +"No, no," cried Katie, impatiently. "Each one has his own way, mother; +let me have mine. I'll work for Donald and Elspie all I can. Ye know she +was always like my own bairn more than a sister. The quicker she comes +the better for me, mother. It'll be all over then. Eh, but she'll be a +bonny bride!" And at these words Katie's tears at last flowed. + +"There, there, bairn! Have out the tears; they're healin' to grief," +exclaimed her mother, folding her arms tight around her and drawing her +head down on her shoulder as she had done in her babyhood. + +Katie was right. When she had Elspie by her side, and was busily at work +in helping on all the preparations for the wedding, the worst was over. +There was a strange blending of pang and pleasure in the work. Katie +wondered at herself; but it grew clearer and clearer to her each day +that since Donald could not be hers she was glad he was Elspie's. "If +he'd married a stranger it would ha' broke my heart far worse, far +worse," she said many a time to herself as she sat patiently stitching, +stitching, on Elspie's bridal clothes. "He's my own in a way, after a', +so long's he's my brother. There's nobody can rob me o' that." And the +sweet light of unselfish devotion beamed more and more in her +countenance, till even the mother that bore her was deceived, and said +in her heart that Katie could not have been so very much in love with +Donald after all. + +There was one incident which for a few moments sorely tested Katie's +self-control. The spray of white heather blossom which she had worn to +the June picnic she had on the next day put back in her box of flowers +for sale, hoping that she might yet find a customer for it. The delicate +bells were not injured either in shape or color. It was a shame to lose +it for one day's wear, thought the thrifty Katie; and most surely she +herself would never wear it again. She could not even see it without a +flush of mortification as she recalled Donald's contempt for it. The +privileged Elspie, rummaging among all Katie's stores, old and new, +spied this white heather cluster one day, and snatching it up exclaimed: +"The very thing for my weddin' bonnet, Katie! I'll have it in. The bride +o' the master o' the 'Heather Bell' should be wed with the heather bloom +on her." + +Katie's face flushed. "It's been worn, Elspie," she said; "I had it in a +bonnet o' my own. Don't ye remember I wore it to the picnic? an' then it +didna suit, an' I put it back in the box. It's not fit for ye. I've a +bunch o' lilies o' the valley, better." + +"No; I'll have this," pursued Elspie. "It's as white's the driven snow, +an' not hurt at all. I'm sure Donald'll like it better than all the +other flowers i' the town." + +"Indeed, then, he won't," said Katie, sharply; on which Elspie turned +upon her with a flashing eye, and said,-- + +"An' which 'll be knowin' best, do ye think? What is it ye mean?" + +"Nothing," said Katie, meekly; "only he said, that day I'd the bonnet +on, it was no more than sticks, an' not like the true heather at all." + +"All he knows, then! Ye'll see he'll not say it looks like sticks when +it's on the bonnet I'm goin' to church in," retorted Elspie, dancing to +the looking-glass, and holding the white heather bells high up against +her golden curls. "It's the only flower in all yer boxes I want, Katie, +and ye'll not grudge it to me, will ye, dear?" And the sparkling Elspie +threw herself on the floor by Katie, and flung her arms across her +knees, looking up into her face with a wilful, loving smile. + +"No wonder Donald loves her so,--the bonny thing!" thought Katie. "God +knows I'd grudge ye nothing on earth, Elspie," she said, in a voice so +earnest that Elspie looked wonderingly at her. + +"Is it a very dear flower, sister?" she said penitently. "Does it cost +too much money for Elspie?" + +"No, bairn, it's not too dear," said Katie, herself again. "The lilies +were dearer. But ye'll have the heather an' welcome, if ye will; an' I +doubt not it'll look all right in Donald's eyes when he sees it this +time." + +It was indeed a good home that Donald made for his wife and her sister. +He was better to do in worldly goods than they had supposed. His long +years of seclusion from society had been years of thrift and prosperity. +No more milliner-work for Katie. Donald would not hear of it. So she was +driven to busy herself with the house, keeping from Elspie's willing and +eager hands all the harder tasks, and laying up stores of fine-spun +linen and wool for future use in the family. It was a marvel how content +Katie found herself as the winter flew by. The wedding had taken place +at Christmas, and the two sisters and Donald had gone together from the +church to Donald's new house, where, in a day or two, everything had +settled into peaceful grooves of simple, industrious habit, as if they +had been there all their lives. + +Donald's happiness was of the deep and silent kind. Elspie did not +realize the extent of it. A freer-spoken, more demonstrative lover would +have found heartier response and more appreciation from her. But she was +a loyal, loving, contented little wife, and there could not have been +found in all Charlottetown a happier household, to the eye, than was +Donald's for the first three months after his marriage. + +Then a cloud settled on it. For some inexplicable reason the blooming +Elspie, who had never had a day's illness in her life, drooped in the +first approach of the burden of motherhood. A strange presentiment also +seized her. After the first brief gladness at the thought of holding a +child of her own in her arms, she became overwhelmed with a melancholy +certainty of her own death. + +"I'll never live to see it, Katie," she said again and again. "It'll be +your bairn, an' not mine. Ye'll never give it up, Katie?--promise me. +Ye'll take care of it all your life?--promise." And Katie, terrified by +her earnestness, promised everything she asked, all the while striving +to reassure her that her fears were needless. + +No medicines did Elspie good; mind and body alike reacted on each other; +she failed hour by hour till the last; and when her time of trial came, +the sad presentiment fulfilled itself, and she died in giving birth to +her babe. + +When Katie brought the child to the stunned and stricken Donald, +saying, "Will ye not look at him, Donald? it is as fine a man-child's +was ever seen," he pushed her away, saying in a hoarse whisper,-- + +"Never let me see its face. She said it was to be your bairn and not +hers. Take it and go. I'll never look on it." + +Donald was out of his reason when he spoke these words, and for long +after. They bore with him tenderly and patiently, and did as they could +for the best; Katie, the wan and grief-stricken Katie, being the chief +adviser and planner of all. + +Elspie's body was carried home and buried near the spruce grove, in a +little copse of young spruces which Donald pointed out. This was the +only wish he expressed about anything. Katie took the baby with her to +the old homestead. She dared not try to rear it without her mothers +help. + +It was many months before Donald came to the farm. This seemed strange +to all except Katie. To her it seemed the most natural thing, and she +grew impatient with all who thought otherwise. + +"I'd feel that way mysel'," she repeated again and again. "He'll come +when he can, but it'll be long first. Ye none of ye know what a love it +was he'd in his heart for Elspie." + +When at last Donald came, the child, the little Donald, was just able to +creep,--a chubby, blue-eyed, golden-haired little creature, already +bearing the stamp and likeness of his mother's beauty. + +At the first sight of his face Donald staggered, buried his head in his +hands, and turned away. Then, looking again, he stretched out his arms, +took the baby in them, and kissed him convulsively over and over. Katie +stood by, looking on, silently weeping. "He's like her," she said. + +"Ay," said Donald. + +The healing had begun. "A little child shall lead them," is of all the +Bible prophecies the one oftenest fulfilled. It soon grew to be Donald's +chiefest pleasure to be with his boy, and he found more and more irksome +the bonds of business which permitted him so few intervals of leisure to +visit the farm. At last one day he said to Katie,-- + +"Katie, couldn't ye make your mind up to come up to Charlottetown? I'd +get ye a good house, an' ye could have who ye'd like to live wi' ye. I'm +like one hungry all the time I'm out o' reach o' the little lad." + +Katie's eyes fell. She did not know what to reply. + +"I do not know, Donald," she faltered. "It's hard for you having him +away, but this is my home now, Donald. I've a dread o' leavin' it. And +there is nobody I know who could come to live with me." + +A strange thought shot through Donald's brain. "Katie," he said, then +paused. Something in the tone startled Katie. She lifted her eyes; read +in his the thought which had made the tone so significant to her ear. + +Unconsciously she cried out at the sight, "Oh, Donald!" + +"Ay, Katie," he said slowly, with a grave tenderness, "why might not I +come and live wi' ye? Are ye not the mother o' my child? Did she not +give him to ye with her own lips? An' how could ye have him without me? +I think she must ha' meant it so. Let me come, Katie." + +It was an unimpassioned wooing; but any other would have repelled +Katie's sense of loyalty and truth. + +"Have ye love for me, Donald?" she said searchingly. + +"All the love left in me is for the little lad and for you, Katie," +answered Donald. "I'll not deceive you, Katie. It's but a broken man I +am; but I've always loved ye, Katie. I'll be a good man t' ye, lass. +Come and be the little lad's mother, and let me live wi' my own once +more. Will ye come?" As he said these words, he stretched out his arms +toward Katie; and she, trembling, afraid to be glad, shadowed by the sad +past, yet trusting in the future, crept into them, and was folded close +to the heart she had so faithfully loved all her life. + +"I promised Elspie," she whispered, "that I'd never, never give him to +another." + +"Ay," said Donald, as he kissed her. "He's your bairn, my Katie. Ye'll +be content wi' me, Katie?" + +"Yes, Donald, if I make you content," she replied; and a look of +heavenly peace spread over her face. + +The next morning Katie went alone to Elspie's grave. It seemed to her +that only there could she venture to look her new future in the face. As +she knelt by the low mound, her tears falling fast, she murmured,-- + +"Eh, my bonny Elspie, ye'd the best o' his love. But it's me that'll be +doin' for him till I die, an' that's better than a' the love." + + + + +Dandy Steve. + + + +Everything in this world is relative, and nothing more so than the +significance of the same word in different localities. If Dandy Steve +had walked Broadway in the same clothes which he habitually wore in the +Adirondack wilderness, not only would nobody have called him a dandy, +but every one would have smiled sarcastically at the suggestion of that +epithet's being applied to him. Nevertheless, "Dandy Steve" was the name +by which he was familiarly known all through the Saranac region; and +judging by the wilderness standard, the adjective was not undeserved. No +such flannel shirts, no such jaunty felt hats, no such neckties, had +ever been worn by Adirondack guides as Dandy Steve habitually wore. And +as for his buck-skin trousers, they would not have disgraced a Sioux +chief,--always of the softest and yellowest skins, always daintily made, +the seams set full of leather fringes, and sometimes marked by lines of +delicate embroidery in white quills. There were those who said that +Dandy Steve had an Indian wife somewhere on the Upper Saranac, but +nobody knew; and it would have been a bold man who asked an intrusive +question of Dandy Steve, or ventured on any impertinent jesting about +his private affairs. Certain it was that none but Indian hands +embroidered the fine buckskins he wore; but, then, there were such +buckskins for sale,--perhaps he bought them. A man who would spend the +money he did for neckties and fine flannel shirts would not stop at any +extravagance in the price of trousers. The buckskins, however, were not +the only evidence in this case. There was a well-authenticated tale of a +brilliant red shawl--a woman's shawl--and a pair of silver bangles once +seen in Dandy Steve's cabin. A man had gone in upon him suddenly one +evening without the formality of knocking. Such foolish +conventionalities were not in vogue on the Saranac; this was before +Steve took to guiding. It was in the first year after he appeared in +that region, while he was living like a hermit alone, or supposed to be +alone, in a tiny log cabin on an island not much bigger than his cabin. + +This man--old Ben, the oldest guide there--having been hindered at some +of the portages, and finding himself too late to reach his destination +that night, seeing the glimmer of light from Steve's cabin, had rowed to +the island, landed, and, with the thoughtless freedom of the country, +walked in at the half-open door. + +He was fond of telling the story of his reception; and as he told it, it +had a suspicious sound, and no mistake. Steve was sitting in a big +arm-chair before his table; over the arm of the chair was flung the red +shawl. On the table lay an open book and the silver bangles in it, as if +some one had just thrown them off. At sound of entering footsteps Steve +sprang up, with an angry oath, and hastily closing the book threw it and +the bangles into the chair from which he had risen, then crowded the +shawl down upon them into as small a compass as possible. + +"His eyes blazed like lightnin', or sharper," said old Ben, "an' I +declare t' ye I was skeered. Fur a minut I thought he was a loonatic, +sure's death. But in a minut more he was all right, an' there couldn't +nobody treat a feller handsomer than he did me that night an' the next +mornin'; but I took notice that the fust thing he done was to heave a +big blanket kind o' careless like into the chair, an' cover the things +clean up; an' then in a little while he says, a-sweepin' the whole +bundle up in his arms, 'I'll just clear up this little mess, an' give ye +a comfortable chair to sit in;' an' he carried it all--blanket, book, +bracelets, shawl, an' all--into the next room, an' throwed 'em on the +floor in a pile in one corner. There wa'n't but them two rooms to the +cabin, so that wa'n't any place for her to be hid, if so be 's there was +any woman 'round; an' he said he was livin' alone, an' had been ever +since he come. An' it was nigh a year then since he come, so I never +know'd what to make on 't, an' I don't suppose there's anybody doos know +any more 'n I do; but if them wa'n't women's gear he had out there that +night I hain't never seen any women's gear, that's all! Whose'omeever +they was, I hain't no idea, nor how they got there; but they was women's +gear. Dandy's Steve is he couldn't ha' had any use for sech a shawl's +that, let alone sayin' what he'd wanted o' bracelets on his arms!" + +"That's so," was the universal ejaculation of Ben's audience when he +reached this point in his narrative, and there seemed to be little more +to be said on either side. This was all there was of the story. It must +stand in each man's mind for what it was worth, according to his +individual bias of interpretation. But it had become an old story long +before the time at which our later narrative of Dandy Steve's history +began; so old, in fact, that it had not been mentioned for years, until +the events now about to be chronicled revived it in the minds of Steve's +associates and fellow-guides. + +Before the end of Steve's first year in his wilderness retreat he had +become as conversant with every nook and corner of its labyrinthian +recesses as the oldest guides in the region. Not a portage, not a short +cut unfamiliar to him; not a narrow winding brook wide enough for a +canoe to float in that he did not know. He had spent all his days and +many of his nights in these solitary wanderings. Visitors to the region +grew wonted to the sight of the comely figure in the slight birch canoe, +shooting suddenly athwart their track, or found lying idly in some dark +and shaded stream-bed. On the approach of strangers he would instantly +away, lifting his hat courteously if there were ladies in the boats he +passed, otherwise taking no more note of the presence of human beings +than of that of the deer, or the wild fowl on the water. He was not a +handsome man, but there was a something in his face at which all looked +twice,--men as well as women. It was an unfathomable look,--partly of +pain, partly of antagonism. His eyes habitually sought the sky, yet they +did not seem to perceive what they gazed upon; it was as if they would +pierce beyond it. + +"What a strange face!" was a common ejaculation on the part of those +thus catching glimpses of his upturned countenance. More than once +efforts were made by hunters who encountered him to form his +acquaintance; but they were always courteously repelled. Finally he +came to be spoken of as the "hermit;" and it was with astonishment, +almost incredulity, that, in the spring of his third year in the +Adirondacks, he was found at "Paul Smith's" offering his services as +guide to a party of gentlemen who, their guide having fallen suddenly +ill, were in sore straits for some one to take them down again through +the lakes. + +Whether it was that he had grown suddenly weary of his isolation and +solitude, or whether need had driven him to this means of earning money, +no one knew, and he did not say. But once having entered on the life of +a guide, he threw himself into it as heartily as if it had been his +life-long avocation, and speedily became one of the best guides in the +region. It was observed, however, that whenever he could do so he +avoided taking parties in which there were ladies. Sometimes for a whole +season it would happen that he had not once been seen in charge of such +a party. Sometimes, when it was difficult, in fact impossible, for him +to assign any reason for refusing to go with parties containing members +of the obnoxious sex, he would at the last moment privately entreat some +other guide to take his place, and, voluntarily relinquishing all the +profits of the engagement, disappear and be lost for several days. +During these absences it was often said, "Steve's gone to see his wife," +or, "Off with that Indian wife o' his up North;" and these vague, idle, +gossiping conjectures slowly crystallized into a positive rumor which no +one could either trace or gainsay. + +And so the years went on,--one, two, three, four,--and Dandy Steve had +become one of the most popular and best-known guides in the Adirondack +country. His seeming effeminacy of attire had been long proved to mark +no effeminacy of nature, no lack of strength. There was not a better +shot, a stronger rower, on the list of summer guides; nor a better cook +and provider. Every party which went out under his care returned with +warm praise for Steve, with a friendly feeling also, which would in many +instances have warmed into familiar acquaintance if Steve would have +permitted it. But with all his cheerfulness and obliging good-will he +never lost a certain quantity of reserve. Even the men whose servant he +was for the time being were insensibly constrained to respect this, and +to keep the distance he, not they, determined. There remained always +something they could not, as the phrase was, "make out" about him. His +aversion to women was well known; so much so that it had come to be a +tacitly understood thing that parties of which women were members need +not waste their time trying to induce Dandy Steve to take them in +charge. + +But fate had not lost sight of Steve yet. He had had his period of +solitary independence, of apparent absolute control of his own +destinies. His seven years were up. If he had supposed that he was +serving them, like Jacob of old, for that best-beloved mistress, +Freedom, he was mistaken. The seven years were up. How little he dreamed +what the eighth would bring him! + +It was midsummer, and one of Steve's best patrons, Richard Cravath, of +Philadelphia, had not yet appeared. For three summers Mr. Cravath and +two or three of his friends had spent a month in the Adirondacks +hunting, fishing, camping under Steve's guidance. They were all rich +men, and generous, and, what was to Steve of far more worth than the +liberal pay, considerate of his feelings, tolerant of his reticence; not +a man of them but respected their queer, silent guide's individuality as +much as if he had been a man of their own sphere of life. Steve had +learned, by some unpleasant experience, that this delicate consideration +did not always obtain between employers and employed. It takes an +organization finer than the ordinary to perceive, and live up to the +perception, that the fact that you have hired a man for a certain sum of +money per month to cook your food or drive your horses gives you no +right to ask him in regard to his private, personal affairs prying +questions which you would not dare to put to common acquaintances in +society. + +As week after week went by and no news came from Mr. Cravath, Steve +found himself really saddened at the thought of not seeing him. He had +not realized how large a part of his summer's pleasure, as well as +profit, came from the month's sport with this Philadelphia party. +Wistfully he scrutinized the lists of arrivals at the different houses +day after day, for the familiar names; but they were not to be found. At +last, after he had given over looking for them, he was electrified, one +evening in September, by having his name called from the piazza of one +of the hotels,--"Steve, is that you? You're just the man I want; I was +afraid we were too late to get you!" + +It was Mr. Cravath, and with him the two friends whom Steve had liked +best of all who had been in Mr. Cravath's parties. It was the joy of the +sudden surprise which prevented Steve's giving his customary close +attention to Mr. Cravath's somewhat vague description of the party he +had brought this time. + +"You must arrange for eight, Steve," he said. "There may not be quite so +many. One or two of the fellows I hoped for have not arrived, and it is +too late to wait long for any one. If they are not here by day after +to-morrow we will start.--And oh, Steve," he continued, with an affected +careless ease, but all the while eying Steve's face anxiously, "I +forgot to mention that I have brought my wife along this time. She +positively refused to let me off. She said she was tired of hearing so +much about the Adirondacks! She was coming this time to see for herself. +You needn't have the least fear about having her along! She's as good a +traveller as I am, every bit; I've had her in training at it for thirty +years, and I tell her, old as we are, we are better campers than most of +the young people." + +"That's so, Mr. Cravath," replied Steve, his countenance clouded and his +voice less joyous, "I'll answer for it with you; but do you think, sir, +any lady could go where we went last year?" + +In his heart Steve was saying to himself: "The idea of bringing an old +woman out here! I wouldn't do it for anybody in the world but Mr. +Cravath." + +"My wife can go anywhere and do anything that I can, Steve," said Mr. +Cravath. "You need not begin to look blue, Steve; and if you back out, +or serve us any of your woman-hating tricks, such as I've heard of, I'll +never speak to you again,--never." + +"I wouldn't serve you any trick, Mr. Cravath, you know that," replied +Steve, proudly; "and I haven't the least idea of backing out. But I am +afraid Mrs. Cravath will be disappointed," he added, as he went down the +steps, and luckily did not turn his head to see Mr. Cravath's face +covered with the laughter he had been restraining during the last few +moments. + +"Caught him, by Jove!" he said, turning to his companion, a tall +dark-faced man,--"caught him, by Jove, Randall! He never once thought to +ask of what sex the other members of the party might be. He took it for +granted my wife was to be the only woman." + +"Do you think that was quite fair, Cravath?" replied Mr. Randall. "He +would never have taken us in the world if he had known there were three +women in the party." + +"Pshaw!" laughed Mr. Cravath. "Good enough for him for having such a +crotchet in his head. We'll take it out of him this trip." + +"Or set it stronger than ever," said Mr. Randall. "My mind misgives me. +We shall wish we had not done it. He may turn sulky and unmanageable on +our hands when he finds himself trapped." + +"I'll risk it," said Mr. Cravath, confidently. "If I can't bring him +around, Helen Wingate will. I never saw the man, woman, child, or dumb +beast yet that could resist her." + +Mr. Randall sighed. "Poor child!" he said. "Isn't her gayety something +wonderful? One would not think to look at her that she had ever had an +hour's sorrow; but my wife tells me that she cannot speak of that +husband of hers yet without the most passionate weeping!" + +"I know it! It's a shame," replied Mr. Cravath, "to see a glorious woman +like that throwing her life away on a memory. I did have a hope at one +time that she would marry again; but I've given it up. If she would have +married any one, it would have been George Walton last winter. No one +has ever come so near her as he did; but she sent him off at last, like +all the rest." + +The "two fellows" on whom Mr. Cravath was counting to make up his party +of eight did not appear; and on the second morning after the above +conversations Steve received orders to have his boats in readiness at +ten o'clock to start with the Cravath party, only six in number. + +Old Ben was on the wharf as Steve was making his final arrangements. + +"Wall, Steve," he said, shifting his quid of tobacco in a leisurely +manner from one side of his mouth to the other, "you've got a soft thing +again. You're a damned lucky fellow, Steve; dunno whether you know it or +not." + +"No, I don't know it," replied Steve, curtly; "and what's more, I don't +believe in luck." + +"Don't yer?" said Ben, reflectively. "Wall, I do; an' Lord knows 't +ain't because I've seen so much of it. Say, Steve," he added, "how'd ye +come to take on such a lot o' women folks, this trip?" + +"Lot o' women folks! what d' ye mean?" shouted Steve. "There's no +womenkind going except one,--Mr. Cravath's wife; and I wish to thunder +he'd left her behind." + +"Oh, is that all?" said Ben, half innocently, half mischievously,--he +was not quite sure of his ground; "be the rest on 'em goin' to stay +here? There's three women in the party. Mr. Randall he's got his wife, +and there's a widder along, too; mighty fine-lookin' she is; aren't +nothin' old about her, I can tell yer!" + +A flash shot from Steve's eyes. A half-smothered ejaculation came from +his lips as he turned fiercely towards Ben. + +"There they be, now, all a-comin' down the steps," continued Ben, +chuckling. "I reckon ye got took in for onst; but it's too late now." + +"Yes," thought Steve, angrily, as he looked at the smiling party coming +towards the landing,--three men and three women. + +"It's too late now. If it had been a half-hour sooner 'twould have been +early enough. But it's the last time I'm caught in any such way. What a +blamed fool I was not to ask who they were! Never thought of the Cravath +set lumbering themselves up with women!" And a very unpromising +sternness settled down on Steve's expressive features as he stooped down +to readjust some of the smaller packages in the boat. + +Meantime the members of the approaching party were not wholly at ease +in their minds. Mr. Cravath had confessed his suppression of the truth, +and Mr. Randall's evident misgiving as to the success of the experiment +had proved contagious. "If he's as queer as you say," murmured Mrs. +Cravath, "he can make it awfully disagreeable for us. I am almost afraid +to go." + +"Nonsense!" cried Helen Wingate, merrily. "I'll take that out of him +before night. Who ever heard of a man's really disliking women! It is +only some particular woman he's disliked. He won't dislike us! He +sha'n't dislike me! I'm going to take him by storm! Let me run ahead and +jump in first." And she danced on in advance of the rest. + +"Wait, Mrs. Wingate!" cried Mr. Cravath, hurrying after her. "Let me +come with you." + +But he was too late; she ran on, and as she reached the shore, sprang +lightly on the plank, calling out: "Oh, there are all our things in +already! Guide, guide, please give me your hand, quick! I want to be the +first one in the boat." + +Steve rose slowly,--turned. At the first glimpse of his face Helen +Wingate uttered a shriek which rang in the air, and fell backwards on +the sand insensible. + +"Good God! she lost her footing!" exclaimed Mr. Cravath. + +"She is killed!" cried the others, as they hurried breathlessly to the +spot. But when they reached it, there knelt Dandy Steve on the ground by +her side, his face whiter than hers, his eyes streaming with tears, his +arms around her, calling, "Helen! Helen!" + +At the sound of footsteps and voices he looked up, and, instantly +seeking Mr. Cravath's face, gasped: "She is my wife, Mr. Cravath!" + +The dumbness of unutterable astonishment fell on the whole party at +these words; but in another second, rallying from the shock; they knelt +around the seemingly lifeless woman, trying to arouse her. Presently she +opened her eyes, and, seeing Mrs. Randall's face bending above her, said +faintly: "It's Stephen! I always knew I should find him somewhere." Then +she sank away again into unconsciousness. + +The party for the lakes must be postponed; that was evident. Neither +would it go out under the guidance of Dandy Steve, nor would Mrs. +Wingate go with it; those two things were equally evident. + +Which facts, revolving slowly in Old Ben's brain, led him to seat +himself on the shore and abide the course of events. When, about noon, +Mr. Cravath appeared, coming to look after their hastily abandoned +effects, Old Ben touched his hat civilly, and said: "Good-day, sir; I +thought maybe I'd get this job o' guidin' now. Leastways, I'd stay by +yer truck here till somebody come to look it up." + +Old Ben was the guide of all others Mr. Cravath would have chosen, next +to Dandy Steve. + +"By Jove, Ben," he said, "this is luck! Can you go off with us at once? +Steve has got other business on hand. That lady is his wife, from whom +he has been separated many years." + +"So I heerd him say, sir, when he was a-pickin' her up," answered Ben, +composedly, as if such things were a daily occurrence in the +Adirondacks. + +"Can you go with us at once?" continued Mr. Cravath. + +"In an hour, sir," said Ben. + +And in an hour they were off, a bewildered but on the whole a relieved +and happier party than they had been in the morning. Helen Wingate's +long sorrow in the mysterious disappearance of her husband had ennobled +and purified her character, and greatly endeared her to her friends; but +that which had seemed to them to be explainable only by the fact of his +death or his unworthiness she knew was explainable by her own folly and +pride. + +The end of the story is best told in Old Ben's words. He was never tired +of telling it. + +"I never heered exactly the hull partikelers," he said, "for they'd gone +long before we got back, and the folks she was with wa'n't the kind that +talks much; but I could see they set a store by her. They'd always liked +Steve, too, up here's a guide. They niver know'd him while he was +a-livin' with her, else they'd ha' know'd him here; but he hadn't lived +with her but a mighty little while's near's I could make out. Yer see, +she was powerful rich, an' he hadn't but little; 'n' for all she was so +much in love with him, she couldn't help a-throwin' it up to him, sort +o', an' he couldn't stan' it. So he jest lit out; an' he'd never ha' +gone back to her,--never under the shining sun. He'd got jest that grit +in him. She'd been a-huntin' everywhere, they said,--all over Europe, +'n' Azhay, 'n' Africa, till she'd given up huntin'; an' he was right +close tu hum all the time. He was a first-rate feller, 'n' we was all +glad when his luck come ter him 't last. I wished I could ha' seen him +to 've asked him if he didn't b'leeve in luck now! Me 'n' him was +talkin' about luck that very mornin' while she was a-steppin' down the +landin' towards him's fast 's ever she could go! My eyes! how that woman +did come a runnin', an' a-callin', 'Guide! guide!' I sha'n't never +forgit it. I asked some o' the fellers how she looked when they went +off, an' they said her eyes was shinin' like stars; but there wasn't any +more of her face to be seen, for she was rolled up in a big red shawl, +It gits hoppin' cold here in September. I've always thought't was that +same red shawl he had in his cabin; but I dunno's 'twas." + +"Wall, I bet they had a fust-rate time on that weddin' journey o' +theirn," said one of Ben's rougher cronies one day at the end of the +narrative; "'t ain't every feller gets the chance o' two honeymoons with +the same woman." + +Old Ben looked at him attentively. "Youngster," said he, "'t ain't +strange, I suppose, young's you be, th't ye should look at it that way; +but ye're off, crony. Ye don't seem ter recolleck 'bout all them years +they'd lost out of their lives. I tell ye, it's kind o' harrowin' ter +me. Old's I am, and hain't never felt no call ter be married nuther, +it's kind o' harrowin' ter me yit ter think o' that woman's yell she +giv' when she seed Steve's face. If thar warn't jest a hull lifetime o' +misery in't, 'sides the joy o' findin' him, I ain't no jedge. I haven't +never felt no call ter marry, 's I sed; but if I had I wouldn't ha' been +caught cuttin' up no sech didos's that,--a-throwin' away years o' time +they might ha' hed together 'z well's not! Ther' ain't any too much o' +this life, anyhow; 't kinder looks ter you youngsters's ef 't 'd last +forever. I know how 'tis. I hain't forgot nothin', old's I am. But I +tell you, when ye're old's I am, 'n' look back on 't, ye'll be s'prised +ter see how short 'tis, an' ye'll reelize more what a fool a man is, or +a woman too,--an' I do s'pose they're the foolishest o' ther two,--ter +waste a minnit out on 't on querrils, or any other kind o' foolin'." + + + + +The Prince's Little Sweetheart. + + + +She was very young. No man had ever made love to her before. She +belonged to the people,--the common people. Her parents were poor, and +could not buy any wedding trousseau for her. But that did not make any +difference. A carriage was sent from the Court for her, and she was +carried away "just as she was," in her stuff gown,--the gown the Prince +first saw her in. He liked her best in that, he said; and, moreover, +what odds did it make about clothes? Were there not rooms upon rooms in +the palace, full of the most superb clothes for Princes' Sweethearts? + +It was into one of these rooms that she was taken first. On all sides of +it were high glass cases reaching up to the ceiling, and filled with +gowns and mantles and laces and jewels; everything a woman could wear +was there, and all of the very finest. What satins, what velvets, what +feathers and flowers! Even down to shoes and stockings,--every shade and +color of stockings of the daintiest silk. The Little Sweetheart gazed +breathless at them all. But she did not have time to wonder, for in a +moment more she was met by attendants, some young, some old, all dressed +gayly. She did not dream at first that they were servants, till they +began, all together, asking her what she would like to put on. Would she +have a lace gown, or a satin? Would she like feathers or flowers? And +one ran this way, and one that; and among them all, the Little +Sweetheart was so flustered she did not know if she were really alive +and on the earth, or had been transported to some fairy land. And before +she fairly realized what was being done, they had her clad in the most +beautiful gown that was ever seen,--white satin with gold butterflies on +it, and a white lace mantle embroidered in gold butterflies. All white +and gold she was, from top to toe, all but one foot; and there was +something very odd about that. She heard one of the women whispering to +the other, behind her back: "It is too bad there isn't any mate to this +slipper! Well, she will have to wear this pink one. It is too big; but +if we pin it up at the heel she can keep it on. The Prince really must +get some more slippers." + +And then they put on her left foot a pink satin slipper, which was so +much too big it had to be pinned up in plaits at each side, and the +pearl buckle on the top hid her foot quite out of sight. But the Little +Sweetheart did not care. In fact, she had no time to think, for the +Queen came sailing in and spoke to her, and crowds of ladies in dresses +so bright and beautiful that they dazzled her eyes; and the Prince was +there kissing her, and in a minute they were married, and went floating +off in a dance, which was so swift it did not feel so much like dancing +as it did like being carried through the air by a gentle wind. + +Through room after room,--there seemed no end to the rooms, and each one +more beautiful than the last,--from garden to garden,--some full of +trees, some with beautiful lakes in them, some full of solid beds of +flowers,--they went, sometimes dancing, sometimes walking, sometimes, it +seemed to the Little Sweetheart, floating. Every hour there was some new +beautiful thing to see, some new beautiful thing to do. And the Prince +never left her for more than a few minutes; and when he came back he +brought her gifts and kissed her. Gifts upon gifts he kept bringing, +till the Little Sweetheart's hands were so full she had to lay the +things down on tables or window-sills, wherever she could find place for +them,--which was not easy, for all the rooms were so full of beautiful +things that it was difficult to move about without knocking something +down. + +The hours flew by like minutes. The sun came up high in the heavens, but +nobody seemed tired; nobody stopped,--dance, dance, whirl, whirl, song +and laughter and ceaseless motion. That was all that was to be seen or +heard in this wonderful Court to which the Little Sweetheart had been +brought. + +Noon came, but nothing stopped. Nobody left off dancing, and the +musicians played faster than ever. + +And so it was all the long afternoon and through the twilight; and as +soon as it was really dark, all the rooms and the gardens and the lakes +blazed out with millions of lamps, till it was lighter far than day; and +the ladies' dresses, as they danced back and forth, shone and sparkled +like butterflies' wings. + +At last the lamps began, one by one, to go out, and by degrees a soft +sort of light, like moonlight, settled down on the whole place; and the +fine-dressed servants that had robed the Little Sweetheart in her white +satin gown took it off, and put her to bed in a gold bedstead, with +golden silk sheets. + +"Oh," thought the Little Sweetheart, "I shall never go to sleep in the +world, and I'm sure I don't want to! I shall just keep my eyes open all +night, and see what happens next." + +All the beautiful clothes she had taken off were laid on a sofa near the +bed,--the white satin dress at top, and the big pink satin slipper, with +its huge pearl buckle, on the floor in plain sight. "Where is the +other?" thought the Little Sweetheart. "I do believe I lost it off. +That's the way they come to have so many odd ones. But how queer! I lost +off the tight one! But the big one was pinned to my foot," she said, +speaking out loud before she thought; "that was what kept it on." + +"You are talking in your sleep, my love," said the Prince, who was close +by her side, kissing her. + +"Indeed, I am not asleep at all! I haven't shut my eyes," said the +Little Sweetheart. + +And the next thing she knew it was broad daylight, the sun streaming +into her room, and the air resounding in all directions with music and +laughter, and flying steps of dancers, just as it had been yesterday. + +The Little Sweetheart sat up in bed and looked around her. She thought +it very strange that she was all alone! the Prince gone,--no one there +to attend to her. In a few moments more she noticed that all her clothes +were gone, too. + +"Oh," she thought, "I suppose one never wears the same clothes twice in +this Court, and they will bring me others! I hope there will be two +slippers alike, to-day." + +Presently she began to grow impatient; but, being a timid little +creature, and having never before seen the inside of a Court or been a +Prince's sweetheart, she did not venture to stir, or to make any +sound,--only sat still in her bed, waiting to see what would happen. At +last she could not bear the sounds of the dancing and laughing and +playing and singing any longer. So she jumped up, and, rolling one of +the golden silk sheets around her, looked out of the window. There they +all were, the crowds of gay people, just as they had been the day before +when she was among them, whirling, dancing, laughing, singing. The tears +came into the Little Sweetheart's eyes as she gazed. What could it mean +that she was deserted in this way,--not even her clothes left for her? +She was as much a prisoner in her room as if the door had been locked. + +As hour after hour passed, a new misery began to oppress her. She was +hungry,--seriously, distressingly hungry. She had been too happy to eat +the day before! Though she had sipped and tasted many delicious +beverages and viands, which the Prince had pressed upon her, she had not +taken any substantial food, and now she began to feel faint for the +want of it. As noon drew near,--the time at which she was accustomed in +her father's house to eat dinner,--the pangs of her hunger grew +unbearable. + +"I can't bear it another minute," she said to herself. "I must, and I +will, have something to eat! I will slip down by some back way to the +kitchen. There must be a kitchen, I suppose." + +So saying, she opened one of the doors, and timidly peered into the next +room. It chanced to be the room with the great glass cases, full of fine +gowns and laces, where she had been dressed by the obsequious attendants +on the previous day. No one was in the room. Glancing fearfully in all +directions, she rolled the golden silk sheet tightly around her, and +flew, rather than ran, across the floor, and took hold of the handle of +one of the glass doors. Alas! it was locked. She tried another,--another; +all were locked. In despair she turned to fly back to her bedroom, when +suddenly she spied on the floor, in a corner close by the case where hung +her beautiful white satin dress, a little heap of what looked like brown +rags. She darted toward it, snatched it from the floor, and in a second +more was safe back in her room; it was her own old stuff gown. + +"What luck!" said the Little Sweetheart; "nobody will ever know me in +this. I'll put it on, and creep down the back stairs, and beg a mouthful +of food from some of the servants, and they'll never know who I am; and +then I'll go back to bed, and stay there till the Prince comes to fetch +me. Of course, he will come before long; and if he comes and finds me +gone, I hope he will be frightened half to death, and think I have been +carried off by robbers!" + +Poor foolish Little Sweetheart! It did not take her many seconds to slip +into the ragged old stuff gown; then she crept out, keeping close to the +walls, so that she could hide behind the furniture if any one saw her. + +She listened cautiously at each door before she opened it, and turned +away from some where she heard sounds of merry talking and laughing. In +the third room that she entered she saw a sight that arrested her +instantly and made her cry out in astonishment,--a girl who looked so +much like her that she might have been her own sister, and, what was +stranger, wore a brown stuff gown exactly like her own, was busily at +work in this room with a big broom killing spiders! As the Little +Sweetheart appeared in the doorway, this girl looked up, and said: "Oh, +ho! there you are, are you? I thought you'd be out before long." And +then she laughed unpleasantly. + +"Who are you?" said the Little Sweetheart, beginning to tremble all +over. + +"Oh, I'm a Prince's Sweetheart!" said the girl, laughing still more +unpleasantly; and, leaning on her broom, she stared at the Little +Sweetheart from top to toe. + +"But--" began the Little Sweetheart. + +"Oh, we're all Princes' Sweethearts!" interrupted several voices, coming +all at once from different corners of the big room; and, before the +Little Sweetheart could get out another word, she found herself +surrounded by half a dozen or more girls and women, all carrying brooms, +and all laughing unpleasantly as they looked at her. + +"What!" she gasped, as she gazed at their stuff gowns and their brooms. +"You were all of you Princes' Sweethearts? Is it only for one day, +then?" + +"Only for one day," they all replied. + +"And always after that do you have to kill spiders?" she cried. + +"Yes; that or nothing," they said. "You see it is a great deal of work +to keep all the rooms in this Court clean." + +"Isn't it very dull work to kill spiders?" said the Little Sweetheart. + +"Yes, very," they said, all speaking at once. "But it's better than +sitting still, doing nothing." + +"Don't the Princes ever speak to you?" sobbed the Little Sweetheart. + +"Yes, sometimes," they answered. + +Just then the Little Sweetheart's own Prince came hurrying by, all in +armor from head to foot,--splendid shining armor, that clinked as he +walked. + +"Oh, there he is!" cried the Little Sweetheart, springing forward; then +suddenly she recollected her stuff gown, and shrunk back into the group. +But the Prince had seen her. + +"Oh, how d' do!" he said kindly. "I was wondering what had become of +you. Good-bye! I'm off for the grand review to-day. Don't tire yourself +out over the spiders. Good-bye!" And he was gone. + +"I hate him!" cried the Little Sweetheart, her eyes flashing, and her +cheeks scarlet. + +"Oh no, you don't!" exclaimed all the spider-sweepers. "That's the worst +of it. You may think you do; but you don't. You love him all the time +after you've once begun." + +"I'll go home!" said the Little Sweetheart. + +"You can't," said the others. "It is not permitted." + +"Is it always just like this in this Court?" she asked. + +"Yes; always the same. One day just like another,--all whirl and dance +from morning till night, and new people coming and going all the time, +and spiders most of all. You can't think how fast brooms wear out in +this Court!" + +"I'll die!" said the Little Sweetheart. + +"Oh no, you won't!" they said. "There are some of us, in some of the +rooms here, that are wrinkled and gray-haired. The most of the +Sweethearts live to be old." + +"Do they?" said the Little Sweetheart, and burst into tears. + +"Heavens!" cried I, "what a dream!" as I opened my eyes. There stood the +Little Sweetheart in my room, vanishing away, so vivid had been the +dream. "A most extraordinary dream!" said I. "I will write it out. Some +of the Princes may read it!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BETWEEN WHILES*** + + +******* This file should be named 10756.txt or 10756.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/5/10756 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10756.zip b/old/10756.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca4cd33 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10756.zip |